Thanks to the popularity of Apple’s iOS devices and the Cupertino company’s knack for product marketing, you don’t have to be a regular Siri user to recognize her voice. Two years ago today, she made her debut alongside the iPhone 4s, and she’s been our virtual personal assistant ever since.
But who is the real Siri? Who provided that voice that we’ve all become so familiar with?
Her name is Susan Bennett, and she’s been a voice actress since she was young. She recorded the Siri voices back in 2005 — six years before Apple unveiled the feature — but she had no idea they would ever end up in the iPhone.
Apple has bought a personal assistant iPhone app called Cue for between $40 and $60 million, according to a report from TechCrunch. Originally called Greplin in the App Store, Cue specialized in using data from multiple social networks and users accounts to create a daily agenda. Cue recently pulled its app saying “the Cue service is no longer available.”
Cue was doing Google Now-like contextual notifications before Now and Siri were introduced. The purchase of Cue probably has something to do with enhancing the contextual awareness of the iOS calendar and Siri itself.
iOS 7 comes with a brand new set of Siri voices. Here in the US, there’s an updated female voice, as well as a new male voice included in the latest and greatest mobile operating system.
Did you know, though, that Siri is proud of her new voice? Well, just let him know that you like her new vocal apparatus, and you’ll see a few fun new easter eggs as answers.
I’ve got a Bluetooth speaker…and I love it. But when my family and I went camping this summer I left it at home. Why? Because I wasn’t convinced that the environment it would be in was going to serve it all that well. I could have used something more rugged, and even more versatile.
I could have used the Boombot REX.
With a ruggedized ABS housing, Boombot REX goes anywhere, but it also features full fidelity stereo sound, is water-resistant and plays for up to eight hours on a single charge – it’s built tough to withstand the demands of your active lifestyle. And Cult of Mac Deals has it for 23% off the regular price – just $99.99!
Every time a new iOS device is released, there’s going to be new adopters. With new adopters come new opportunities to create apps that appeal to them. iOS 7 is an all new look for the devices, and there’s a lot of new things to learn about it. This offer from Cult of Mac Deals and iOS Centric is going to help you learn everything you need to know about iOS 7 so that you can make the best use of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.
Grab your iOS7-running iPhone and activate Siri. Now say one of the following…
Change the brightness
Adjust Bluetooth
… and various combinations thereof. You’ll be rewarded with switches and sliders to adjust these settings right there on the Siri screen. Pretty good huh?
Apple is becoming a victim of its own success. It’s been several years since the company launched the iPad and revolutionized yet another product category, but we haven’t seen anything truly groundbreaking since then. Sure, we’ve had the iPad mini, the Retina MacBook Pro, and the awesome new iMac, but they’re all variations or improvements on existing products.
Now the world is clamoring for something completely new — something that’ll take off just like the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Some reports suggest it will be the Apple “iTV,” the company first television set, which is said to be in development inside the company’s Cupertino headquarters. But it’s more likely that Apple’s immediate concern is with the “iWatch,” a smartwatch powered by iOS that will bring all kinds of crazy-cool technology to your wrist.
I had suspicions Apple might be working on its own watch when it redesigned the iPod nano last year. A lot of fans used the tiny nano as a watch thanks to third-party strap accessories, and it seemed like its form factor and design were changed for a reason — to make way for something new.
We’ve been reading iWatch rumors for the past few months, so it’s time to put them all together and establish what we think we know about the iWatch so far.
Investment tycoon Carl Icahn has been bullish on Apple lately. In mid-August, Icahn unexpectedly tweeted that Icahn Enterprises, his diversified holding company, believed Apple to be “extremely undervalued.” Immediately, share prices jumped 5.6%. The next week, Icahn announced on Twitter that he and Tim Cook would be meeting in September to discuss a larger buyback program of AAPL shares.
That’s all nice, but Icahn is a business magnate, not an Apple fanboy. So what the heck is he up to here? A new theory being put forward by some investors is that Icahn has ulterior motives for his sudden Apple love affair: he wants Apple to buy Nuance, a company Icahn has a large stake in.
Google may have won a lot of new admirers thanks to its fancy Glass headwear, but Siri isn’t impressed one bit. In fact, if you try to talk to Siri about Google Glass she will just give you the cold shoulder.
A recently discovered easter egg in Siri spits back frustrated responses when you use the Glass prompt, “Okay Glass.”
The most vocal and active iPhone and Android fans scoff at the notion that Moto X is the new iPhone. But it’s true.
The iPhone used to represent the most elegant, innovative and fun-to-use smartphone for everybody. That status has now been taken by Motorola’s new “Google phone,” the Moto X.
Continuing its expansion at roughly the same pace as the known universe, Facebook has just announced that they have acquired Mobile Technologies, the developer of Jibbigo, a universal translator app for Android and iOS.
Facebook released an update for its iOS app today that adds support for hashtags, an aspect of Twitter that Facebook recently added on its desktop site. Users can now add hashtags in statuses and such to filter topics.
Another notable new feature is the ability to make a restaurant reservation within the Facebook app through OpenTable. Using “Nearby Places” and official pages for restaurants that have added OpenTable integration, Facebook users can quickly make reservations without needing to open a separate Web page or app. Apple has integrated OpenTable into Siri to help make restaurant reservations as well.
TV listing information for U.S. prime-time shows and movie pages are now displayed in the app, too. Facebook notes that today’s update also introduces “faster loading and a cleaner design for timelines on iPad,” so be sure to grab it in the App Store.
There’s a special delight to be had in watching upcoming movie trailers. Apple even has its own website and app dedicated to them. Watching a trailer is also a great way to find out if you want to even bother going to see a movie.
So, if you’re hanging out, looking for something to do on your iPhone or iPad, or you want to decide what movie to watch this evening, maybe you just want to ask Siri for help.
It’s pretty easy to ask her to show you a movie trailer. Here’s how.
Spike Jonze is coming out with a new movie and this time, rather than dissecting the mind of a famous movie star, Jonze’s new film, Her, takes a look at what it would be like to fall in love with an operating system like Siri.
The movie stars Joaquin Phoenix as a lonely dude with a non-ironic mustache who becomes intrigued with a new, Siri-like, advanced operating system named Samantha that’s powered by Scarlett Johansonn’s sexy vocal chords.
We’ll have to wait until November 20th to see what happens when you give Siri a soul and place her in the hands of anti-social men across the world, but here’s the first trailer to hold you over:
It feels like Apple is falling way behind. But I don’t think that’s true.
I believe Apple puts enormous brain power and good judgement into envisioning the Next Big Thing. It takes them a long time to get it to market. But once it’s there, they iterate to perfect the original vision.
In the year or two after Apple launches an iPhone or an iPad, everybody falsely believes Apple can do nothing wrong.
But then, as we get further away from the last launch and closer to the next one, everybody falsely believes Apple can do nothing right.
Completely separate and unrelated to false perceptions about Apple, Google lately has been on fire. And lately they’ve been kicking butt not only in their traditional role of algorithm-based Internet services, but also in Apple’s sandboxes—namely design and hardware.
Apple has never been the kind of company that copies out of a lack of vision. Nor have they avoided copying.
What’s great about Apple is that they develop an ultra-clear vision about how to maximize the user experience, then they make that experience happen regardless of whether the solutions have to be invented, copied or—most commonly—Apple’s own unique spin on something invented elsewhere.
There are many ways in which Apple should not copy Google. But there are six ways Apple should copy Google and, in doing so, make Apple a better company with better products.
Not only has Apple updated Siri’s default (in the US, at least) female voice to something a bit more natural, a little less arrogant sounding, but it’s also included a new male voice, as well. While a male-gendered voice has been available for a while in other regions, this is the first time Siri’s voice gender has been a choice we can enable on iOS.
Here’s how to switch Siri from a female to a male voice (and back again).
Apple has opened a new office in Boston that is working on beefing up Siri… and probably means that Cupertino wants to move away from relying on Nuance to provide Siri’s voice-recognition technology.
While Microsoft has lost an astonishing $900 million on the Surface RT and dropped the price to $349 to clear out inventory, they’re still bashing the iPad on national TV, this time using Siri to woefully lament her own feature-by-feature inadequacy compared to the Surface RT.
I have to admit, I love this commercial. Sure, the iPad is an infinitely better tablet, but I still think this is a funny and effective attempt by Microsoft to make the Surface RT seem like less of a lame duck. They should really be exerting this effort on the Surface Pro, though, which has gotten a much better reception than the also-ran RT.
I asked Siri something yesterday, and s/he – as usual – misheard me. Whatever I actually asked, Siri thought I said “Election Tacos,” and as that didn’t really fit in with Siri’s abilities, he did a web search. Only instead of popping me into Safari, the results were shown right on the lock screen. And that’s not all.
This time on The CultCast: Microsoft disses Siri but becomes her go-to search; Apple TV gets better with new apps; new Airport routers get even better; Anchorman 2 gets classier; we answer your Facebook questions; we pitch our favorite tech and apps on an all new Faves N Raves; and… WHEW! Just press play already.
All that and more on this week’s CultCast! Stream or download new and past episodes on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and may the shwartz be with you.
During today’s WWDC keynote, Apple’s Eddy Cue briefly mentioned Bing integration in iOS 7. While demoing new features in Siri, Cue mentioned that Bing is used to power web searches. Nothing was said about Google, and that shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Apple has been distancing itself from Google for quite some time. For instance, Apple Maps is now on iOS and OS X. Bing integration in Siri, while a more subtle move, is definitely a knife jab at Google. And Microsoft couldn’t be happier.
For one thing, there’s a new look to the interface. It’s flatter and cleaner, and now you see a soundwave of your voice as you speak. And the results display much more cleanly.
There’s also a new Siri voice. It sounds more natural, and it comes in both male and female varieties. German and French speakers are also getting more natural voices.
Siri understands more system-level commands, too. Play my last voicemail, increase brightness, turn on my Bluetooth! Siri now understands all of these instructions.
Siri can also answer more questions. Siri now interacts with Twitter, Wikipedia, and it even integrates web search results from Bing! Did they ditch Google?
Siri’s also a big part in iOS’s next feature, called “iOS in the Car.” The idea here is that iOS 7 will interact with in-dash displays. It’s an extension of Siri Hands-Free.
Depending on the way you ask Siri for the date of Father’s Day this year, she might give you two completely different answers. A redditor discovered that when you ask Siri, ‘Is Father’s Day this weekend?’ the personal assistant erroneously replies that “Father’s Day is on Friday, June 14th,” even though it most definitely is not.
To make matters more embarrassing Siri answers the questions correctly if you phrase it as “When’s Father’s Day?” On the bright side of things though, you now have an excuse if you forget to buy dad something in time.
Google just released Chrome 27 for iOS. The big update for Google’s third-party browser for iOS should have faster page reloading speeds as well as improved voice search.
Google included voice search in its Google Now app for iOS, but the conversational search tools are now being packed directly into Chrome as well. The update also gives Chrome the ability to speak search results back to you so you pretty much never have to look at your screen again if you don’t want to.
Siri knows everything(kind of). She even knows when you’re trying to use the Konami Code to cheat your way towards world domination.
In a newly discovered Siri Easter egg, if you try to give Siri the Konami Code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start), she’ll chide you for your cheating ways.
Here are two other responses you can get in the Easter egg:
