Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Turnpike

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 2, 2011
577
322
New York City!
I use Siri to take notes of a lot of things during long work days as I'm often on the go and/or driving. But when I say "Hey Siri, new note..." all day long, you can imagine the mix/mess of personal and work notes that I have to sort out every 3 or 4 days when I go through them and put them into my OneNote pages on my iMac. I also track the time and dose of several medications, to be sure I took what and when, and this is the breaking point of making my notes app too messy. Now for the new year, I'd like to be able to keep a few different things separate going forward.

Are there any other apps for the iPhone that I can use the same way, where I can say "Hey Siri, new item..." and put a certain type of note in another app? Are there a few apps that work with Siri like this, and do you know what I would say to add notes to them, or if that phrase would be customizable?

I tried using Reminders, but it's just like that app is trying to merge every entry to a time and calendar event- I just want a list of notes.

And as surprising as it is, I can't find any video or article specifically addressing how to keep several different lists going and what kind of command is needed for Siri to do this on YouTube or here.

Also, I am looking to use Siri on my iPhone- not a Mac and not on an Apple Watch. Any recommendations would be appreciated, it would be nice to have things sorted nicely right from the beginning of the year.
 

TorbenIbsen

macrumors regular
Feb 22, 2021
176
153
I use the app Drafts on my Apple Watch 6. It turns dictation into typed text and synchronizes this text to the Drafts app on both iPhone, iPad and iMac. The app is free in it's simplest version and works very well, also in my "small" language which is not well supported by Apple.

EDIT: Drafts is not voice activated on the Apple Watch, so you will have to activate manually for dictation. But it is so simple that I can do it with my eyes closed. I have the app's icon installed on all my watch screen in the same corner of the screen.

But on the iPhone it turns out that you can actually ask "Hey Siri" to make a note using the Drafts app. I just checked. Perhaps it is a newer feature. I'm going to use that a lot now that I know it is possible.
 
Last edited:

Turnpike

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 2, 2011
577
322
New York City!
I use the app Drafts on my Apple Watch 6. It turns dictation into typed text and synchronizes this text to the Drafts app on both iPhone, iPad and iMac. The app is free in it's simplest version and works very well, also in my "small" language which is not well supported by Apple.

EDIT: Drafts is not voice activated on the Apple Watch, so you will have to activate manually for dictation. But it is so simple that I can do it with my eyes closed. I have the app's icon installed on all my watch screen in the same corner of the screen.

But on the iPhone it turns out that you can actually ask "Hey Siri" to make a note using the Drafts app. I just checked. Perhaps it is a newer feature. I'm going to use that a lot now that I know it is possible.
Tusind Tak! This was EXACTLY what I needed. And I only use the phone, so the watch isn't a problem for me. Oh perfect! I have it installed on my phone, and tried it with a bunch of test notes to myself already.

I actually already had the app on my iPhone, but it was one of those tried-and-didn't-work apps that you forget about over time, but since I installed it (possibly years ago) I bet they made it work with Siri and so on.

Thanks so much again! I'm thrilled to have a solution so fast. If anyone knows of another app that also does this, I'm still interested to know about it, but having a second "Notes" option already makes it 1,000 times easier to keep my notes sorted.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.