The Siri personal assistant implemented by Apple in iPhone 4S and iOS 5 has a voice for each available accent. Of course, few people knew who are the people whose voices are implemented in the new system, that is until today when we find out as Daniel Briggs is the voice of the British version of the Siri assistant. We have Daniel in the images above and we are talking about a British man whose voice was recorded 6 years ago by a company that was acquired by Nuance, the company that licensed the voices for Siri to Apple.
Jon Briggs, a former technology journalist who "fell into" voice-over work, recorded "Daniel" for Scansoft, which subsequently merged with Nuance, the company that works with Apple on Siri.
The notoriously secretive Apple has, it should be said, asked Briggs not to talk about Siri - "We're not about one person," they told him - but, since Briggs pointed out that he had never had a contract with them, the company has not been back in touch.
Daniel claims that he has never collaborated with Apple and what we hear today are words recorded by him 6 years ago. The company that paid him for the recordings processed his voice and those from Nuance used it in their own programs until Apple implemented it in Siri. For now, it is not known who are the people behind the other voices of the personal assistant in iOS 5, but if you use the British accent together with Siri, then it would be good to keep in mind the man in the images above.
