When we place our iPhone face down on a flat surface or cover its screen with some kind of case, the device interprets that we don’t want to receive notifications, calls or respond to “Hey Siri”. This is done intentionally, because when faced with messages we don’t want to read or a call we don’t want to answer, turning the iPhone over so that we can’t see the screen on the table is a fairly common gesture.
In addition, Siri is prevented from responding to our requests. But do we want Siri to ignore our requests with the iPhone face down? Maybe not. If so, there’s a setting that will come in handy.
Hey Siri, can you hear me?
Sometimes we try to call our favourite virtual assistant and get no response. After raising the tone of voice and repeating the call several times, we realise that we simply have our iPhone face down, which prevents Siri from answering us. A very similar situation occurs with some cases that completely cover the phone screen, which makes the function of calling our assistant without having to touch the iPhone unavailable.
Fortunately, the situation is easily solved, as there is a setting that we can modify so that Siri responds regardless of how the screen is displayed. The steps to follow to configure it are as follows:
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Go to Accessibility.
- Tap on Siri.
- Activate Always allow to activate when you hear “Hey Siri”.
Now, although our iPhone will respond to us regardless of whether the screen is covered, when it is, it will silence notifications and behave as we mentioned at the beginning of the article. Thus, we can continue to use this gesture as an alternative to Do Not Disturb mode, for example, but knowing that our assistant is at our disposal.
A very useful resource if we are in the habit of resting our iPhone while we work or if we use a case that also protects the front of the phone. A configuration that we can easily change whenever we need to.
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