PERSONAL trainer Siri Price has been forced to change her name — to stop iPhones pinging every time someone calls out to her.
She had endured sharing her name with Apple’s voice-activated digital assistant for years as it needed the full phrase “Hey Siri” to be triggered.
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But a recent update means users now only need to say “Siri” for their devices to spring into action.
Now known to friends as Siz, the 26-year-old said: “I work in a gym with a lot of people around so everyone learned quite quickly not to say ‘Hey’ when they greet me or there would be a lot of bleeping going on.
“It was annoying but manageable.
“Now people can’t even say my name. I’m absolutely fuming.
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“My workmates had to sit down and think of a workaround because people’s phones have been going off non-stop.”
Siz, who uses an iPhone herself, added: “My boyfriend got the new update the other day and noticed it would wake his phone every time he spoke to me.”
Edinburgh-based Siri’s name means “beautiful woman who leads you to victory” in Old Norse.
Meanwhile, her digital namesake is an acronym for the less glamorous description, “Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface”.
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And calling out the shortened version sets off a chorus of virtual assistants, which are trained to announce calls, send messages and offer travel directions.
Siz added: “I’m sure Apple could have picked something else instead — there’s plenty of people called Siri and their lives have become just unbearable because of this.”
In February, an American woman called Alexa Seary, 27, said she had come to to terms with her double-tech trigger moniker having earlier found it to be a “waking nightmare”.
The move to shorten the activating phrase for Siri means it joins the ranks of Amazon’s virtual assistant — which goes by a simple “Alexa”.
Meanwhile, Google’s assistant maintains the fuller “Hey Google” or “OK Google” phrases to prevent users setting it off while talking about the popular search engine.
Apple has been approached by The Sun for comment.
