Siri will no longer read my texts in the car

Hi mr1213,

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!

From your post, I understand that you are not able to ask Siri to read your incoming text messages while you are driving; you are being prompted to unlock your iPhone. I’m happy to help you troubleshoot this situation!

From what you have stated, it sounds like you may have Messages previews disabled. Navigate to Settings > Notifications, Messages > and adjust Show Previews to Always. After making this adjustment, test this functionality again.

Use notifications on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

Cheers!

No. It’s not that the question is unanswered. It’s that people are unhappy with the ridiculous answer.

They have made the iPhone’s only option to lock immediately now.

So I get in my car, which connects to Bluetooth. FaceID to identify myself and put the phone in the console or pocket. Yet despite clearly still being in the car (thanks to Bluetooth), I can no longer use Siri to receive messages when driving despite reaching for my phone and staring at it? What happened to Apple being so concerned about car safety? Let me trust select Bluetooth connections to not relock the phone.

Either that or enable Siri to read messages (without displaying them on screen for all to see) separately from message previews.

Chris, I have the same problem. I checked Settings>Notifications>Messages and my Show Previews is already set to Always. So what else could be preventing Siri from reading my messages through my Jabra Bluetooth phone device? She tells me the same thing as the previous person - that she can't because my iPhone X is locked. I do not have Do Not Disturb While Driving enabled. Thank you.

Chris, I have the same problem as these other users, except none of those answers apply for me and the problem persists. The restrictions are set to "off" and the message app in notifications is set to "always". I called Apple support and when through a complete wipe and restoration of my phone and STILL have the problem. Sometimes siri will not even act like she heard a request. It will make the "speak tone" and almost immediately make the "end of speaking tone". I'm beyond irritated that nothing has worked. Any ideas?

THANKS! I have had this problem since upgrading to iPhone X at the end of November 2017. I hope this will solve the problem for me as well.

BY THE WAY, there are a lot of similar questions UN-ANSWERED on this site. I have been looking for a while and chanced upon this answer today. I wish there were a way to "relate" the questions and answers together, as with forum "topics."

Hope others (looking for the same question answered) stumble upon the same answer as I did.

Actually, my problem of Siri not reading my text messages to me WAS solved by turning Settings — Notifications — Messages — Previews — to “Always” instead of “When Unlocked.”

However, whether I set “Do Not Disturb While Driving” to Automatic or Manual, it always friggin turns on Do Not Disturb whenever I am in the car with Bluetooth connection to the car. So, there’s no “Manual” option effectively. It ALWAYS just does it!

I’m having the same problem, and none of these suggestions fix the problem either. My android (s8) worked fine, and in doing some research I found that the 2018 Toyotas still don’t have CarPlay. Is this the problem? Is CarPlay required for the iPhone X to transmit texts to the car’s program? (Phone calls come in fine.) 😞

This isn't the issue, there is NO notification while driving that a message/text/sms has been received while DND is active and while driving even with phone connected to car Bluetooth the only way to get messages read to while driving is to tell the phone your not driving and ask siri to read messages, how is this an improvement over having that happen automatically as before?

This is not really the answer to the problem of how to get past Siri requesting to unlock your phone. I have an iPhone X in a windshield mount right in front of me, but Siri does not give me a way to unlock via Face ID. Is there any other ways to accomplish this? Same goes for other items on my phone that require it to be unlocked, e.g. HomeKit...

Chris,

This was helpful. Thank you!!

Nevermind, Chris. The last thing I changed in Settings was turning on Restrictions. I turned Restrictions off. Siri will now read my Messages through the Jabra even though the phone is locked.

That’s not a solution.

That solves a problem of Siri reading messages, but breaks privacy on the screen when not in the car.

Only apple can add basic features to their phones

Point taken and agreed.

My iPhone 8 Plus will read my texts with the show previews to to off yet my x will not unless I set previews to always