As good as Siri on your iPad is, she sometimes needs to be corrected. Fortunately, you can correct her mistakes fairly easily. The simplest way is to tap the Microphone icon and try your query again. You can say something along the lines of, “I meant Botswana.”
You can also tap your question to edit or fix what Siri thinks you said. You can make edits by using the keyboard or by voice. If a word is underlined, you can use the keyboard to make a correction.
Siri seeks your permission before sending a dictated message. That’s a safeguard you come to appreciate. If you need to modify the message, you can do so by saying such things as, “Change Tuesday to Wednesday” or “Add: I’m excited to see you, exclamation mark” — indeed, I’m excited to see you and an ! will be added.
From Settings, you can tell Siri which language you want to converse in. Out of the gate, Siri is available in English (United States, United Kingdom, or Australian), as well as versions of Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.
You can also request voice feedback from Siri all the time, or just when you’re using a hands-free headset.
In the My Info field in Settings, you can tell Siri who you are. When you tap My Info, your Contacts list appears. Tap your own name in Contacts.
With iOS 7, you can even choose whether Siri has either a male or female voice.
You can call upon Siri even from the Lock screen. (That’s the default setting, anyway.) Consider this feature a mixed blessing. Not having to type a passcode to get Siri to do her thing is convenient.
On the other hand, if your iPad ends up with the wrong person, he or she would be able to use Siri to send an e-mail or message in your name, post to Facebook, or tweet, bypassing whatever passcode security you thought was in place.
If you find this potential scenario scary, tap Settings→General→Passcode Lock. Then enter your passcode and switch the Siri option under Allow Access When Locked from on (green is showing) to off (gray).