When Apple launched its voice-based personal assistant with iPhone 4S, many of us did pause and wonder what kind of a name is Siri. This is because Apple has a knack of naming things differently. The names are often sleek, modern and tend to go with the product, as in they define the very product. Siri, however, didn’t stand up to that standard. And it now turns out that even Steve Jobs agreed.
Dag Kittlaus is one of the co-founders of Siri. After Apple purchased Siri, he was also the head of speech recognition team at Apple until late last year. He has revealed that Steve Jobs didn’t really like the name ‘Siri’ for the voice-based personal assistant and didn’t think it apt enough to be used. Kittlaus also revealed where the exact name ‘Siri’ came from.
According to him ‘“I worked with a lady named Siri in Norway and wanted to name my daughter Siri and the domain was available. And also consumer companies need to focus on the fact that the name is easy to spell, easy to say.’
A little digging around reveals that Siri is a Norwegian name which means ‘beautiful woman who leads you to victory.’ While we can’t as yet think of any battles any iPhone users have won with the help of Siri, it did certainly help Apple win the battle of supremacy in the smartphone market.
Kittlaus further stated that after Siri app was launched on iPhone, Jobs called him over and told him that he really like Siri but couldn’t get to like its name. But he decided to go with it any way. ‘Apple is) patient — they don’t jump on anything until they feel they can go after something new, and he felt that we cracked it. So that was his attraction (to Siri)’ he further states.
Image courtesy topgold.
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What an intense and pointless story.