Siri Price can no longer use that name. The Edinburgh-based fitness instructor had to pick a new name because of a change in iOS 17, which was released for iPhones in September.
She’s not happy about it.
Siri isn’t Siri any more
Every iPhone user knows that Siri is the name of Apple’s voice driven digital assistant. Going back to 2011, the activation phrase for the feature was “Hey Siri.” But iOS 17 dropped the “Hey” from the wake phrase. That makes using Apple’s digital assistant easier to use, but caused real problems for Siri Price.
She got by when the wake word was “Hey Siri.” “I work in a gym with a lot of people around so everyone learned quite quickly not to say ‘Hey’ when they greet me or there would be a lot of bleeping going on,” she told The Sun.
Then iOS 17 came along so all that’s necessary to trigger an iPhone to start listening for spoken commands is the word Siri.
“Now people can’t even say my name,” said Siri Price in the interview.
The solution was to change her name. She now goes by Siz.
What’s in a name?
The Siri digital assistant was developed by SRI International and Nuance Communications. It’s named after a Norwegian co-worker of one of the founders of SRI International.
Siri is a short form of the name Sigrid, and is composed of the elements sigr “victory” and fríðr “beautiful” from Old Norse. It’s in common use in Norway and Sweden.
