What you need to know
- Apple seems to have removed some Siri functions in iOS 15.
- Users can no longer ask the assistant about voicemails or call history.
- The change has had an impact on people who rely on these features for accessibility purposes.
Multiple reports indicate that some Siri requests no longer appear to be supported by Apple in iOS 15.
As noted by MacRumors, Siri no longer seems to support a series of commands pertaining to checking and playing voicemails, call history, or sending an email. Specifically:
- Do I have any voicemails?
- Play my voicemail messages
- Check my call history
- Check my recent calls
- Who called me?
- Send an email
- Send an email to [person]
According to the report, users have been noticing the absence of these functions for a couple of weeks, and 9to5Mac also reports they are missing in iOS 14.8.
It is not clear at this stage whether Apple has removed these features intentionally, or whether they've disappeared because of a bug and might return at a later date.
Siri commands can be used by anyone to make using their iPhone a more hands-free and intuitive experience. However, their absence is having a more profound impact on visually impaired users, as noted in the AppleVis forum, an online space for blind and low vision users of Apple products. One user stated:
One of the people whom I support told me that she could no longer use Siri to send email from her iPhone 8 with iOS 14. I tried on my iPhone SE with iOS 15.0 and the response from Siri was "sorry, I can't help with that'. Subsequently, I've had the same response on a phone running iOS 12. If this is a deliberate feature removal, it's certainly a loss to some users with sight loss who find it a convenient way to send a brief email.
With iOS 15, Apple brought Siri support to third-party HomeKit accessories and now processes audio of Siri requests on-device by default, making it faster and more private.
