Siri facts for kids
Siri running on iOS 15.
|
|
| Original author(s) | Siri Inc. |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Apple |
| Initial release | October 4, 2011 |
| Operating system | iOS 5 onward, macOS Sierra onward, tvOS (all versions), watchOS (all versions), iPadOS |
| Platform |
|
| Available in | |
| Type | Intelligent personal assistant |
Siri is a smart digital assistant found in Apple's devices like iPhones, iPads, and Macs. It uses your voice and other ways to understand what you want. Siri can answer questions, suggest things, and do tasks by connecting to online services. The more you use Siri, the better it gets at understanding your habits and preferences. This helps it give you more personalized results.
Siri started as a project from a research center called SRI International. Its ability to understand speech comes from a company called Nuance Communications. Siri uses advanced machine learning to work. The original voices for Siri in American, British, and Australian English were recorded around 2005. The voice actors didn't know their voices would be used for a digital assistant.
Siri first came out as an app for iOS in February 2010. A couple of months later, Apple bought Siri. They then put it into the iPhone 4s when it was released on October 4, 2011. After this, the separate Siri app was removed from the App Store. Since then, Siri has been a key part of many Apple products. These include newer iPhone models, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac, AirPods, Apple TV, and HomePod.
Siri can do many things, like making phone calls, checking information, setting reminders, and searching the internet. It can also help you with device settings, navigation, and finding entertainment. With iOS 10 in 2016, Apple allowed some other apps to work with Siri. This included messaging, payment, and ride-sharing apps. In iOS 11, Siri got new voices and could answer follow-up questions. It also gained the ability to translate languages and do more with third-party apps. Starting with iOS 17 and iPadOS 17, you can activate Siri by just saying “Siri.” The older command, “Hey Siri,” still works too.
When Siri first launched on the iPhone 4s in 2011, people had mixed feelings. They liked its voice recognition and how it knew about your calendar. But some found it hard to use because it needed exact commands. It also sometimes struggled to find information about nearby places or understand different English accents. In 2016 and 2017, some reports said Siri wasn't improving as fast as other voice assistants. These reports mentioned Siri's limited features and voice recognition issues.
Contents
How Siri Was Made
Siri began as a project from the Stanford Research Institute’s Artificial Intelligence Center. It was part of a larger project funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The co-founders were Dag Kittlaus, Tom Gruber, and Adam Cheyer. Kittlaus named Siri after a co-worker in Norway. The name "Siri" is a shorter version of "Sigrid," which means "victory" and "beautiful" in Old Norse.
The technology that lets Siri understand your speech came from Nuance Communications. For many years, neither Apple nor Nuance confirmed this. But in 2013, Nuance's CEO confirmed it. This speech recognition system uses advanced machine learning techniques.
Apple bought Siri Inc. in April 2010. Steve Jobs led this acquisition. Apple had thought about a digital assistant even earlier. A video from 1987 called Knowledge Navigator showed a similar idea.
Apple Intelligence
Siri's Voices
The original American voice of Siri was recorded in July 2005 by Susan Bennett. She didn't know her recordings would be used for Siri. Later, she revealed her role, and an audio expert confirmed it. Apple has never officially said who the voice actors are.
The original British male voice was provided by Jon Briggs. He was a technology journalist and narrated a BBC quiz show. He found out he was Siri's voice by watching TV. He said he did the voice work "five or six years ago" and didn't know how it would be used.
The original Australian voice was provided by Karen Jacobsen. She is a voice-over artist known as the GPS girl in Australia.
In an interview, Jon Briggs mentioned that the original system was recorded for a company called Scansoft. Nuance later bought Scansoft, and Apple then licensed the voices from Nuance.
For iOS 11, Apple looked for new female voices. They recorded many hours of speech to create new text-to-speech voices using deep learning technology. In February 2022, Apple added Quinn, its first gender-neutral voice option, in the iOS 15.4 update.
Where Siri Is Used
Siri was first released as a separate app for iOS in February 2010. At that time, the creators also planned to release Siri for Android and BlackBerry phones. Two months later, Apple bought Siri. On October 4, 2011, Apple launched the iPhone 4S with a test version of Siri built-in. After this, Apple removed the old Siri app from the App Store.
Over the years, Apple has added Siri to more of its products. This includes newer iPhone models and iPad support in June 2012. iPod Touch support came in September 2012. Apple TV and the special Siri Remote got Siri in September 2015. Mac and AirPods support arrived in September 2016. Finally, HomePod speakers got Siri in February 2018.
What Siri Can Do
Apple offers many voice commands to interact with Siri. Here are some examples:
- Phone and text actions: "Call Sarah," "Read my new messages," "Set the timer for 10 minutes," and "Send email to mom."
- Check basic information: "What's the weather like today?" and "How many dollars are in a euro?"
- Find facts: "How many people live in France?" and "How tall is Mount Everest?". Siri often uses Wikipedia to answer these.
- Schedule events and reminders: "Schedule a meeting" and "Remind me to ..."
- Handle device settings: "Take a picture," "Turn off Wi-Fi," and "Increase the brightness."
- Search the Internet: "Define ...", "Find pictures of ...", and "Search Twitter for ..."
- Navigation: "Take me home," "What's the traffic like on the way home?", and "Find driving directions to ..."
- Translate words and phrases: From English to some other languages, like "How do I say where is the nearest hotel in French?"
- Entertainment: "What basketball games are on today?", "What are some movies playing near me?", and "What's the synopsis of ...?"
- Work with iOS apps: "Pause Apple Music" and "Like this song."
- Handle payments: Through Apple Pay, such as "Apple Pay 25 dollars to Mike for concert tickets."
- Share your arrival time: Share your ETA with others.
Siri also has many fun, pre-programmed answers to funny questions. For example, if you ask "What is the meaning of life?", Siri might say "All evidence to date suggests it's chocolate." If you ask "Will you marry me?", it might reply "My End User Licensing Agreement does not cover marriage. My apologies."
At first, Siri only had female voices. But in June 2013, Apple announced that users could choose a male voice too.
In September 2014, Apple added the "Hey Siri" feature. This lets users activate Siri just by speaking, without touching their device.
In September 2015, the "Hey Siri" feature was improved. It could recognize individual voices. This was probably to stop other people from accidentally activating your Siri.
With iOS 10 in June 2016, Apple allowed other app developers to use Siri. This was through a special application programming interface (API). This API let Siri work with third-party messaging, payment, ride-sharing, and internet calling apps.
In iOS 11, Siri could understand follow-up questions and translate languages. It also worked with more third-party apps for things like task management. Plus, users could type to Siri. A new "on-device learning" method improved Siri's suggestions by privately looking at how you use different apps.
iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 let users simply say "Siri" to start it. The assistant now supports back-to-back requests. This means you can ask multiple questions without saying "Siri" again. In test versions of iOS 17 and iPadOS 17, Apple also added support for asking Siri questions in two languages at once.
iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and MacOS 15 Sequoia will bring new artificial intelligence features to Siri. This includes integration with ChatGPT. Apple calls these new features "Apple Intelligence."
See also
In Spanish: Siri para niños
- List of speech recognition software
- Amazon Alexa
