If you tuned into Game 2 of State of Origin the other night, it may have occurred to you that the voice singing the national anthem before the match sounded eerily familiar, though the name Karen Jacobsen may not actually ring any bells.
Perhaps if you heard Jacobsen speak, particularly if she was giving you directions or performing a Google search for you, you’d remember where you know her voice from. Jacobsen is in fact the voice of Apple’s Siri and most likely your GPS, too.
Jacobsen isn’t the only Siri, as there are separate voices for the American, British, and Australian versions of Apple’s virtual assistant, but it’s Jacobsen’s voice that you most likely hear when you hold the home button on your iPhone.
A graduate of the Queensland Conservatorium, Jacobsen is a trained singer who’s performed in musicals, had her songs featured on soundtracks, and shared stages with the likes of Norah Jones, Cyndi Lauper, Deborah Cox, and others.
In 2002, Jacobsen’s voice was chosen for the Australian English option in GPS units for Garmin, Navman, TomTom, and Mio, as well as for several other telephone and computer software systems, and linked up with Apple in 2011.
According to an interview with ABC Radio (which is a seriously freaky listen), recording the part of Siri involved 50 hours’ worth of reading through a phonebook-sized script. Check out her State of Origin performance below.
