Barbra Streisand Called Tim Cook to Fix Siri's Mispronunciation of Her Name

NPR posted an audio interview with singer Barbra Streisand over the weekend, focusing on Streisand's North American tour of her new album Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway. In the middle of the 8-minute interview Apple gets mentioned briefly, specifically regarding the way that voice assistant Siri has mispronounced Streisand's name over the last five years.

Siri uses a hard 'z' sound when saying the second 's' in Streisand, so the singer took it upon herself to ask Apple CEO Tim Cook to get the company to correct the error in Siri's language. Cook was said to respond with an agreement to fix the issue in "the next update," supposedly referring to iOS 10.

"She pronounces my name wrong. Streisand with a soft 's' like sand on the beach, I've been saying this for my whole career. And so what did I do? I called the head of Apple, Tim Cook, and he delightfully agreed to have Siri change the pronunciation of my name finally, with the next update on September 30th. So let's see if that happens, because I will be thrilled."

It's unlikely Cook so readily divulged the release date of iOS 10, which is expected to launch earlier than the date mentioned by Streisand. The release for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus could be on September 16 or September 23, according to recent rumors, meaning iOS 10 would launch within a similar timeframe.