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Siri will soon pronounce Barbra Streisand’s name correctly after she complained to Tim Cook

Barbra Streisand’s name may be known by many for her world-renowned singing and acting career but it turns out Siri has always pronounced her name incorrectly, since its launch in 2011. In an interview with NPR, Streisand voiced her dissatisfaction about this publicly for the first time. Rather than using the correct soft ‘s’ sound for the middle of her surname, Siri announces her name using a ‘z’ pronunciation.

Apparently, this has bugged the celebrity since Siri launched and she has finally made a stink about it. She called Apple CEO Tim Cook directly and he ‘delightfully’ agreed to update Siri to use the correct pronunciation in a forthcoming update.

Aside from the amusing anecdote in which Streisand skips straight to the head of the largest company in the world to resolve a minor niggle, Streisand says that the Siri change will go into effect with “the next update on September 30”.

This date seems late for iOS 10. With an expected iPhone 7 launch of September 16, iOS 10 should be available before then — probably on the 14th. It would be very odd for iOS 10 not to be released until the last day in September.

The likely scenario is that Streisand’s retelling is inaccurate, perhaps Cook told her by the end of the month or maybe its not the literal next update, as in iOS 10.0, but a forthcoming update coming soon. It wouldn’t be out of character for an iOS 10.0.1 bug fix update to come on September 30, two weeks after the debut of Apple’s next major operating system.

Still, if you are a Barbra Streisand fan, you will be happy to find that Siri correctly pronounces the superstar’s name sometime next month. Listen to Streisand’s full interview on NPR.

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Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.


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