5 Siri Features That Work Better On An iPhone 18

In September, Apple released the new iPhone 18 Pro models, featuring a main camera with variable aperture, more battery, new colors, and an all-new processor that not only makes the iPhone even snappier, but ready for improved AI applications, content editing, and demanding games. With that in mind, it's only natural that some Siri features also work better on this device, including new voice customizations for Siri, onscreen awareness, tapping personal data, and more.

Even though all the Siri features available with the iPhone 18 Pro are also available with the iPhone 17 Pro — and, despite the voice customization, all the other features work with the rest of the Apple Intelligence-capable iPhones — the new iPhones represent a leap in performance compared to their predecessors. For example, the new A20 Pro chip has 50% more memory bandwidth than the A19 Pro, meaning it can pass more information at the same time, graphics rendering is 40% faster, and a new Dual 16-core Neural Engine accelerates on-device AI models with double the AI processing power of the previous chip.

With all of that, iPhone 18 Pro users can expect a snappier Siri, AI demands being delivered a lot quicker, and, as Apple unveils new Apple Intelligence features in the coming years, the iPhone 18 Pro will be able to respond to complex queries, image creation, and some other functionalities — as we noted in our review. These are some of the new Siri functions that work better on the new iPhone 18 Pro models.

With iOS 27, Apple greatly revamped Apple Intelligence thanks to the new Siri AI, as we highlighted in our iOS 27 review. This updated personal assistant now uses best-in-class Gemini models to understand a number of queries. However, more than just improving everything that the personal assistant can do, Apple is also concerned about how Siri will interact with people. After all, many people mainly interact with AI assistants through voice, and a robotic "hi" doesn't exactly make the AI seem that smart. That's why with iOS 27 and iPhone models with 12GB of RAM, such as the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro devices, users can customize Siri's voice.

While this is an ongoing process, with more voices, languages, and tones being added in the coming months, so far the most complete experience comes with the U.S. English option. As of October 2026, iPhone users have access to seven different voices, five different voice paces, and five different options of expressivity. That said, users have a number of combinations to choose from. While my favorite is the standard voice "6" with a regular pace and a bit more expressivity, users can quickly switch between them with an iPhone 18 Pro, and immediately feel the difference once they invoke Siri AI next.

Apple has put in extra care to offer more masculine, feminine, and gender neutral voices, so users can choose which one they feel most comfortable with. The company also offers other options for different accents in English, such as British, Irish, Indian, and Australian.

Every Apple Intelligence-capable device has Siri being able to utilize onscreen awareness, as long as they update to iOS 27. With the iPhone 18 Pro, the experience can be a lot faster thanks to its new processor. The personal assistant can read what's on my iPhone display and help me with a task. For example, if I want help to understand why a function of my phone isn't working, Siri will "read" the display, understand what's wrong, and give me a suggestion. This isn't limited to getting help regarding my iPhone either, as Siri can also locate an article on the web, help me fill out a form (as in "add my address in this section"), and more.

Onscreen awareness can do wonders in several other situations too, like "I didn't understand what my friend meant with this message," or "Can you tell me what's the point of this article?," as the personal assistant will understand the context and offer a proper interpretation of what's being displayed.

Better than that, if you're trying to make plans with friends, you can ask Siri to help you out based on what info it has stored about your friends, and once everything is set, it can add the information to the Calendar or Reminders based on what you sent via iMessage.

One feature that got a lot more interesting with iOS 27 and iPhone 18 Pro is the ability to create shortcuts using natural language. The Shortcuts app has been available for a few years now, but as straightforward as it is, I always had issues creating my own automations. For example, one of my favorites, the ability to use the Action Button to play all my downloaded songs on shuffle, was created by a friend of mine. Now, fortunately, I can do new automations using Siri AI — and even more complex tasks get done quickly thanks to the new A20 chip. On the Shortcuts app, you can say what you'd like a shortcut to do, and then Siri can intelligently create exactly what you intended.

While Siri can't create shortcuts like "Whenever the iPhone stops charging, you need to tell me how hot the device actually is," you can ask the assistant to generate automations like "Send a text that calculates my ETA compared to my partner's address using Maps and send it to them." This way, Siri can create the shortcut for you, but later you can say something like "Siri, I'm running late," and the personal assistant will run the shortcut for you.

This can be also useful for other tasks, like asking Siri to create a Safari extension that keeps Siri tracking a webpage so whenever an element changes, like some shoes you wanted return to stock, you can get a notification, and go back to the page to do what you wanted to do.

If you've been using your iPhone for ages, in addition to Apple's stock apps like Mail, Apple Music, Contacts, Calendar, Messages, and more, you should know that it finally paid off. With the new Siri AI, the personal assistant can tap information from these apps, so you can say something like "Can you find that podcast episode this friend sent me a few weeks ago," and the personal assistant will get it for you. With that, you can have Siri help you find messages, go through reminders, and even locate links I completely forgot about.

To make good use of that, Siri needs to index all the information available on your iPhone, which could take longer on older devices. More than that, with iOS 27 now out, several developers have implemented the App Intents API, which means Siri can also tap information on those apps. For example, Siri can tell you how your effort was on your latest activity and how it impacted your Activity Path on Gentler Streak — or even weigh in on how well you slept based on what the app gathered from you.

Siri is especially useful when navigating through operating systems, as it can peek at a PDF on my Mac Desktop to help me answer a question on the iPhone, lead me to a message, photo, or e-mail that I'm having a hard time finding, and more.

Apple super-powered Visual Intelligence with iOS 27, and the new iPhone 18 Pro combined with a new processor and an improved main camera makes this function even better. For example, if you take a photo of a festival lineup, Siri can smartly create several calendar events for you, and you can select which ones you want to attend. If you're in a restaurant with friends, you can take a picture of the bill, transforming the receipt into an interactive list. Each of you can tap what you had, and the personal assistant can tell how much each person needs to pay.

Other known features, like taking a screenshot and then googling a pair of jeans someone is wearing, translating text, or even adding information to the calendar are also snappier, making the function a lot easier. You can also continue to use Visual Intelligence on landmarks, museums, restaurants, and more. For food, for example, Siri can tell how nutritious your meal is based on what it sees, and you can also ask the personal assistant how you could make it even more nutritious next time.

Basically, Siri is capable of everything it wasn't before, and even though these features are also available for other iPhone models with Apple Intelligence, the new specs of the iPhone 18 Pro make Siri work a lot faster.