Lost? Ask Siri “Where Am I?” to Get Your Current Location on iPhone
Have you ever been so lost that you don’t even know where you are? Your iPhone and Siri can help!
Perhaps you were following someones bad directions to a destination and got wildly lost, maybe you’re in a new city and took a few too many wrong turns, or maybe you were the passenger in a vehicle that went to a destination you’re unsure of – whatever the reason, if you don’t know where you are and find yourself lost, then you can rely on your iPhone and Siri to find out exactly where you are located, including the address and precise GPS coordinates!
Finding out exactly where you are is super easy with Siri and the iPhone, it’s just a matter of asking the right questions.
Summon Siri on iPhone and Ask “Where Am I?” to Get Current Location Instantly
To use this great location discovery trick, you just need to bring up Siri and ask “where am I?”.
Summoning Siri is different on different iPhone devices:
- If the iPhone does not have a Home button, then pressing and holding the Power button instead will bring up Siri. That would apply to newer iPhone models like the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone X.
- If the iPhone has a Home button, then pressing and holding the Home button will bring up Siri. That would apply to iPhone models ike the iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 7, iPhone 6, iPhone SE, iPhone 5S, etc.
You could also use Hey Siri voice activation to initiate the Siri request.
However you access Siri does not matter, it’s asking Siri “where am I” that will give you your current location on the iPhone, including an interest if applicable, a marker on a map, an ability to share the current location, and even GPS coordinates for the current location.
The Location sharing function allows you to quickly send someone else your current location, in a similar manner that sharing the current location is possible from Messages on the iPhone too.
Getting GPS coordinates this way is convenient as well, just scroll a bit further down after you ask Siri and you’ll find the GPS coordinates, though you can also access and retrieve current GPS coordinates from the iPhone Compass app as discussed here.
A nice follow-up question for this Siri command is to ask for directions home, assuming you want to go home anyway, and this of course assumes you have set your personal Contact information for Siri in iOS. Setting that personal info is recommended so that Siri can give you turn-by-turn directions to your place of residence, from wherever you are located, and also so that if you misplace and iPhone someone could ask Siri who the iPhone owner is and hopefully help return it to you.
This is just one of many questions and commands available for Siri, and if you find yourself lost, it may be one of the most helpful.
And yes if you were wondering, this trick works on other Siri devices as well, but it’s arguably the most useful (and most accurate) to get your current location with an iPhone which is why that is the focus here.
This is reminiscent of that lost hot air balloon guy joke:
A man flying in a hot air balloon suddenly realizes he’s lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below.
He lowers the balloon further and shouts to get directions, “Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?”
The man below says: “Yes. You’re in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field.”
“You must work in Information Technology,” says the balloonist.
“I do” replies the man. “How did you know?”
“Well,” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but it’s of no use to anyone.”
The man below replies, “You must work in management.”
“I do,” replies the balloonist, “But how’d you know?”
“Well”, says the man, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going, but you expect me to be able to help.
You’re in the same position you were before we met, but now it’s suddenly my fault?”
Siri is nice and all but…. you could use Skylock and use S7 exploits, plug in phone number, get someone elses location :D LOL, i assume that S7 is then widely used by everyone who spies?
http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1275167-skylock-product-description-2013.html
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d73dzm/inside-ss7-the-insecure-global-cell-network-thats-used-to-track-phones
I get the name of my town (Fairbanks Alaska) and my Long and Lat but no address in spite of the fact I’m at home on a paved street with a normal address.
Gave me the wrong address as well. Yet, Apple and google maps both show the correct address for my location.
Well, it is Siri. It works about as well as it did 7 years ago when it debuted in beta.
One time I asked Siri for the weather in London and it searched the web for “won ton recipe”.
The one positive thing I will say about Siri is that if Siri is a look at Artificial Intelligence then we do not need to worry much about AI taking over with some Terminator scenario because Siri is dumb as rocks and if it can’t even tell you your address it certainly won’t be building a T1000 to send back in time…
Siri does now not subject, it’s asking Siri “where am I” that will provide you with your present location on your phone.
Great Tip, thank you. It works.
Now, is there an application that could help me find my way back to my car if I get lost in a wood or a parking lot for example. Especially if I am lost and there is no Internet to ask Siri?
Thank you
Yes. They are generally called map apps. Many of them let you download the maps for offline use.
(Sheesh! Was that even a serious question?)
Yes. Go to the address it gave you and it WILL be right! 🙄
It gives me an address, but not the right one. 🤨 is there a fix?
just try to ask Siri:
“where am I with google maps”. it gives you exact location with this direction.
PS: You have to install Google Maps app.
Too bad that Siri is working only when I press the home button…if not it doesn’t work anymore on all my devices after I updated to iOS 12.01, sigh