Susan Bennett unexpectedly became the spokesperson for Apple’s revolutionary voice assistant, and she said that this experience shows the importance of accessible technology. Even if you are not familiar with Susan Bennett’s name, you may recognize her voice.
As the original Siri, Bennett became a reliable presence in the lives of many iPhone users, responding to various queries and executing verbal commands. She said her voice work is also helpful to smartphone users with disabilities. But make no mistake-Bennett is not a technician himself. “I’m terrible in terms of technology,” she told me on the Zoom phone from her home in Atlanta. “It’s not intuitive to me at all.” Except for the iPhone and Mac she uses to record, Bennett said she has very little interaction with anything related to technology.
This is why she was so shocked when she discovered that her voice was used in Apple’s new Siri virtual assistant at the end of 2011. “A voice actor emailed me and said,’Hey, we are playing this new iPhone [feature]. Isn’t this you?’ Then I went to the Apple website to listen and said,’Oh, wow. Um, What does it mean?’” This means that her voice will become a core part of people’s digital life, everything from providing answers to search queries to sharing weather forecasts and providing directions. From Siri’s release in October 2011 to 2013, Bennett’s voice was used as an assistant until Apple replaced her with a new voice actor.
News Source : Cnet.com
