It is known that the voice of American voice-over artist Susan Bennett is associated with Apple’s virtual assistant. Bennett has been the voice of Siri since the service was introduced on October 4, 2011 on the iPhone 4S. However, recently, an important revelation was made by Hollywood actor Jeff Goldblum in an interview on the Today Show.
Steve Jobs wanted Jeff Goldblum as the voice of Apple
In the interview, the actor said that Apple’s ex-boss Steve Jobs once called him to be the voice of Apple. Goldblum would have become an important part of our mobile life today if he had agreed to be Apple’s voice at the time. However, the partnership never materialized, and Bennett became the voice of Apple’s virtual assistant and Thinking Different, notes CNET.
“Steve Jobs called me up a few decades ago to be the voice of Apple,” He said on the Today Show in Australia. “That was early on, and I did not know it was Steve Jobs.”
The popular actor has been in show business since the 70s.
Recently, the Hollywood actor was in Australia to promote Menulog and hand out free sausages. Menulog is a local food ordering app designed to reduce human contact. The app comes in the same vein as DoorDash and Seamless, notes Macrumors. We may have been not lucky enough to hear Goldblum’s voice in Apple’s virtual assistant, but at least we can hear his voice in Menulog’s first two ads, notes CNET.
Goldblum could have been the voice of Apple’s Siri
Goldblum, who has starred in popular movies like Jurassic Park and The Fly, provided no more details on the timing of the phone conversation with Steve Jobs. It is not clear if that call came after or before the Hollywood actor’s run in a series of late 90s “Think Different” ads marketing the iBook and iMac. It also seems unlikely that Jobs would offer the Jurassic Park actor a role as the voice of Apple’s virtual assistant. Apple did not purchase the company responsible for the virtual assistant until 2010.
It may be possible that the former CEO was looking to expand the role of Goldblum beyond the short series of Apple product ads, like lending his voice and likeness to campaigns that advertised other products or the Apple brand as a whole. Even then, there were good chances that Goldblum might have made his way into Siri.
Siri a critical part of Apple’s vision for the future
Siri is a very important part of Apple’s vision for the future. The iPhone maker is making heavy investments in teaching its voice assistant basic knowledge about the world. The company relies on several partnerships to help Siri improve, like taking Yahoo’s help to provide Siri with the facts needed to answer questions, notes TechCrunch.
However, Siri competes with the likes of Google, which has massive amounts of data at its disposal. To overcome such threats, Apple recently acquired Lattice Data for about $200 million. This startup could assist the company in developing a next-generation internal knowledge graph to power Siri.
