Call the plumber: How to teach Siri about your relationships

Twitter follower Tom McM posed an expectedly short question along these lines:

All my followers are good people and therefore not the kind of folks who would invoke Siri simply to drone on and on about their domestic problems. Given that, what I believe Tom is asking is how to get Siri to respond appropriately to your Call my little snuggle lumps requests.

By way of background, Siri can respond to requests based on how youve labeled people in your life. But it cant do that unless these folks appear as contacts on your device. So if you havent created contacts for your brother, second-cousin, undertaker, guy who answers the phone at the bar, and life coach, nows the time to do so.

Once youve created these contacts, hold down the Home button until Siri emerges. In a bold voice proclaim Claire Breen is my little snuggle lumps! (And shed better not be. Please name the person who is.)

After you correct Siri a time or two when she replies Add Claire Breen as your little snuggle alarms? go ahead and grant permission for her to apply the relationship. Shell acknowledge that shes done so. Repeat this process for other people in your life.

Any relationships you've added will appear within your contact card.

Note that you wont see relationship entries in other peoples contact cards. To see all of your relationships go instead to your own contact card. Here youll see the names of those people youve established these Siri-generated relationships with. If, at some later date, youve changed partners or, through an unfortunate family spat, a sister-in-law no longer is, just go to your contact card, tap Edit, and then delete the relationship.

Have a question of your own (short or long)? Drop a line to mac911@macworld.com.

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Call the plumber: How to teach Siri about your relationships