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Siri Voice Actress Susan Bennett Reveals More Details About the Origins of Apple's Virtual Assistant

macduke said:
It seems so long ago, but it really wasn't. I prefer the look of things today, and at least on my iPhone 7, iOS 10 seems as stable as iOS 6. They've done a good job with about everything except Siri and some iCloud issues. But iOS for iPad could use some work to make it better for professionals.
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If Apple focuses on revamping Siri and provides a more robust iOS for the iPad Pro line, those would be two significant/much needed improvements in iOS. Especially with Siri, being home automation is starting to flourish more and Apple will likely be a contender with their version debuting in the future.
 
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It's funny how things develop and people talk about things they don't know anything about.

Siri doesn't mean beautiful woman in Norwegian. What is she talking about? I'm Norwegian I never heard that. It might mean that in some ancient version of the language but certainly not in Norwegian as we speak it today. It's just a very common name (just as if you would call someone Lisa in English)

And the reason why it was used on the assistant in the first place was because on the time the original Siri assistant app was released, which apple bought.... There was a Norwegian weather channel girl and business woman called Siri Kalvig, which was kind of popular and admired in our country (because she was pretty and had a business sense). And probably Dag, the main inventor of siri admired ,and who knows, maybe had a crush on her and named his app Siri. That's the real truth.


Another fun fact, this is the second part of integrated apple feature based on Norwegian which apple really doesn't know where it comes from. The CMD button sign is also based on Norwegian. This sign is a common road sign ⌘ that means just a general resting place or a park and whatnot. and the woman designing the old Mac icons used the icon on this sign because she thought it was fitting for the cmd button.
 
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Harshan said:
I set Siri to have a male voice, for two reasons. A male voice is lower and easier to hear. As men get older, their hearing degrades from the high frequencies down. Also, a lower pitch is richer because it has more harmonics within the human hearing range; just bang on a piano to test my assertion.
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That’s been my experience but I don’t think it’s due to a physical change in the ear. I think it’s psychological. After decades of fraternizing and diplomacy, I grew tired of women’s eccentricities. Instead of building an immunity, I became allergic. I prefer the company of animals and bros now.

The most benign female utterances can be irritating. For example, I’m keenly aware that the voices of our local female radio and TV personalities sound like fourteen year-old Valley girls. No maturity in their voices.

Frankly, Siri's voice options are not that distinct. Both sound asexual and over-bubbly—as if someone crossbred a Mormon and a preschool teacher. Of course, Siri is irritating in any voice. James Earl Jones wouldn't make Siri's incompetence any more tolerable.
 
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NewtonAurelius said:
I don't know when the photo in the article was taken, but if looks like she is still using a cMP based on the display and keyboard that can be seen. I think the microphone is a Rode NT1, but I am not sure. Can anyone identify the audio setup in the photo?
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NT1, Mackie board, Avalon mic pre, Auratone monitors... Looks like a surge protector above the mic pre. Auralex foam in the corner. And those horrible (the studio standard) Sony headphones that are really REALLY harsh sounding. This photo had to be taken prior to 2010 I should think.
 
iMcLovin said:
And the reason why it was used on the assistant in the first place was because on the time the original Siri assistant app was released, which apple bought.... There was a Norwegian weather channel girl and business woman called Siri Kalvig, which was kind of popular and admired in our country (because she was pretty and had a business sense). And probably Dag, the main inventor of siri admired ,and who knows, maybe had a crush on her and named his app Siri. That's the real truth.
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No doubt the fact that Siri was a real name helped, but the whole reason why that particular name came up in the first place instead of any other, is obvious:

The work was originally done at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) International, or SRII.

Just rearrange the letters. It's clearly an homage to its origins. Any other story is romantic retcon.
 
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dabirdwell said:
Yeah, the article makes it sound like Siri was developed inside Apple. Siri was a standalone assistant app on the App Store before it was purchased.
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Thanks for pointing that out. I used and liked SIRI better before Apple took over and incorporated it into iOS. They dumb it down and slowly brought some of the functions back. Before, you could ask SIRI to "find me a family friendly movie near my home" or "find me a cheap flight from New York t Paris." It did it. After Apple take over, a lot of functions were stripped and I stopped using SIRI.
 
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kdarling said:
No doubt the fact that Siri was a real name helped, but the whole reason why that particular name came up in the first place instead of any other, is obvious:

The work was originally done at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) International, or SRII.

Just rearrange the letters. It's clearly an homage to its origins. Any other story is romantic retcon.
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I find this interesting. I have always wondered it's background in development. So essentially, Apple came up with its own acronym for Siri, being its 'Speech Interpretation And Recognition Interface. '
 
Harshan said:
I set Siri to have a male voice, for two reasons. A male voice is lower and easier to hear. As men get older, their hearing degrades from the high frequencies down. Also, a lower pitch is richer because it has more harmonics within the human hearing range; just bang on a piano to test my assertion.

Nearly every device that synthesizes a voice is female, and I think that comes from the stereotype that people in helping professions are stereotypically female. Ask any male nurse. In fact, we have to say "male nurse" because of the stereotype.

I think a female Siri is sexist.
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It's partly because studies show that people are more likely to obey directions if the voice is female. That's why most of the voices on military aircraft are female (e.g. "Pull up, terrain!" and the like).
 
Col4bin said:
Too bad Siri really hasn't improved much since 2011.
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Somewhere Scott Forstall is smiling at this.
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Here he is.
P2jg7sWZ.jpg
 
If I meet her, would feel to compelled to apologize for all the times I've cursed at her...

One time, just blurted, "Siri, you suck." and Siri said, "I'm just trying to help you."

I sincerely felt bad.
 
Buran said:
It's partly because studies show that people are more likely to obey directions if the voice is female. That's why most of the voices on military aircraft are female (e.g. "Pull up, terrain!" and the like).
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I think it was also that a female voice was easier to pick out in the earlier days of flying. Now Boeing and Airbus use male voices.

Gender bias is a factor in some countries as well, with male Siri being the default in such cases.
 
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