Find My Friends is a great solution from Apple to allow friends and family to easily share their locations with each other. But did you know that you can use Siri to make finding your friends even easier? Here’s how...
First, a couple of pre-requisites:
- An iOS device that supports Siri, signed into your iCloud account
- Apple’s Find My Friends app, also signed into your iCloud account
- Some friends or family that are sharing their locations with you using Find My Friends on their iOS device
I’ve taken the time to add my family into my personal contact card on my iOS device, based on their relationship to me. For example: wife, sister, mom, brother-in-law. Siri recognizes my family member’s contact cards with this association and will address them as such.
My contact card, showing my family members and their relationships
With that set up, I can activate Siri and ask: “Where is my wife?” or “Where is my sister?” Siri will then use their location, based on the Find My Friends application, and display the results in a small map on the Siri interaction screen.
Siri's results after asking her "Where's my wife?"
Tapping on the map that Siri displays will then take you directly into the Find My Friends app where you can interact further with their location - such as setting up a notification for when they leave their current location. Now you'll know for sure when your spouse has picked the kids up from soccer and is on her way home!
Apple's Find My Friends application showing some of my family member's location
You aren't limited to just the folks that you've added as a relationship on your personal contact card. You can ask Siri to find any of your contacts by name, provided that they are sharing their location with you using the Find My Friends app.
A couple of caveats: You will either need to be currently signed into the Find My Friends app with your iCloud password, or have a Passcode Lock enabled on your iOS device (which keeps you signed into the Find My Friends app without having to enter your iCloud password every time).