Why did Apple forget to give Siri the ability to close apps?

[EvilEvil]

I love that you can ask Siri open any app but Apple seems to have forgot about giving Siri the ability to close them.

 

[Suckfest 9001]

Because asking Siri to close an app isn't as fast as just moving the cursor and closing it yourself...........

 

[fischersd]

Hmm. Let's not forget that people may be using Siri as an accessibility feature before we enable sarcasm folks.

@EvilEvil I think we should think about Siri on MacOS as Siri for MacOS v1.0 "She" doesn't seem to even have the intelligence of the iOS version. We can only hope that Apple puts the resources into the feature to make it much, MUCH better in the 10.12.1 update! (and every update thereafter!!)

 

[997440]

My guess would be that Apple doesn't want any occurrences of accidental loss of user data or critical usage.

 

[tywebb13]

I love that you can ask Siri open any app but Apple seems to have forgot about giving Siri the ability to close them.

Yeah. That's annoying. There seems to be only 1 app it can close. Itself! Buy saying "goodbye".

It won't shut the computer dpwn or restart for you either. And I would prefer that it had that capability too.

 

[orph]

id gess rshrugged is correct.
in my house there's 4 macbook's and a macpro i can just see 'shutdown' being a problem when all 5 turn off at the same time

ps did anyone ever do pranks with an apple remote i know i did

 

[leman]

For the same reason why Siri can't delete data. Very far from 'they forgot'.

 

[KALLT]

You could probably do it with ‘speakable items’ in Accessibility, using voice control. This has been available for many years.

I suspect the actual reason why Siri doesn’t support this is because Apple doesn’t consider it a standard use case. They have been trying to get users to stop closing applications manually.

 

[orph]

you may be able to do it with ‘speakable items’ in Accessibility but most users have that off, so say if im standing in this room with 4 laptops out they wont all delete files at the same time XD to everyone's joy.

not mention uni's that have imac's in computer rooms XD just shout delete during a lecture

 

[KALLT]

you may be able to do it with ‘speakable items’ in Accessibility but most users have that off, so say if im standing in this room with 4 laptops out they wont all delete files at the same time XD to everyone's joy.

not mention uni's that have imac's in computer rooms XD just shout delete during a lecture

Siri on Sierra does not support ‘Hey Siri’, so this wouldn’t be a concern, I suspect. Unless of course the soon-to-be announced MacBook Pros will have something like this.

 

[BlackHornet17]

SOLVED: MacOS Siri CAN quit apps !!!

There is a way to get Siri to "QUIT" an app (as opposed to simply closing or minimizing a window).

I was tinkering around with Siri and came up with the solution

A simple Automator App with an Apple script that runs a command line to quit an app See screenshot.

I will upload example files that you can download and then use Automator to "duplicate" and alter to suit other apps (you'll need an Automator app for each app that you want Siri to close).

EXAMPLE: Kill Chrome (my first one) that runs the command line killall "Google Chrome"

Telling Siri to launch/open Kill Chrome then runs the command line killall "Google Chrome".
Obviously you can name the app (and hence what you say to Siri) whatever you want so that you're not telling Siri to kill all the time :/ example: Ex Chrome or X Chrome so the command is OPEN EX CHROME and not OPEN KILL CHROME. File attached

The same concept (Automator apps) can be used to open very specific webpages like profile pages et cetera.

EXAMPLE: A Netflix app that runs the command line open "https://www.netflix.com/browse"
So you just tell Siri (via CMD+Space) OPEN NETFLIX. File attached

INSTRUCTIONS for use:

Simply download and extract the attached files to a folder of your choosing (I would recommend a new folder called Siri Apps or something in your Home folder).

To duplicate: open Automator from your Applications folder (or tell Siri to OPEN AUTOMATOR lol). Select the Kill Chrome app by going to File -> Open. Once open, select File -> Duplicate, then click on the title (eg. Kill Chrome) in the middle of the window bar to rename it (example, X Safari etc), then change the command in the "RUN SHELL SCRIPT" box eg. killall Safari (noting that apps with spaces need quotation marks like "Google Chrome" has), and simply save by going to File -> Save.

ENJOY !!!

NOTE : I HAVEN'T TESTED TO SEE IF THE SCRIPTS BYPASS "SAVE FILE/CHANGES" WARNING POP-UP WINDOWS (NOT SURE... I'M NOT A PRO AND ONLY JUST DISCOVERED THIS SIRI WORKAROUND)... I'LL EDIT THIS POST ONCE I FIND OUT
[doublepost=1523923686][/doublepost]PS: The WINDOWS style taskbar is an app called uBAR. It rocks.

 

[BlackHornet17]

ALTERNATIVE TO THE ABOVE SOLUTION

Instead of creating Automator Apps for Siri to quit each individual app, you can create one that passes the KEYSTROKE CMD+Q. In essence this will just create one Siri command to quit the "front-most active window" app (except Finder as that needs the command line killall Finder) . The previous solution allows you to quit individual/specific apps whether they have an open window, no window, or windows open behind other apps (unfocused windows); whereas this solution quits whatever app you have at the front.

Here is the command line script to put into an Automator App (see above):

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to keystroke "q" using {command down}'


Just copy and paste it into the Run Shell Script box in Automator or download my attached file. I've called it "X" so all I have to do is tell Siri to OPEN X (Siri didn't like the word "quit" very much... might just be my accent).

Feel free to Duplicate the file and alter it to suit any keyboard shortcut

 

[Tech198]

Because asking Siri to close an app isn't as fast as just moving the cursor and closing it yourself...........

lol.... Apple dictates what you can use siri for.... charming

How is moving the cursor faster than asking Siri ? perhaps for one app, but about all apps? Siri would defiantly be faster..

if i use 7 apps and several documents on screen in different "spaces" Mission control.... it will take be longer to close then all and swipe.

 

[BlackHornet17]

A

lol.... Apple dictates what you can use siri for.... charming

How is moving the cursor faster than asking Siri ? perhaps for one app, but about all apps? Siri would defiantly be faster..

if i use 7 apps and several documents on screen in different "spaces" Mission control.... it will take be longer to close then all and swipe.

Automator has a function to QUIT ALL APPLICATIONS (see screenshot), so yeah, Siri would definitely be quicker than closing them down one at a time

 

[Suckfest 9001]

lol.... Apple dictates what you can use siri for.... charming

How is moving the cursor faster than asking Siri ? perhaps for one app, but about all apps? Siri would defiantly be faster..

if i use 7 apps and several documents on screen in different "spaces" Mission control.... it will take be longer to close then all and swipe.

Siri would "defiantly" not be faster, unless you have motor control issues and can't use a mouse

 

[aiden faru]

You can do all of those things by just enabling Voice control in the settings.