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Dynamic How-to: Force Siri to Update Facebook and Twitter (iPhone 4S Users)
What’s the saying? You can’t please all the people all of the time. Such was the case with the recent release of the iPhone 4S, which came with a piece of brilliant software called Siri: the seemingly female, voice-activated virtual assistant can send texts and emails, schedule meetings and reminders, give you the current weather in Belize, conduct Google searches and much more. That didn’t stop people from asking in collective despair, “Why can’t Siri update my Facebook/Twitter status?” Good news, my friends: Siri can. Read on to learn how to make Siri do things even she thinks she can’t.
If your mobile phone is already attached to your Facebook account, you can skip to step 2. Otherwise:
1. Login to Facebook and navigate to your Account Settings. Click on Mobile in the left-hand menu. You’ll be attaching your iPhone, so click on Add a Phone. Carefully follow the steps Facebook outlines; once complete, your iPhone will be attached to your Facebook account.
I recommend turning off all of your notifications for mobile devices, which can be done on the same page. You don’t want to get a text message from Facebook every time someone comments on one of your posts.
2. Create a new contact in your iPhone called “Facebook,” or whatever you’d like to call it. The phone number you assign to this contact is 32665. Familiar, yes, as it’s the number you sent your confirmation code to when you attached the phone to your Facebook account.
3. Activate Siri; command her to “tell Facebook ‘I just forced Siri to update Facebook via voice command.’”
4. Visit your Facebook page and bask in your technological awesomeness. Never again will you have to use your fingers (or thumbs) to update Facebook!
The process is very much the same as with Facebook. Once again, if you’ve already attached your iPhone to your Twitter account, you can skip to step 2.
1. Login to Twitter and visit your Settings. In the horizontal menu on the page, select Mobile. Walk through Twitter’s instructions, and once you’ve successfully attached your phone, you’re nearly ready to Tweet with your voice!
If you don’t want to be annoyed by text message notifications, you can turn them off on this page.
2. Create a new contact in your iPhone, but don’t call it “Twitter.” For whatever reason, Siri gets confused by this and assures you she cannot update your Twitter status. Oh, how she lies. Name the contact correctly and you can catch her in her lie. We’ll name it “Blue Bird” for this exercise. You’ll want to assign the number 40404 to this contact.
3. Activate Siri; command her to “tell Blue Bird I just forced Siri to update my status after she lied about not being able to do it.” (Make sure you stay under the character limit!)
4. Verify the post on your Twitter account, and grab an umbrella. It’s gonna be raining retweets!
Like this article? Check out the rest of our Dynamic How-To library or our Editorials for some often-informative, sometimes-funny articles centered around improving your tech life.