An analysis of the dipole response of solid spheres illuminated by plane acoustic traveling waves [Settnes and Bruus, Phys. Rev. E 85, 016327 (2012)] has implications for estimating the magnitude of viscous corrections to quantities of broader interest. Their results may be recast to give the viscous correction to the dipole scattering s-function for solid spheres. For the present discussion, it may be assumed that the Stokes layer is thin relative to the sphere’s radius, giving a simple reduction in magnitude of the dipole s-function (which is unimodular in the lossless case). The power absorption for plane waves and Bessel beams follow immediately from a prior formulation [Zhang and Marston, Phys. Rev. E 84, 035601 (2011)] as does the axial radiation force. The plane-wave force agrees after correcting a minor error in Settnes and Bruus. A condition G = 0 previously noted for low-ka negative radiation forces on spheres in Bessel beams [Marston, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 120, 3518–3524 (2006)] still gives negative forces for sufficiently large spheres. The torque caused by first-order vortex beams may also be estimated [Zhang and Marston, Phys. Rev. E 84, 065601 (2011)]. [Work supported by ONR.]