How do I create relationships for contacts on iPhone?

Creating relationships for contacts with your iPhone can make things much easier while you're rocking your phone hands-free. Utilize Siri's smarts to your advantage; ask her to call, text, or mail your brother, mother, or lover and she will comply as long as you've set things up in your Contacts app. Ready to start a new relationship?

How to create a contact relationship using Siri

Siri will need to either learn who your wife, best friend, boss, or other relationships are before it can associate them with the proper contact. You can edit the contact to enter that information, but what fun is that? The easier, faster way is simply to tell Siri what your relationships are.

  1. Press and hold the Home button or say "Hey Siri!" to activate Siri.
  2. Tell Siri what the relationship is. For example: "Tyler is my husband." Make sure you say the name exactly as it appears in your contacts.

  3. Say Yes or tap the Yes button when Siri asks you to confirm. Siri will confirm that the relationship has been added.

    Press and hold the home button, tell Siri what the relationship is, and say yes

This works great for unique relationships but for relatives that have similar titles it can be a problem. If you have two daughters, for instance, you'll need to assign them differently for Siri to differentiate between them. You can, of course, use things like "oldest daughter" or "youngest daughter."

How to manually add relationship data with the Contacts app

When Siri does get confused by multiple relationships, it is possible to manually add in the proper data in your Contact card so that Siri can make use of it.

  1. Open the Contacts app.
  2. Tap on your contact card.

  3. Tap the Edit button in the top right corner.

    Launch contacts, tap on your contact card, tap the edit button.

  4. Tap add related name. It's roughly half-way down the list.

  5. Tap the info button. It looks like a circle with an 'i' in it.

    Tap add related name and then the info button.

  6. Tap the contact you'd like to add to that relationship.

  7. Tap the Done button in the upper right corner.

    Tap the contact you'd like to add to the relationship and then the done button.

Siri will now remember that relationship and saying things like "Call my brother" will cause Siri to call the contact connected to that relationship.

How to create custom relationship labels

  1. Launch the Contacts app from the Home screen or app drawer.
  2. Tap on your contact card.

  3. Tap the Edit button in the top right corner.

    Launch contacts, tap on your contact card, tap the edit button.

  4. Tap add related name. It's roughly half-way down the list.

  5. Tap the info button. It's a circle with an 'i' in it.

    Tap add related name and then the info button.

  6. Tap the contact you'd like to add to that relationship.
  7. Tap on the arrow to the left of the contact you chose.

  8. Tap Add Custom Label. It's at the bottom of the list.

    Tap the contact you would like to add to that relationship, tap on the arrow to the left of the contact you chose and tap add custom label (which is at the bottom of the list).

  9. Type in the custom label you would like to assign to that person.
  10. Tap Done in the upper right corner.

  11. Tap Done in the upper right corner again.

    Type in the custom label, and then tap done. When you get to the second screen, tap done again.

Questions?

Let us know in the comments.

iPhone