How to give Siri a sex change
Siri is quite possibly the first artificially intelligent entity to possess a degree from a major American university. While the five year old voice-activated intelligent assistant managed to skip out on turning in any papers, University of Florida president Ken Fuchs confirmed upon Siri a "special diploma" Bachelor of Arts in Humanity.
Get it? "Humanity," not "Humanities." Very clever. Very clever, indeed.
Siri's original American voice was performed by Susan Bennett, who, as it turns out, didn't know she was the voice of Siri until the iPhone 4S was actually released to the public and her agent called because he recognized her voice on the phone. As the Guardian reports, her voice was recorded for a company called ScanSoft, which was acquired by Nuance. Nuance licensed the recording to Apple.
So, yeah, the actress who originally voiced Siri didn't find out she would have the most argued-with voice in human history until after the fact. That's Apple for you.
As it turns out, Ms. Bennett isn't the only voice of Siri. If you want a voice that's male, or one with a British or Australian voice, it's merely a few taps away. Of course, if you want a Scottish voice or some other English-like accent, you're out of luck.
Siri does support the following languages, according to Apple:
Available languages for Siri
I'm an English speaker, so I can only walk you through the English language options. If you get tired of the female American Siri voice, you can give Siri a male voice. You can also give Siri a UK or Australian voice, in either male or female. Here's how to do it on your iOS device.
First, open up Settings on your iPhone and select Siri.
Select Siri in Settings.
Next, tap Siri Voice.
Tap Siri Voice.
Finally, choose the gender and nationality you wish.
Choose gender and nationality.
There you go. It's a start. But I do wish there were more options. We have a Tom Tom GPS and the company offers a wide variety of voices. You can choose from Homer Simpson to Yoda, and even Snoop Dog. My personal favorite is Dennis Hopper. How cool would it be if Siri sounded like Dennis Hopper? Strange, yes. But oh, so cool.
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