Siri’s new voice in iOS 15.4 is not explicitly male or female

By Scott Marlette Last updated Feb 25, 2022

Apple plans on giving Siri a new English-speaking voice with the upcoming iOS 15.4 update. According to Axios, this new voice is going to be gender-neutral which means that it won’t be explicitly male or female. The new voice will be option number five in Siri’s UI menu, but it won’t show up for now unless your iPhone is running the latest iOS 15.4 beta which was pushed out on Tuesday.

Starting last year, Apple no longer had Siri default to its iconic female voice. Users are now asked when setting up a new iPhone to select the voice they want Siri to use on their handset. As for the new American vocal option, Apple won’t reveal the name or the gender of the person who recorded the vocals except to say that he or she is a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

In a statement, Apple said, “We’re excited to introduce a new Siri voice for English speakers, giving users more options to choose a voice that speaks to them. Millions of people around the world rely on Siri every day to help get things done, so we work to make the experience feel as personalized as possible.”

Until you have iOS 15.4 beta, or iOS 15.4 loaded on your phone, Siri has four American voice options to choose from

Siri was introduced by Apple on the iPhone 4s which was unveiled on October 4th, 2011. And while this amounted to a head start for Apple in the voice assistant category, it was a lead that was too little for Apple to keep as Google Assistant has become the top virtual helper. Siri needs a lot of work, something we’ve pointed out quite often.

By the way, two years after Siri made her first public appearance on an Apple handset, the voice-over actress claiming to be the U.S. voice of the digital assistant, Susan Bennett, came forward to take credit. In July 2005, Bennett recorded her voice using a home studio for four hours per day and these recordings reportedly were used to create the recognizable voice of Siri.

To change Siri’s voice on your iPhone, go to Settings > Siri & Search > Siri Voice. Select the Variety (American, Australian, British, Indian, Irish, and South African) and the voice number. If you are running the latest iOS 15.4 beta, you’ll have five options under the American variety with the new non-gender voice at number five. If you’re running iOS 15.3.1 (the latest stable update) or earlier, you’ll have four voice options to choose from.

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