My Gadget Life – Siri’s Jon Briggs

I didn’t know I was the voice of the iPhone 4S

The first I knew of it was when Rory Cellan-Jones demonstrated it on the BBC. The Siri voice is part of a package called Daniel that

I recorded about six years ago. There are no real words in it; it’s made up entirely of the sounds that construct them.

I have an iPhone 4S

But I try not to talk to myself too much. The nicest thing about Siri is that it has a sense of humour. It reminds me of a verbally controlled voicemail service called Wildfire that used to be on Orange phones. It would moo like a cow if you said the right thing to it.

Talking to gadgets will soon feel natural

We’re already used to touching screens or using Kinect to manoeuvre things on a screen without touching it. That all seemed like sci-fi when Tom Cruise did it in Minority Report.

I’m an early adopter

I’ve got cupboards full of redundant tech. I owned an Apple Newton when it was first out and was amazed by it. I started my business on Apple computers because they would network properly. You could plug one into the other and it just understood.

I’m a total petrolhead

I drive a Range Rover Evoque. I love the automatic parking and the dual screen that allows the driver and passenger to see two different things. Funnily enough I’m the sat-nav voice on it – the worst thing about it is when it gets the intonation wrong.

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