Here’s a nice little tip for Siri fanatics. Did you know that you can have Siri speak any selection of text out loud anywhere in iOS 5 on the iPhone 4S?
By enabling a nifty feature in Settings, a simple “Speak” option can be shown any time you select a chunk of text. Siri can then read that text out loud through your iPhone’s speaker at a pre-programmed speed.
If you navigate to Settings, General, Accessibility, and then Speak Selection, you can enable the Siri feature on iOS 5. Once you turn the setting on, you can set the speed that you want Siri to read text back to you.
Siri will give you a test reading very time you move the slider to change the speed. This will let you determine which speed is best for you. I find that placing the slider at about the 20% mark is the best setting for having Siri read back to you at a normal pace. Make sure your iPhone’s speaker volume is turned up high enough so that you can actually hear when Siri reads.
This is a great tip for reading messages in the car or listening to longer emails. Let us know what you use it for in the comments below!
Update: Readers have pointed out that this feature has been around prior to iOS 5 and is available on all iOS devices. Speak Selection works while in Airplane Mode, which proves that this is indeed not a Siri feature. Nevertheless, we thought that it was a helpful tip to highlight again.