Announce Messages with Siri
One of the new features that iOS 13.2 brings not only to the new AirPods Pro, but to Apple’s other H1-equipped wireless headphones — which includes the second-generation AirPods, Powerbeats Pro, and recently-released Beats Solo Pro — is the ability to have Siri automatically announce incoming messages whenever you’re wearing them.
There is one catch with this feature, however — not only will you need to be running iOS 13.2, of course, but you also need to make sure that Siri can be used from the lock screen of your iPhone. If you’ve disabled this for security reasons, the AirPods Pro setup process will let you know this, and advise you to turn it back on. This will also happen if you try to toggle the feature on from where it appears in the main Siri & Search settings.
It’s a little bit disappointing that you have to give up a bit of lock screen security in order to use this feature, but it’s sort of understandable. Ideally, however, we’d prefer to see a separate setting just for the AirPods, allowing users to have their messages announced while still preventing just anybody from picking up their iPhone and making a Siri request.
In the Announce Messages with Siri settings, found under Settings->Siri & Search, you also have the ability to choose who to receive announcements from — Favorites, Recents, Contacts, or Everyone — as well as toggling on whether you want to have Siri read back your replies for confirmation or not. What’s also interesting here is that the settings have a modular design, with Messages listed as only one possible option, which suggests that Apple will be allowing third-party developers to plug their own messaging apps in here too. Of course, this isn’t all that surprising considering that we’ve heard that Apple will soon even allow Siri to default to other messaging apps.