If you’ve ever wondered about who were the voices behind Apple’s Siri voice assistant, they’ve all remained a mystery at least until today. The voice of the UK English version of Siri, aka Daniel, has come forward to reveal himself as a man named Jon Briggs. In case you weren’t aware, unlike the US English version which is voiced by a female, the UK English version of Siri is voiced by a male.
According to the Telegraph, Jon Briggs was a former technology journalist who “fell into” voice-over work to record Daniel with a company named Scansoft, which was subsequently merged with Nuance – the company that worked with Apple on Siri. He basically recorded “five thousand sentences over three weeks, spoken in a very particular way and only reading flat and even.”
While his work with Scansoft was done about five to six years ago, Apple still approached him to keep quiet about Siri. In fact he only found out his voice being used in Siri when an Apple demonstration was playing on TV – talk about being kept out of the loop! Regardless, he wasn’t feeling bitter about the whole situation, in fact he seems more amused at being part of what Google calls a threat.
And if you think you recognize Jon Briggs’ voice, you might have heard him voicing for other products such as the satnav for Garmin, TomTom, Jaguar, Land Rover, Audi and Porsche, as well as a voice on Radio 2 and The Weakest Link.
Now that one Siri voice has revealed himself, I wonder if the other voices will go public as well. I’m sure we’re all dying to know the faces of the people who tell us lame jokes, direct us to our destinations and set our alarms.
Filed in . Read more about Apple Inc, iOS, iPhone, iPhone 4S and Siri.