[This was first posted over on Facebook earlier this morning]

Siri just saved my day, and my week.

The crisis arose early this morning, soon after we were seated in the Trivet restaurant just off the main lobby of the JW Marriott Hotel in Auckland. We were shown to a table along the window, and were working on our first cup of black coffee as we began thinking through our breakfast options.

I was checking out the morning news on my iPad when disaster hit.

It started when I went to take a look at the Wall Street Journal. A main title page appeared, just white screen with “Wall Street Journal” emblazoned across the center.

And then it the screen froze.

The WSJ page of news headlines never appeared, the iPad stopped responding to anything. It was completely frozen. Nonresponsive. I couldn’t get out of the white WSJ page, and the iPad failed to respond to anything of the usual things.

There’s usually a simple solution to situations like this. Power down and restart. So I pressed the top “on-off” button and a volume button at the same time, and waited. After a few seconds, this combo should lead to a another button that will shut down the iPad.

But this time, nothing happened.

I tried several times, alternating between the up volume and down volume buttons. No effect. The killer WSJ screen continued be displayed with no viable options apparent.

For a few minutes, I was stumped, and began considering the prospect of spending the rest of our time in Auckland without access to my the wonders that the iPad . It wasn’t a pretty picture. Depressing, really, and an indication of how addicted we are to digital communication and maintaining our presence in the digital world.

At this point, I started looking at the screen as kind of an “escape room” challenge. This involved tapping different places on the screen to see whether I could generate any reaction. There was a WSJ logo up in the top left corner, but it went nowhere. I tried taping the usual places, screen corners, etc. I tried swiping up, down, and sideways. One finger, two fingers, multiple fingers. Nothing I did got a reaction.

But then I noticed the horizontal line at the bottom of the screen. Clicking on it seemed to have no effect. Then I tried a “click and hold” on that line, and the edges of the screen started glowing, indicating Siri has been summoned.

Another few seconds, and a query appeared from Siri.

“How can I help you?” Or something to that effect.

I first asked if I had correctly recalled the two-button move as “shut down” command. Siri confirmed this was the correct say to power down.

So I explained my ipad would not power down.

And Siri instantly replied, “Do you want to power down this device?”

Do I ever!! YES!

The screen went black. And I felt a huge rush of relief.

When I rebooted, all was well. The iPad awoke, the frozen WSJ screen was gone, and I was free to share the moment with you.

I should have realized Siri could take control of the iPad like this even though the device seemed to be nonreponsive. And now I wonder whether a “hey, Siri” would have summoned its help earlier despite the frozen screen.

No, I’m not going to try and recreate the issue to test that hypothesis. And I’ll probably avoid rechecking the WSJ anytime soon.