Apple's new iOS 13 update, which will roll out to iPhones this fall, lets you set up Siri to automatically read your your text messages through your AirPods.
That means you don't have to pull out your phone to check your messages while you're walking around a city during your morning commute. You can also respond to the text messages using your voice, and Siri will send them off for you. This is a feature that will roll out in iOS 13 this fall, but I've been using the developer beta so I can show you how it works.
And you'll be able to try it for yourself soon. Apple plans to release its public preview of iOS 13 sometime in July, so bookmark this page to follow the steps when it's available.
How to set up Siri to read your texts through your AirPods
- Open the Settings menu on your iPhone.
- Tap Notifications (it's weird Apple didn't put this under Siri and Search, but maybe that will change.)
- Tap "Announce Messages with Siri."
- Toggle the "Announce Messages with Siri" to on.
- There's also an option to "Send replies without confirmation," which means you can speak a text message back to someone and Siri won't read it back to you before sending it. I like leaving this off, just to make sure Siri gets everything right.
- Finally, tap the "Messages" button at the bottom of the page.
- Choose whom you want to receive messages from, whether it's just favorites, recent contacts, all contacts or everyone who sends you a message.
That's it. Now, when your phone receives a text message, Siri will speak the contents of that message into your AirPods. It seems like Siri should be able to do the same for notifications from other apps in the future, but right now it's purely limited to messages.
