Controlling everything with your voice was one of the science fiction discoveries at the beginning of the century, which over time became reality thanks to increasingly advanced smartphones and tablets, which now allow you to do most of the operations using your voice directly (we can also set a block that prevents you from using other voices, so that the smartphone only responds to ours). If we are a beginner with a new generation smartphone, we may have some difficulty activating the voice control features; in this guide we will show you all the steps you need to perform to be able to open apps with your voice, both on devices with Android operating system and on Apple-branded devices (iPhone and iPad).
We will show you how to manually activate voice commands, what to ask the voice assistant to correctly open apps such as Whatsapp (or some of its functions) and how to make the voice assistant respond to our commands even with the screen off (or while using other apps).
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How to activate voice commands on Android
On Android the voice assistance service is provided through Google Assistant (ex Google Now), already present by default on all modern smartphones (with at least Android 5.x).
With the Google Assistant we can open your favorite apps or take advantage of only one feature of them (integration varies depending on the app used).
If we don't have the Google Assistant active yet, make sure that the Google app is installed and updated, available here -> Google .
To activate the voice commands, simply open the Google app, tap on the bottom right of the icon in the shape of three dashes, then tap on Settings .
In the Settings menu we tap on Voice, then on Voice setting and finally activate the voice Say OK "Google" at any time .
From now on we can call the Google Assistant using your voice and saying Ok Google .
How to activate voice commands on iPhone
Siri is available on iPhone and iPad, a handyman voice assistant that can also open your favorite apps or just one of their functions (integration varies according to the app used).
To enable Siri on your Apple device, simply tap on Settings, then tap on Siri and Search and finally enable the items Press the Home button for Siri and Enable "Hey Siri" .
Now we will be able to use voice commands to open any app, as we will show you in the next part of the guide.
Open apps by voice
If we have followed all the steps to the letter we can take advantage of the voice commands integrated in our devices to open apps with the voice.
1) Android
On Android, just say Ok Google and, as soon as the voice assistant window is active, say one of the following commands:
- You open
- Open me
- Open the app
- Open app
- Run
These are the basic commands that we can use on Google Assistant to open one of the apps on the device.
If we want to take advantage of only one functionality of the app (for example send a message to a contact via chat), just customize the voice command according to our needs; below you can find some examples:
- Send WhatsApp message to
- Send Telegram message to
- Send an SMS to
In these cases, a dedicated window will open with the name of the contact, a text field and the possibility of dictating the nature of the message by voice, with the voice assistant who will write the message for us.
There are many apps that manage to interface with the voice assistant, it's up to us to find out how to best use our voice.
2) iPhone and iPad
Once Siri is opened with the "Hey Siri" command, we can use a series of commands to open the desired app with our voice.
Among the most useful commands to say to Siri we can use:
- You open
- Open me
- Open the app
- Open app
- Run
They are completely similar to the commands that we can also use on Android, but with Siri the integration with the apps is decidedly superior.
We can recall specific app features by speaking them to Siri, such as:
- Send PayPal payment to
- Make transfer to a
- Send WhatsApp message to
- Send Telegram message to
- Send an SMS to
The integration with the apps installed on the Apple device is really very interesting, in particular if we have to send payments using only the voice (it will still be possible to choose the amount to be sent and obtain a payment confirmation before concluding the operation).
Activate automatic voice commands (even with the screen off)
We have seen some of the voice commands that we can use on our devices to open apps with the voice or to recall one of the features available with them, but all the steps described so far require that the device be accessed with the screen unlocked.
If we wanted to enable voice commands even when the smartphone or tablet has the screen off ">
1) Android
To enable automatic voice commands on Android we just have to open the Google app, tap on the bottom right of the icon in the shape of three dashes, then tap on Settings -> Voice identification and enable the item Unlock with the voice identification .
We will be asked for the Google password as a security confirmation, after which it will be possible to unlock the phone and immediately use the voice commands by saying with the screen off Ok Google .
2) iPhone and iPad
Siri also allows you to enable automatic voice commands to automatically unlock the screen and use them immediately.
We open the Settings menu -> Siri and Search and enable the Use Siri when blocked item .
Now Siri will also work when we turn off the screen of the Apple device, so that we can use voice commands at any time.
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