How to add set locations for Reminders + Siri

[incaX]

State it this way

Remind me to buy eggs

She will ask you when

Say when I am leaving the supermarket

For some reason the beta isn't liking everything yet.

Hope that helps. Every now and then I can do the full sentence then other times I have to open reminders. Close to home page and ask again. Definitely not clear of bugs yet.

Hope this helps

 

[idlehands]

It seemed to take about 5 minutes between when I added a location and when Siri recognized it. Thank you for sharing how to do this!

 

[TechnoBob]

Here's another subtlety to be aware of: If you follow the instructions above, and Siri says she doesn't understand the location, look at the text of her complaint. If you haven't spelled the location EXACTLY the way she spells it, you must edit the location name to agree with her.

For example, in entering two of my tennis clubs, I called one "Forest Hill", and she said, "I don't understand Foresthill". Aha! Had to make it all one word -- and then it worked fine.

Even trickier for the other one, which I called "40 West". Siri said, "I don't understand 40 W.". [and she said it as "forty doubleyou"] So I put in "40 W". Still didn't work. AHA! Notice the period INSIDE the quotation marks...she needs to have the place named as "40 W." The period is important, because when I say "west", she abbreviates it as "W." Now works fine.

Hope this helps. (And thanks to all the commenters above who got me to this point!)

 

[Col.bris]

Be aware Siri can only use maps from USA not any other countries at this time. According to Apple the updates for other countries will happen in early 2012.. All other functions are Normal.

 

[TechnoBob]

Siri really should understand these words we use. I don't want to start misspelling all of my location names in my contacts folder to accommodate Siri... that would be a bit of a drag...

I agree that it would be great if Siri understood the words as we use them. One would hope that when I say "when I get to Forest Hill", a really intelligent agent would look through all my Contacts, find those that might match what I said ("Hmm. 'Forest Hill Swim and Tennis Club' could be what he means...' ") and which have an associated address, and figure it out. But this is (apparently, currently) too much to ask.

Nevertheless, note that these are not the names in my Contacts folder. These are the names in my own Contact entry for places that I go. I have not had to alter any of my Contacts' location names.

 

[TechnoBob]

Are you saying that in your individual contact, the contact you use as your main iCloud contact, in your contacts folder for yourself. Is that where you're adding multiple addresses with these misspelled names?

Exactly. As was pointed out in the very first post in this thread, Siri knows what you mean when you say "Home" or "Work" because those locations are associated with you -- they are in your Contact entry (i.e., your "card" in Address Book).

And as I said, it would be nice if Siri would look through all your Contacts to learn about every address that could possibly be of interest to you. But Siri does not (currently) do this.

So the way to get Siri to know about addresses of interest to you is to add them to your own personal Contact "card". And you must name them in a way that Siri can associate to what you call them when you speak to her. These "misspelled" names are only there to help you and Siri communicate -- they don't show up anywhere else but on your card. You won't see them in your Contacts list, for example.

This of course is my explanation based on what I see happening, not based on the slightest knowledge of how Siri does her thing, but the resulting solution seems to have solved all my "when I arrive at..." and "when I leave..." reminder problems so far. So it works for me, and I'm happy with it.

TechnoBob

[This discussion reminds me of my favorite signature line. Wish I could shake the hand of the person who came up with it: "Don't anthropomorphize computers. They hate that."]

 

[SeanWorth]

Siri really should understand these words we use. I don't want to start misspelling all of my location names in my contacts folder to accommodate Siri... that would be a bit of a drag...

Well, since Siri needs to know how words are pronounced (rather than spelled), you might want to try adding the phonetic field. Here's a great link that explains how:

http://shawnblanc.net/2011/05/the-phonetic-field/

(Oh, and Shawn Blanc thanks Sean for the tip, but it's not me!!)

 

[Alllyn]

I Have tried to follow exactly what has been written here. I am not new to this but feel dumb...It won't take it asks
Me to tap on my name I follow it out and it won't take. I live in Thailand and there is no real addresses on my street could that be the problem? Also I don't understand about the box before where my address is I don't have one it just has boxes for the addresses.
Thanks so much
Craig

 

[sman26]

Hi incaX,
I followed your instructions to a T except I am having trouble putting in more locations under "My Contact" than WORK, HOME and OTHER. This seems to be the max on my phone. I have the 4S. I can't seem to edit the Titles like you mention either when I hit the edit button. WORK, HOME and OTHER can not be renamed on my phone. I would like to add many more locations than just the 3 that come with it but I seem to be stuck. I add a pin on the map and add it to MY Curren contact and it won't add any more if I have those 3 already full. If I remove the "OTHER" location and do the pin drop again it will fill that spot but can't go past the 3 like I said above.
Any ideas?
Thank you.

 

[whitet1020]

Hi incaX,
I followed your instructions to a T except I am having trouble putting in more locations under "My Contact" than WORK, HOME and OTHER. This seems to be the max on my phone. I have the 4S. I can't seem to edit the Titles like you mention either when I hit the edit button. WORK, HOME and OTHER can not be renamed on my phone. I would like to add many more locations than just the 3 that come with it but I seem to be stuck. I add a pin on the map and add it to MY Curren contact and it won't add any more if I have those 3 already full. If I remove the "OTHER" location and do the pin drop again it will fill that spot but can't go past the 3 like I said above.
Any ideas?
Thank you.

Just make new contact entries with the address. For example; address of supermarket is 1 East St create a contact name supermarket with address = 1 East St.

I have a problem when I am at a place with no address. The park-n-ride I use is right next to i-95 and I can not get a reminder to activate from entering a new contact from a pin on the map of my location.

 

[tjazzvibe]

i'm butting in here. i bet you guys talked about this already, but i didn't see this and figured there must be lots of other people trying to get siri to work with locations.

so sorry if this is a dupe of someone else's comment.

however:

just use first and last names.

First name: Right
Last Name: Aid

rite aid is spelled right aid.

Kmart
First name: Kay
Last Name: mart

then it works great for me. Wall Mart Or just put pharmacy in first name and something else in last name. i bet all you need is the first name. wait 5 minutes and it works.

first name: current
last name: girlfriend

then keep changing the address

again sorry if someone already covered this.