Helping Voice Control along with Phonetic Names
Being able to dial your iPhone using nothing but your voice is one of the coolest tricks of iOS’ Voice Control feature, and it works great most of the time. Sometimes, though, it can get hung up on hard-to-pronounce names—let’s use Samir Nagheenanajar as an example. To help Voice Control recognize his last name, all you need to do is open the Contacts app, tap on Samir’s name, and tap Edit. Down at the bottom of the page, you’ll see an option to add a field. Tap on this, select Phonetic Last Name, and type in something along the lines of “Na-ghee-na-na-jar”, then tap the done button. For contacts with a difficult first name, you’d use the same steps, but select Phonetic First Name instead. Before you know it, your iPhone will know how to say your friends’ names better than you do.
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1
Tip of the Day by Charles Starrett on Voice Control was a very good one. I tried it with a hard name on my iPhone 4 and it worked like a charm. Thank you for that keep ‘em coming.
Posted by Frank J. Slater on June 30, 2011 at 6:42 AM (PDT)
2
That is a great tip! I thought I was pretty familiar with most of the iOS tips, but this one is an important one I didn’t know. Thanks!
Posted by VULTR3 on June 30, 2011 at 9:56 AM (PDT)
3
How come this option is not available if you are using British English in the language setting?
Posted by Steve Hunter on July 26, 2011 at 6:56 AM (PDT)