How to call Alice by voice on iPhone

Despite the fact that owners of iOS devices have their own voice assistant - Siri - the development from Yandex also has a considerable circle of admirers. Alice on iPhone is already waiting for users in the games and application store, and we will tell you how to download and install the program in our article today.

You can download the Alice voice assistant for iPhone for free, just like using the program.

If you are in doubt about which assistant to use, read the comparison review of Alice and Siri.

Installation

So, how to download Alice on iPhone?

To do this, open the AppStore online store on your smartphone and find the Yandex application there. You can also download the browser of the same name – the assistant “lives” in it too. However, the application is still preferable - after all, all services are concentrated in it, so it is more convenient to use

To download the Alice voice assistant to your iPhone, press the appropriate button and wait until the download completes.
Now click the “Open” button

Shutdown

How to disable Alice voice assistant on iPhone? We will need application settings again. Remember how we activated the bot? Open Settings, find the “Voice Activation” section and turn on the voice assistant by sliding the button to the left. It should change color from green to white. After this, the program will remain on your smartphone, but the bot will not “hear” you.

Removal

If you are bored with the bot, you can remove the application from your smartphone using the usual method:

Press and hold the program icon on the screen with your finger
Hold until all the icons start moving

Now click the cross in the upper left corner of the icon
Done - the program is deleted

reading time: 3 minutes

Is it possible to change Siri to Alice from Yandex on iPhone? How and what needs to be done for this will be discussed in this article.

The latest Yandex developments raise the question among users of Apple gadgets, how to enable the Alice voice assistant on the iPhone? Is it possible to replace Siri with Alice and how to do this will be discussed further.

Reaction to questions asked

The test results do not highlight a clear favorite, but once again they prove that the technology is not perfect. For example, Alice easily tells jokes, carries on a conversation, and easily finds information on the Internet.

And just a second later he stumbles over the preparation of “Notes” and “Alarm Clock” and begins to make irrelevant jokes on some questions. Siri is almost incapable of holding conversations beyond standard interactions.

Apple's assistant won't tell you a pie recipe or calculate the time difference between Moscow and New York. The advantages are all the rest: interaction with the system and third-party software, searching for information, voice calls and messages. Google is again in the middle. Sometimes he tells jokes, often finds recipes and keeps up the conversation, and at the same time makes calls and sends correspondence.

And it’s still difficult to decide which personal assistant to choose. For functionality, go to English Siri. For communication in Russian, go to Alice. And Google will become a balance for both iOS and Android, and even within the framework of “communication” and “functionality”.

Tell a joke

On the left is Alice, on the right is Marusya
Alisa :

Think of a two-digit number from 11 to 18. Subtract 8. Add 17. Close your eyes. Isn't it dark?

Marusya:

Two hunters are walking through the forest. One falls, rolls his eyes and stops breathing. The second one dials the Ministry of Emergency Situations in a panic. – My friend fell and stopped breathing, it seems he died! What to do? The operator replies: “Calm down, we’ll act step by step... First, let’s make sure that he’s really dead.” There is silence on the line, a shot is heard, the guy’s voice returns to the line: “Okay, what’s next?”

Siri on the left, Oleg on the right

Siri:

Artyom, Siri? Haha.

Oleg:

I haven’t been introduced to stand-up comedians yet, so here’s a classic joke: Democracy on a ship is called mutiny.

Bottom line

In this round, everyone coped with a simple task. True, not everyone has the same sense of humor.

Siri continues to use insipid humor, Oleg makes strange jokes. But Alisa and Marusya were able to tell full-fledged jokes.

How to download and install on iOS

To install Alice on your iPhone and use it instead of Siri, you need to download the Yandex browser.

Open freesoft.ru and search for “Yandex Alice” or “Yandex Browser” in the search bar.
Click "Download" and confirm by entering your password if required.
Wait 1-1.5 minutes for the program to download to your phone. The duration of installation depends on the quality of your Internet.
After the process is completed, directly from the Apple Store, the browser is launched using the “Open” button.

The browser is installed, and you can already start communicating.

How to set up passwords for applications in Yandex settings

This must be done to integrate the Yandex calendar and reminders with applications of the same name on the iPhone.

▶ Go to the Yandex profile settings page.

▶ Open the Passwords and authorization section.

▶ Enable the Application Passwords option and generate a new code for the Calendar application. Be sure to save the received code until you finish setting up or do not close the password page. You won't be able to view the generated code again; you will have to generate a new one.

▶ Create separate passwords for each email application you use. Authorization codes must be created for any email client that is used on a smartphone or computer.

After enabling the Application Passwords option, you can log in to Yandex mail using your password only through a browser. Each application will require separate code generated. If you use Yandex mail in the mailer on iPhone and Mac, in addition to the new synchronization code, create separate codes for each application.

Once the codes have been created, you can proceed to setting up service synchronization.

Add to Home Screen Instead of Siri

It is impossible to make Alice launch immediately and by default instead of Siri, since the Yandex voice assistant is launched by default by opening the browser. Until it is open, the assistant will not respond.

To make working with this assistant on iPhone easier, you need to add a Yandex widget to the home screen:

Swipe all Home screen pages with app icons to the right and reach the widgets page.
Scroll down this page and click Edit.
A list of widgets already installed and available for adding will open.
Select "Yandex: Today" (or "Yandex: Today") and click the plus sign in front of it.
By clicking on the list icon in front of the browser, drag it to the top of the list of already installed widgets.
Now, to launch the Yandex Assistant, you just need to unlock your phone and launch the Yandex browser on the main screen.

Widget

If on Android the app with a virtual assistant is installed on the screen automatically, on iOS this must be done manually. Here's how to install the Alice widget on iPhone:

Open the Widgets section by swiping your finger across the screen from left to right
Find the “Edit” button and click on it - the add widgets screen will open
We need Yandex. Today". Find the icon you need and press the green plus button opposite

To move, press and hold the icon with the image of three stripes, which is located opposite, and then drag it to the very top
You can now quickly turn on your virtual assistant by swiping left and tapping the purple icon with a white triangle

Voice activation

You can activate Alice by pressing the microphone icon (or the purple voice assistant button) in the Yandex search engine or by voice.

To make voice activation of the assistant available, enable the “voice activation” function in the Yandex browser settings. There should be a “tick” in front of it.

When this feature is active and the browser is open, the assistant will launch in response to the following commands:

"Hello Alice!";
"Listen, Alice."

How to make Alice work on iPhone

The following video describes in detail how to install and launch Alice instead of Siri:

How to activate Alice using Siri, without pressing the phone buttons.

Content

The fastest way to launch Alice on iOS is to use the widget that is included in the Yandex application, we wrote about this earlier. Many people are looking for a way to launch Alice with their voice, just like they launch Siri. But Apple naturally doesn't want to give users the ability to change Siri to other voice assistants, and there's no such option in iOS. And in Android, by the way, it’s also not possible to replace Google Assistant with Alice. Yandex Phone is the only Android smartphone that allows you to launch Alice by voice on any screen.

But we will describe a life hack, thanks to which you can still run Alice on a locked phone without pressing any buttons. The workaround works thanks to the ability to launch apps through Siri and the Always Listen feature available on iPhone 6S and above.

We warn you right away that you will have to disable the phone lock to test this method. And launching Alice through Siri, of course, is not as convenient as saying “Alice, …” to the Yandex Station smart speaker. But the method works, as you can see by watching the video.

What can the Alice assistant from Yandex do?

For the fall of 2022, the Alice voice assistant performs the following functions:

Plots routes, finds addresses, the user’s position, and reports traffic jams.
Performs a traditional search in the Yandex system and can quickly answer popular questions, for example, “Who is Jon Snow?”
Gives weather forecasts and tells you what to wear before going outside.
Provides addresses of establishments - cafes, business centers, hostels.
Performs mathematical operations, converts currencies.
Launches applications and opens pages on the Internet, for example, Instagram, VKontakte or the State Services website.
Maintains dialogue, and sometimes even demonstrates erudition by quoting songs, dialogues from films, or referring to books.
It will help you manage your time - it will turn on an alarm clock, a timer, and create a reminder in your calendar.
Can play the game “Find the odd one out”, “Ball of Fate”, “What happened before”. The list is not limited to this, and you can find out what else is included by asking “Alice, let’s play.”
It will help pass the time - it will sing a song, repeat a phrase after the user, translate and pronounce it in a foreign language, play a fairy tale, identify a song, play music.
It will turn on devices connected to the smart home and allow you to control them.
It will help you make your first and repeat orders on the Beru service.
Will call a specific number.

To promote Alice, Yandex uses numerous resources. Thus, the voice assistant is tightly integrated into the company’s proprietary applications - Taxi, Radio, Navigator and others.

Not without support for smart home systems. Many people have heard about Yandex.Station - it is a smart speaker with voice control. However, in addition to its own devices, Yandex also has agreements with other brands. “Alice” supports smart speakers Elari Smartbeat, Irbis A, Xboom AI ThinQ WK7Y, can work with the DEXP Smartbox TV set-top box, Elari KidPhone 3G children's watch and Sony Ear Duo Bluetooth headphones. The list of partners does not end there. It includes Samsung, Redmond, Xiaomi, Philips and a host of other famous brands (more than 100 in total).

The developers did a great job to “humanize” “Alice” as much as possible - so the voice assistant from Yandex is capable of humor no worse than Siri, some of whose pearls have become popular memes. Here's how "Alice" explains why she's called that:

“Alice’s” answers are really extremely funny, and the assistant’s voice sounds quite natural (much better than in the beta version) - thanks to machine learning technologies, gluing is almost invisible. Those who are annoyed by small “speech defects” can turn off Alice’s voice and read the answers.

Download Yandex and enable voice activation

At the moment, Alice does not have her own separate application. The Russian search engine has integrated Alice into an application called Yandex on the Android and iOS platforms.

download Yandex with Alice from this link:

Make sure that Alice's voice activation is enabled in the Yandex application on your iOS device (after installation, it is enabled by default).

When was the Alice voice assistant released?

Yandex officially introduced “Alice” on October 10, 2022 . Owners of all devices with iOS and Android, as well as users of Windows and other OS devices can resort to its services.

"Alice" recognizes speech well - moreover, it understands the user perfectly. According to Yandex, the assistant is trained on a huge array of texts, and therefore is a real erudite - she is able to recognize even unfinished questions, taking into account the context of what was said earlier. Unlike the beta version, the official "Alice" has no problems with intonation - she speaks in the voice of Tatyana Shitova, the actress who voices Scarlett Johansson.

Yandex likes to involve stars in the voice acting of services - the navigator of this company, for example, is able to speak in the voice of rapper Basta. And in 2022, the famous musician Noize MC recorded an audio tale especially for Yandex; you can listen to it upon request.

Enable "Listen to Hey Siri"

To make Siri respond to your voice commands on a locked phone with the screen turned off, you need to enable a couple of options in the settings:

Click “Settings”.
Click "Siri and search".
Click on the switches “Listen to Hey Siri” and “Siri with screen lock”, they should light green.

Turn off passcode, Touch ID and Face ID

With the default iPhone settings, when you try to launch an application using Siri (we need to launch the Yandex application), the operating system will ask you to unlock the device.

Therefore, if we want to run the application hands-free, we need to disable both passcode, Touch ID and Face ID unlocking.

Click “Settings”.
Click "Touch ID and Passcode".
If the “Unlock iPhone” switch is green, then press it and it will turn off and turn gray. This operation will disable unlocking your iOS device using Touch ID.
Click “Turn off passcode.”
A warning will appear. Click "Turn off".

Errors and their solutions

Most likely, you won’t be able to do everything quickly and smoothly the first time. Many users encounter an error and a prompt to try later.

This is due to the workload of the company’s servers in the first days of operation of the new feature. We hope it will be easier in the future. Even support recommends waiting a while and trying again.

The second common mistake is that not all added gadgets are displayed or are completely absent after logging into your Mi account.

This may be due to the fact that the gadgets were added to one account, most often for the China region, and during authorization they indicated another account - European. The most interesting thing is that in the Yandex application it is no longer possible to change an entry; when you unlink services and re-authorize, the first entry will be pulled up.

You need to do this as follows:

1. In the Mi Home application, go to the Profile section.

2. Click on the account avatar.

3. Open the Accounts & permissions section.

4. Find the Yandex section and confirm the unlinking of services.

After this, you can re-authorize in the Yandex application.

How to launch Alice via Siri

Turn off the screen and activate Siri using the phrase “Hey Siri.”
Ask Siri to launch the Yandex application with the command “Open Yandex”.
After opening Yandex, you can give commands to Alice, for example, “Hello Alice, tell me the news.”
Read also: How to remove uninstalled Windows updates - 2 methods

Of course, the described method has a serious drawback - your iPhone data will not be protected. Therefore, this life hack is suitable only for those who are ready to sacrifice the security of their data for the sake of voice launch of the assistant from Yandex. But, judging by Apple’s policy, we won’t have other ways to launch Alice by voice any time soon. In the summer of 2018, the Yandex Station smart speaker with built-in Alice will go on sale, where the Yandex voice assistant will work in the “Always Listen” mode by default.

We have made a reference application on the commands of the Russian assistant, which we update regularly. By installing this application, you will always have the most up-to-date list of commands:

Connecting Alice to the Internet

If you have just purchased a speaker, then to activate it, give the device access to the Internet. Here is an algorithm for how to connect the Alice speaker to Wi-Fi:

Plug the speaker into a power outlet.
On your phone, connect to the Wi-Fi network to which you plan to connect the speaker (frequency - 2.4 GHz).
Download the official Yandex application on Google Play or the App Store. If the software is already installed on your device, update it to the latest version.
How to connect “Alice” (speaker) via phone? Open the program on your device, log in to your Yandex account.
If you have a Yandex+ subscription, log into the profile on which it is activated - you will be able to use the subscription on the speaker.
Let’s continue to look at how to connect the Yandex speaker “Alice” via your phone. In the Yandex program, go down to the “Devices” item.
Then follow the path: Device Management - Add - Smart Speaker.
How to connect the Alice column to the Internet? Select the desired Wi-Fi network from the list and enter the code if necessary.
Place the phone near the speaker, click on “Play sound”.
The connection will be established within a few seconds - the voice assistant itself will tell you about it.