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All you need to know about Apple's personal assistant Siri

Apple is not only known for its outstanding products, which make their users to feel like they are a part
of an exclusive group, but also for the fact that this company always wanted to be one step ahead of
everyone else on the same market niche. This is why the products released by Apple were stunning all
the time, because they contain the latest technologies and innovations available. But there is also
something else that makes Apple known around the world. It is Siri, the voice of Apple devices, a
particularity that other mobile devices don’t have until today. Let us know more about Siri and what
makes it so special.

Siri was created with the purpose of offering a virtual assistant to Apple device users, being practically a
computer program. This program is incorporated in the Apple operating systems, using a voice to
answer questions coming from the device’s user, to accomplish certain tasks and even to make
recommendations. Just like the settings of a device can be adapted to the user’s language options, so
will Siri adapt as well, the voice using the language choice of the user to transmit information. It became
an integrated part of the iOS due to its increasing popularity, because Siri was initially released as an
application available on App Store, for Apple users. It was created by Siri Inc., being purchased by Apple
on the 28th of April 2010, becoming their application. In fact, this application should have been available
for Blackberry and Android devices, the acquisition made by Apple concerning this application changing
all the plans made by Siri Inc.

When it first saw the daylight, this technology came in the form of a spin-out, made by the SRI
International Artificial Intelligence Center, being an offshort of the CALO project, founded by DARPA.
The speech recognition engine was made and provided by Nuance Communications, a company
activating in the speech technology domain. This detail was not publicly acknowledged, by Nuance or
Apple, until 2013. Even if it appeared as an application, today’s Siri is quite different, as it was needed to
integrate it efficiently in the functionality of the Apple devices. Thus, it is a part of the iOS functionality,
being integrated in areas like contacts, text messages, calendar, plus receiving support from search
engines like Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Bing, Apple Maps, and others. Besides offering assistance, Siri
was made to offer some fun as well, being capable of answering a set of amusing questions, like “What
is the meaning of life?”. This was made so that this virtual assistant appears to have a human side, in the
form of humor.

But, who is behind the voice of Siri in the real world? Of course, voice actors were hired to give Siri the
voice everybody knows today. Several actors were picked, one from each major area in the world, so
that Siri has the dialect and accent of the user. Thus, for the USA, Susan Bennett gave Siri her voice, back
in 2005. She was also the voice of Tillie, the All-Time Teller. Some stated that the voice of Siri actually
belongs to Allison Dufty, but this was proved to be a wrong statement, by Ed Primeau, an American
expert in audio and video forensics. In England, Apple users will enjoy Daniel, instead of Siri, this voice
being offered by a technology journalist, by his name Jon Briggs. And Karen, the voice found in Australia,
is made by Karen Jacobsen, an entertainer, singer, songwriter and voiceover artist that lives in New
York, but was born in Australia.

When Siri was first presented, critics welcome it with a great dose of enthusiast, seeing it like a
significant practical feature, plus the fact that it gave mobile devices personality. But, when Siri started
to be used by people that lived in particular areas of the world, where distinct accents were used,
problems started to appear. For instance, the Scottish did not receive Siri well at all, and neither the
Americans in Boston or from the South. Still, Apple officials believed that for Siri to develop and become
better in voice recognition, it had to be subjected to various accents and dialects.

Other problems were underlined by the American Civil Liberties Union. They were concerned by the fact
that Siri was sending Apple to much personal information taken from the user, such as nickname,
contacts, the personal relationships of the device’s owner with the contacts, personal labels found in e-
mail accounts, and the personal musical playlist stored in the device. Also, together with the NARAL Pro-
Choice America, the Union stated that Siri was not providing information concerning locations of
abortion and birth control service providers. If Siri was requested to provide such information by the
user, it provided the location of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers instead. So it was considered to come in
between the free choice of people. But, Apple stated that this was just a minor glitch, which was about
to be sorted out with the release of the final version.

Siri was, and still is, a great innovation, but it is impossible to suit the needs and preferences of all Apple
users right from the start. So it was just normal for discontent people to come out, stating that Siri
doesn’t work as it should. In fact, there was even a lawsuit filed by a man in California, which stated that
the iPhone 4 was just a more expensive iPhone model, because it had Siri. He stated that Siri did not
work according to its advertisers. Of course, the trial was dismissed due to the lack of proper
documentation from the plaintiff. You see, just like any other innovative technology, the release of Siri
on the market was not just to sell more iPhones. Only though intensive usage could Apple tell where the
problems were, allowing them to improve Siri and develop it according to the needs and requirements
of Apple users. The feedbacks, even the negative ones, helped Apple create a better Siri, repairing the
errors of a breakthrough technology. And this is only the start, because Siri will only become more and
more well-made by each passing year.