Last August, my best friend asked me how I could help her neighbor set up an iPhone so that I could answer without picking it up. The neighbor suffered from multiple sclerosis (MS) and over time, his hands lost their agility. Some Google searches show that my confusion is not alone. So I asked Apple for some advice. This is what I said:
ask: “My friend has MS in advance and has some (very little) control over one of her hands. She can’t really slide the screen or the tap button. She wants it so that when she gets a call she can only ask Siri or tell her iPhone to answer or refuse. My researchthe only possible way is if the user is connected to an AirPods or Apple Watch, Siri can announce incoming calls and listen to commands like “Answer” or “Disable”.
I also viewed voice control in the accessibility settings and there is a way to answer all incoming calls after a set time. But due to privacy concerns and spam calls, this is not an ideal solution.
I wonder if you know any way to answer a call via voice command? ”
one: Apple did respond, but unfortunately the solution is complicated. I will first list the steps on how to use iPhone with iPhone, as this does provide an effective workaround. But you should read some warning steps.
How to answer calls with voice control on iPhone
Before you start, make sure your phone is running 13 or higher. You can also use voice controls on your iPad or iPod Touch (if you still have one). When setting up voice control, make sure you are connected to the Internet to download the necessary files, and Apple recommends that you connect to Wi-Fi before using voice control for the first time before turning on voice control. After all operations are completed, continue with the following steps.
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Open set up Apply and find Accessibility set up. This is in the second set of options below General. You can also search for “Accessibility”.
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Select Voice Control, Listed in the Physics and Movement section.
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Turn on voice control In some cases, wait for the download to complete by tapping or sliding the toggle next to it. If you have enabled voice control before, you can also ask Siri to “turn voice control on”.
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Once the feature is turned on, you will see that there are very few numbers around the screen, close to key elements. Your microphone is now And your iPhone is listening to your commands.
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Read out the number you want to trigger. If you’ve been following this guide, you can say “One” to return to the Accessibility Settings menu.
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Say “Tell me what to say” A detailed list of what you can do. you can Use commands like “slide” or “move down” Scroll through the page. Just remember that Swipe will scroll down and Swipe will scroll up. The system will also continue to recognize your touch input.
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When a call comes in, read out the number next to the answer option. From the lock screen, this is my experience of “five”. When my phone is unlocked, the number of the accepting phone number is “six” and “five” will refuse.
Voice control is not perfect
As can be seen from step seven, voice control is very complicated. You need to view the tags within the line of sight of the screen and say the wrong number may cause you to hang up the phone by chance. you can Say “Show Name” to display the word Instead of the numbers in the tag, know that in this case you need to add a “click” before each tag to press it. This means that when a call comes in, you can say “click on the answer” or a tag that corresponds to the action you want.
What I want to point out is that the numeric tags don’t always appear in all applications (for example, the search bar at the top of the chat for WhatsApp doesn’t have the number that comes with in my experience). Sometimes names in tags are also strangely selected, such as how the word for widgets on my self-care app is just “image”. It also takes time to build a familiarity with voice control and learn all available actions.
I also found the system to be sluggish, sometimes with obvious delays happening sometimes before registering a command like “Swipe Weles” and executing such commands. In my first few attempts, I thought my iPhone didn’t hear me and repeated the instructions just to swipe two pages. I’m using the iPhone 16 Pro, which is Apple’s latest flagship, so this isn’t that I’m on older devices nor either.
While we were able to get a semi-efficient approach with a voice control solution, it didn’t really solve my friend’s neighbor’s problem.
How to answer or reject a call with Siri
While researching this guide, I found that there is now a way to answer calls with Siri, or there are always calls I missed in August 2024. Anyway, I was able to test it today in several different situations, and while it is certainly more convenient, it is not without limitations.
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Go to Siri Settings In your phone. You can find this by searching for “Siri” in the settings app, or just scrolling until you see “Siri” or “Apple Intelligence & Siri”.
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Make sure to set to Allow your iPhone to listen to “Siri” or “Hey Siri” Turn on. If you run the latest version of iOS on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16, or iPhone 16 Pro, it will be Talk to Siri and type > “Hey Siri” or “Siri” or “Hey Siri” (Which do you like as long as you don’t like “detachment”. On an old iPhone or iOS version, that would be Talk to Siri > “Hey Siri” or “Siri” or “Hey Siri”
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Turn on “Hang Up” If you want to end the call with a voice command during a conversation. Otherwise, you have to wait for the other party to hang up the phone. Note: Call hangup can only work on phone and FaceTime calls, not through third-party applications such as WhatsApp or Telegram.
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When the call comes, say “Siri, answer” or “Hey Siri, answer” accept. Say “siri, refuse to appeal” refuse. In my tests, “Siri, Fall” didn’t work, but “Siri, Denied the call”.
I was able to use this method to answer calls not only via phone or FaceTime, but also via a third-party app. I enabled Announce Call, setting it to Always, instead of just when the headset or Carplay is connected. But I have never seen or heard an alarm besides the actual sound. When I asked my friends to use this method with their neighbors, they mentioned that her speech was so affected that Siri didn’t always know what she was talking about.
Technical accessibility has improved, but needs to be better
Sadly, that neighbor died before we solved the problem. Although I can’t solve her problem, I have provided limited guidance and I’m able to compile here, hoping it might be useful in cases where it’s basically similar.
I haven’t tested the product on Android correctly, but on that platform there are settings that enable voice access to enable incoming calls and stay active during the call, which suggests there are options to use voice commands there.
My friend’s neighbor’s challenge is shared by countless people who are still struggling with consumer technology tools that rarely meet their full needs – temporary restrictions on long-term problems caused by disability or age. Voice-based interactions designed to help people with physical disabilities need to better identify a wider range of voice disorders, and Google and Apple, as well as other major tech companies have taken steps to build better models in these areas.
Our memory of our frustrations of voice control is more timely this week, marking (the third Thursday of May each year). We’ve seen and announced new accessibility features, and companies like the company remind us of their recently released assistive tools.
It is exciting to see the growth of technologies for inclusive design, but it is worth mentioning considering the completeness and usefulness of some of these “solutions”. Many of us need some form of assistive technology at some point in our lives, or know someone. Despite the ongoing improvements, there is still a lot to be done to ensure that technology is accessible to everyone.
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