Are you tired of the annoying notifications from Siri that just won’t stop? Are you looking for ways to mute your AirPods from announcing every single move you make on your iPhone? Are you interested in knowing how to stop AirPods from reading texts on your iPhone?
Well, you have come to the right place. We will be explaining how you can address all of that in a step-by-step process for your ease. We will keep it simple and you will understand how to disable this option on your phone.
So, what are you waiting for – read along!
One of the most extraordinary features that Apple offers you is that Siri can read text messages for you as soon as the phone receives them. This can be a blessing in disguise for a lot of people so that they do not miss any important text message but more often this is a very annoying element as it interrupts the music or a podcast that is being played on the AirPods.
This service allows the iPhone user to reply to the message even if the phone is not in their hands. If you want to disable this feature on your iPhone and do not wish your AirPods to read the text messages, this is what you are supposed to do:
How to stop AirPods from reading texts?
To stop AirPods from reading your texts to you, you need to follow the steps written below:
- To disable Siri from reading your text messages on your iPhone, all you need to do is go to the settings.
- Now, you will have to select the option of notifications.
- Once you click on notifications, a new page will appear in front of you where you can see the announce messages option along with the Siri dialogue icon.
- You will see different options here such as “announce messages from” and “announce messages with Siri”
- If the “announce messages with Siri” is not disabled and is turned on, the toggle in front of you will appear in green color.
- You will have to disable this feature so that it doesn’t read further.
- Simply press on the green toggle and disable the ‘announce messages with Siri” option
Once you have disabled “announce messages with Siri”, Siri will no longer read your texts out loud on your AirPods. You can always go back to the settings and turn on the option and easily enable the feature whenever you want.
Siri is designed to announce your text messages through a variety of headphones apart from the AirPods. Some of the most common headphones which connect easily with the iPhone are:
- AirPods Pro
- AirPods Max
- AirPods (2nd generation)
- Beats Solo Pro
- Powerbeats
- Powerbeats Pro
However, not all iPhones support this feature of AirPods announcing text messages. The most compatible headphones which easily pair up with the phone gadgets are:
- iPad with iPadOS 14.3 or more advanced one.
- iPhone with iOS 14.3 or later versions.
Why do you want to disable the “AirPods read text messages” option?
Why do people want to disable reading of text messages via Siri? Well, for starters, Siri will read the text message regardless of the activity or the app being used on the iPhone at the time the text message is received.
This leads to an interruption which may be annoying for the user. Siri will interfere with anything that is being played on the iPhone such as audiobooks, podcasts, or any kind of music. The message will be announced whether it is of importance or not. Therefore, a lot of users prefer to turn off this feature, to avoid the mix-up.
AirPods reading text messages allow the user to reply to the message in a hands-free mode. If you have the option of announcing messages with Siri on the AirPods, here are ways you can reply to these messages.
- Once Siri announces the text message, it will wait for the user to make a prompt reply.
- To reply to that specific text message, you need to start the sentence with “reply” and later on speak whatever you want the reply to be.
- Once you have stopped talking, Siri will read out the text message to confirm if that is exactly what you want the message to be as a reply.
AirPods are compatible with all the gadgets produced by Apple such as iPad, iPhones, and even the Apple watch.
The products easily integrate with each other without any problem. You can always select Siri to stop reading text messages on these gadgets as well apart from the iPhone.
This is a helpful feature designed by Apple but at the same time it can be very annoying as well.
The announcing text messages feature is only enabled when you are using AirPods or Beats headphones. This feature reads out the text message so that you know the message without letting anyone else know who is in close proximity.
This feature also works when you have locked the device but are using it through your headphones or AirPods.
How to stop announcing text messages on the Apple watch?
If you have connected your AirPods with the Apple Watch, Siri will read out your text messages just the way it does when connected with any other Apple device.
The AirPods will read out the messages sent through iMessages, text messages sent through cellular Apple watch, or Wi-Fi.
If your apple watch has been mirrored with your iPhone device, you don’t need to turn off the settings on both devices. It will be enough to turn it off on the iPhone but it will not hurt to check on both devices just to be sure and to ensure that both are synced properly.
On the iPhone, you will have to turn off the option just the way we have explained above. For the Apple watch, you will have to:
- Tap on the digital crown and open the Settings app.
- Once the settings are open, go straight to notifications.
- Now scroll down all the way to the bottom and easily disable the Announce messages option.
- Turn off the green toggle, so that Siri announcing the text messages is disabled.
The same settings go here as well, if you ever want to turn on this feature, you need to go to the settings and turn this specific feature back again.
There are options available on the iPhone and Apple Watch where you can mute the feature of announcing the text messages for a short time instead of doing it permanently.
You can tap on the icon of muting the service for an hour or any other given time. This way you will be able to enjoy your audio, and music on the podcast without any interruption.
You can also customize the list of contacts from whom you want to listen to the messages. For instance, there are favorite contacts on your phone, whose messages you don’t want to miss, you can always select them as a priority and mark them in the settings so that only messages from them should be announced while you are enjoying music or a podcast.
Final thoughts
Apple developed this feature to assist people, but the majority of people like to disable Siri from announcing text messages. There are people who customize it as well but as Apple expected a large population to welcome this feature, that did not happen. If you are one of them, we hope this guide on how to stop AirPods from reading texts helped you. More of the iPhone users consider this feature as a headache and quickly disable it so that they can enjoy music on their AirPods without any interruption or unnecessary announcement from Siri.
