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Eric Schmidt says Siri poses competitive threat to Google
When Apple introduced Siri, I bet the Cupertino company never thought its voice assistant would help Google, but that's apparently what it's doing. Along with several other services, Siri is being used by Google to defend itself against accusations of anti-competitive behavior. In his Congressional testimony, Google's Eric Schmidt points to Siri as a rival in the search market. He refers to Siri when he is discussing the evolution of technology and how popular technology (presumably Google's search engine) is replaced by new models. Siri is one of these new models. Schmidt calls Siri a "significant development" and says it is an "entirely new approach to search technology." And he's right. It may be in the early stages of development, but Siri could have a powerful impact on how people search for content. Search may move away from keyboards, key phrases and static link results and move towards voice, natural language and computational results that use intelligent agents like Wolfram Alpha. Siri could be the critical first step in this evolution. [Via CNET and Engadget]
SiriTunes uses SMS to find free music
Today in TUAWsville, we got a message about SiriTunes, a service that delivers "free music" [tanstafm] to your phone using the Siri voice assistant. We contacted the developer to find out more about it. We were initially fairly concerned that that there was no privacy policy posted at the website, but the developer Brian Levine assured us, "I do not presently plan to share or sell any of the information, and am tracking very little." SiriTunes works like this. You text a message to (424) 888-7474 like "Play [artist name]." If you're using Siri, you can assign the phone number to a contact and tell Siri, "Text SiriTunes play Darius Rucker." SiriTunes searches for that music online and texts you back with one or more links to those files. Or at least what SiriTunes thinks is those files. The service was wrong every now and then in my brief tests. We were also concerned that these files were (to say the least) dodgy from a legal point of view. Levine responded, "I do not host any of the music tracks the service returns. They are publicly available URLs found through simple web searches. I do request the HTTP headers for each file to ensure the link is a valid music file." As for how this service might monetize, Levine said, "In this first iteration a small selection of free files are available, but I believe there is great opportunity to up-sell licensed content. Web searches may not be able to turn up results for every request. A link to the iTunes store or Internet radio site (Spotify, Rdio etc.) may be useful and convenient." Levine also talked about the motivation for his proof-of-concept website. "Customers access the service over mobile phone and it's all about providing benefit by making things easy and saving them time. Siri is a new technology and understanding the ways people search and the things they are looking for is incredibly valuable." We found SiriTunes to be easy to use and fun, but we are not intellectual property lawyers.
Using Siri to talk to a Mac 512K
Remember that scene in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home where Scotty converses with a vintage Mac by picking up the mouse and intoning "Computer..." to it? Well, YouTube regular "napabar" has gone one better by getting Siri on an iPhone 4S to create a text file on a mint-condition Mac 512K. Talk to the iPhone 4S, and moments later a text file appears on the Mac 512K. As with many attempts to use older technology -- in this case, a 27-year-old Mac -- a bridge between the old and the new is needed. In the following video, you can see how napabar does this. He uses Siri's capability to write and send an email using voice to move a message to his Mac, which runs an AppleScript to extract the text in the message, then move it to a bridge PowerBook that is sharing the Mac 512K's floppy drive (remember those) via AppleTalk. Sure, there are probably easier ways to do this, but it's still amazing that an Apple machine over a quarter-century old can be integrated with the latest Apple technology. In many ways, it demonstrates the continuity of some of the underpinnings of the Mac architecture that allow things like this to be accomplished -- even if the process is somewhat convoluted.
Siri may pose 'competitive threat' to Google, Eric Schmidt tells Senate subcommittee
Back in September, Google chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt sat down before a Senate antitrust subcommittee to discuss his company's competitive practices. As you would expect from anyone in his situation, Schmidt spent much of his time defending Mountain View's position atop the search industry, and cited several competitors as evidence of its fair play. The exec's list of "threats" featured some of the usual suspects, including Bing, Yahoo and Amazon, as well as Siri. "Even in the few weeks since the hearing, Apple has launched an entirely new approach to search technology with Siri, its voice-activated search and task-completion service built into the iPhone 4S," he wrote, pointing to a handful of publications that characterized Apple's voice assistant as a "Google Killer" and Cupertino's "entry point" into the search market. "Apple's Siri is a significant development -- a voice-activated means of accessing answers through iPhones that demonstrates the innovations in search," Schmidt explained. "Google has many strong competitors and we sometimes fail to anticipate the competitive threat posed by new methods of accessing information." Granted, it's not terribly surprising to hear Google talk up its competition -- especially before a panel of politicians devoted to rooting out anti-competitive practices. Yet Schmidt's comments do mark a noticeable shift from the stance he assumed last year, when he denied that Apple and Facebook posed a "competitive threat" to Google's search operations. As he admitted, "My statement was clearly wrong." Check out the full hearing at the source link below.
Eight cool ways to dine with Siri
Steve Sande and I have been collaborating on "Talking to Siri," an ebook that just recently hit the Kindle store. It's a how-to that helps you get the most done with your Siri intelligent assistant. We're sharing some of our favorite tips with TUAW readers. Today, we're looking at Siri's ability to help you pick a place to eat, meet up with friends, and calculate your total at the end. Without further ado, here are eight ways Siri can help you dine. Find restaurants. Tell Siri, "I'm in the mood for Ethiopian food," or ask "What is the best Ethiopian food in Denver?" If you ask more generally, as in the first statement, Siri looks for business near you, sorted by distance: "I found 15 Ethiopian restaurants. 10 of them are fairly close to you." If you search the city as a whole, Siri sorts by Yelp rating: "I've found 15 Ethiopian restaurants. I've sorted them by rating." Get directions. Once you've decided on a restaurant, tell Siri, "How do I get to 'Queen of Sheba.'" Siri replies, "Here are directions to Queen of Sheba," transferring you to the Google Maps application, with suggested routes laid out. Meet up with friends. Ask Siri, "Where is Steve Sande?" Siri uses Find My Friends to see where Steve is -- hopefully on the way to meet up with you and not too far away. Remember, you must log into your Find My Friends account to use this query. Your authenticated session will last for a good long time once you do so. Understand the menu. Curious about something on the menu? Want to learn more before you order? Say, "Search for Ethiopian Injeera on the Web." Siri doesn't handle foreign phrases as well as you might hope, but Google does very good "Did you mean?" analysis, and can help you move from Siri's interpretation to a solid web search about oddball food items. Calculate sales tax. Once you've eaten, say, "How much is $18.95 plus Denver sales tax?" Siri uses the local city rate to add it to your tab. Add a tip. A simple Siri request returns a list of tip amounts including 10%, 15%, 18%, 20% and 25% of a given total. Say, "What is tip on $20.41?" You can also say "What is an 18% tip on $86.74 for four people?" in case you want to split the bill. Find a dessert place nearby. Say, "Where can we go for dessert?" Siri searches through Yelp reviews to find mentions of desserts and lists them (along with their reviews) sorted by proximity. "I've found a number of restaurants whose reviews mention desserts fairly close to you." Get home safely. Once you're done with your evening, tell Siri, "Take me home." Siri provides directions to your home address. If you say, "I'm drunk," Siri will find you taxi cab listings to help you travel in a safe and responsible manner.
Siri tips: Don't transform your coworker into your spouse
If you don't want to accidentally marry your colleague, make sure you watch your phrasing when talking to Siri. Following a relationship with a contact without using some kind of helper word like "that" or "about" may confuse your voice assistant, as shown in the screenshot here. Instead of saying "Tell my wife, Erica Sadun is coming for dinner," insert "that." Saying "Tell my wife that..." followed by your statement helps separate the relationship from the contact that follows. Siri does such a good job interpreting speech that sometimes it's hard to remember she's just a bunch of algorithms in a North Carolina data center. Be sensitive to interpretation quirks, and try to avoid them where possible.
Siri driving iPhone 4S sales
One compelling feature of the iPhone 4S is Siri, the new voice control assistant that has taken iOS by storm. The technology powering Siri was acquired by Apple in early 2010 and lets users interact with their phone using voice control and natural language commands. According to analysts, customers are so interested in Siri. So much so that they are passing on the $99 iPhone 4, which does not offer Siri, and upgrading to the $199 iPhone 4S just to get the voice assistant. Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu says, "Talking to industry sources, what's driving the 4S is better than expected reception of its new Siri software." Wu is so optimistic about the iPhone 4S that he predicts Apple will sell a record-breaking 26 million iPhones in this holiday quarter. It's not surprising that people are enthralled by Siri. The voice assistant can help owners send text messages, schedule appointments and set alarms merely by talking to their phones. Siri is also programmed with a sense of humor and can be as amusing as it is helpful. And though it's not perfect, the voice assistant represents a jump in technology and is better than the voice control systems found on competing mobile platforms.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me with bilingual dictation
Dear Aunt TUAW, I just bought your Talking to Siri book on Amazon. Congratulations! I found very useful. I have a problem though: I mainly use Siri in French as most of my messages and email messages are in French. Sometimes I like to ask Siri Wolfram questions, so I must switch it to American English. My question is the following: Is there a way of telling the French Siri that my next query will be in English? That would avoid the hassle of having to go to preferences, activate English, perform the query and then go back to preferences to switch Siri back to French. Your loving nephew, Andre Dear Andre, Unfortunately, there is no in-Siri command for voice assistance that switches languages. The only way is to hop out, switch in preferences, and hop back in. There is, however, a work-around for multi-language dictation. Settings > General > International > Keyboards allows you to add keyboards, enabling the globe button. This button toggles directly between keyboard languages. A simple tap takes you to the next language setting, including dictation. You can easily move from French to English and back as you dictate into any text entry element on your iPad. Hopefully, Siri will support "Speak to me in French" requests in a future update. Hugs, Auntie T.
How Siri could change the 911 emergency system
Right now, the 911 emergency call system is designed to accept one thing -- phone calls. However, the US is on the verge of moving to Next Generation 911, which is a dramatic upgrade to the system that allows communications to be made via voice, video, and text. GigaOM's John Wilson postulates in a recent post that Apple's Siri could revolutionize emergency calls and home health care. In his post, Wilson describes an all too common scenario -- an elderly woman having a cardiac event who is able to dial 911, but can't speak more than a few words. As a result, she can't let the responders know what's wrong or tell them anything about existing medical conditions or medications. With Siri, he believes that a key phrase could set off a video call to emergency personnel who could use their own eyes and ears to get a better picture of what's going on. As part of Next Generation 911, GPS location information is sent with the call, so responders are able to discern the exact location of a caller even when they can't tell the emergency center where they are. Wilson has the key phrase launching an app, sending either focused information or a patient's entire medical history to the responders. Finally, a Siri-based emergency calling system could even notify next of kin as to what is happening and what hospital the caller is being taken to. Wilson then focuses on home health care, noting that Siri's natural language capabilities could make life better for millions of elderly or homebound. As he notes, there are many specialty devices for this market right now, but they're all expensive and relatively difficult to use. Wilson sees Siri being used to set and vocalize reminders of when to take medications, initiate video checkups with care providers or family members, and "begin a smooth chain reaction of events that would otherwise require far more time and energy to do - two things our elderly, chronically ill population have the least of." This won't happen overnight, of course, but as Wilson notes, "Clearly it won't just be Siri alone in this revolution of health care. Many more services will be created, and many more similar innovations are on the horizon. But every revolution needs its leader, and Siri is undoubtedly it."
Daily Update for October 31, 2011
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
Using Siri and MailShot Pro to send email to groups
One of the more useful features of Siri on the iPhone 4S is the ability to send email messages by asking Apple's intelligent assistant to do it. Telling Siri to "Email [name or nickname] about [subject]" produces a nicely formatted, but empty Mail message that Siri asks you to complete via dictation. This works fine with sending email to individuals, but what about sending to groups? Erica Sadun and I pondered this question as we were writing our popular ebook "Talking to Siri: Learning the Language of Apple's Intelligent Assistant." We found the answer in a US$3.99 app called MailShot Pro. Installing the app on your iPhone 4S lets you create custom groups which Siri can use to send emails to several recipients at once. With a quick tap, you can import individual names from the Contacts app or groups from Address Book on your Mac. You can also add names and email addresses manually. The groups end up in your Contacts list, accessible to Mail (via Siri or directly), FaceTime, Messages, and any app that can use an address from Contacts. %Gallery-137932% For the OCD folks out there, MailShot Pro includes a nice touch -- being able to sort the names in your group. If you only have a few groups with a handful of people in each group, you might wish to check out the free version of the app -- MailShot. Should you need more groups or have a lot of people in each group, MailShot Pro is available in the App Store with a tap.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Can I use bluetooth with Siri?
Dear Aunt TUAW, Auntie, you did a great job on the Siri book. I plan to work my way through it to maximize the use of Siri. You indicate a Bluetooth headset can be used to communicate with Siri. I've never had one but I'd like to keep the iPhone in my pants pocket and be able to talk to Siri as well as hear her responses. Is two-way communication possible with Siri in this situation? If so, do I need a certain type of headset or headphones? Are you allowed to make recommendations? You're assistance is greatly appreciated! Keep up the good work! Your loving nephew, Ken B. Dear Ken, Auntie has used both a Bluetooth earpiece and iPhone earbuds with Siri, and has found that the Apple earbuds were far better performance-wise. They worked very well in dealing with a pocketed-or-backpacked Siri, ambient-noise permitting (if the guy jogging next to you can't hear you over traffic, Siri won't either). Auntie tested Siri with a Jawbone ICON and had a great deal of trouble getting Siri to recognize it consistently, even when using the Jawbone in the recommended touching-the-cheek-bone position. Auntie thinks it's probably because of the particular brand and mic pick-up and not because of the Bluetooth technology. Obviously, this will also vary by noise conditions and the quality of the Bluetooth pickup. Unfortunately, Auntie didn't have access to any other BT devices to test with, so all she can report is that yes, it does work as long as you have a better audio pickup than the Jawbone provides. Does anyone have a really good BT earpiece to recommend? Let Auntie know! Hugs, Auntie T.
Apple launches three new iPhone 4S ads
Apple has kicked its iPhone 4S ad campaign into high gear with three new commercials featuring Siri, the new 8 megapixel camera, and integration with iCloud. All three ads are available on Apple's official YouTube channel, and they're also embedded below for your viewing pleasure. The new iCloud ad does a really good job of explaining the service in simple terms easy enough for the general population to understand, and the new ad for Siri does a better job than the first iPhone 4S ad in showing off what the "personal assistant" actually does. Expect all three ads to end up in heavy rotation over the next couple of months as Apple pushes sales of its latest device through the busy holiday season. It's pretty amusing (although undoubtedly coincidental) that the final Q&A in one ad is of a young boy asking "Do you think it will snow today?" with Siri answering in the affirmative. Of course Apple's ad agency couldn't possibly have known about the freak early Eastern US snowstorm this weekend... but then again...
Talking to Siri: the Wolfram Alpha search tricks video
On Friday, I posted a list of ten nifty Wolfram Alpha tricks you could use with Siri. They were inspired from an ebook that Steve Sande and I collaborated on. After the post was published, we received several emails and comments saying "every time I say Wolfram, Siri hears 'Wolf Ram.' Siri must be broken." On top of that, Mike Rose said he was having issues too. So I made a video to show that everything on that list could actually be said. I was going to call this the "proof that Mike Rose can't enunciate" video because Mike claims that he can't handle the "say a color hex sequence out loud." Instead, it turned into the "watch Erica butcher classic Monty Python" (because, frankly, airspeed velocity doesn't exactly roll off the tongue -- but on the bright side, I can do a lot of the argument clinic from memory). Anyway, for those of you (I'm looking at you, Mike) who swore up and down that some of the Wolfram Alpha / Siri examples I posted weren't humanly possible to articulate, well, here's proof. As for "Wolfram", it's Wolfrum, not Wolf Ram. That should help your recognition rate. Brought to you by the universally recognized "most irritating voice in the universe." If Siri doesn't mind me, hey, that's validation.
Siri port now talking to Apple servers, avoiding Cydia
A little cajoling from a clever developer got Siri talking to the iPhone 4 and the iPad, but Apple's tight-lipped servers kept the conversation effectively one-sided. The last-gen port was still missing something, and developer Steven Troughton-Smith knew where to find it: a jailbroken iPhone 4S. In an interview with 9to5Mac, Troughton-Smith said that getting Siri to talk to Cupertino's data servers only took ten minutes after he had all of the pieces in place. Ready for your personal assistant port? Hold the phone, the process is a bit dodgy -- our hacking hero said that getting Siri on the older device is a 20-step process, and it requires files from the iPhone 4S that he says aren't his to distribute. When asked about distributing the hack over Cydia, Troughton-Smith said it was something he couldn't be a part of. On Twitter he suggested that a release would "anger the hive," but promised to post detailed notes on the hack after a iPhone 4S jailbreak drops.
Siri hacked to work on jailbroken iPhone 4 and iPod touch
iPhone experts Steven Troughton-Smith and chpwn seem to have just gotten the iPhone 4S-only Siri working on jailbroken iPhone 4 and current-gen iPod touch units this evening. This bypasses earlier authentication issues. They tweeted their success and posted a screen shot showing Siri working via Wi-Fi (the Airplane Mode icon just means that 3G is turned off, but it is possible to turn Wi-Fi back on even in AM; that's what they did.) Their success comes just weeks after the iPhone 4S debuted. Since Apple's back-end systems are checking for iPhone 4S devices before processing Siri queries, they managed to work around this limitation. The hack is based on moving compiled code components from a 4S to the older units. In an interview with 9to5Mac, Troughton-Smith recounts that the Siri transplant was about a 20-step process, and that it does require access to a jailbroken iPhone 4S to work. He has no intention of releasing the mod to the public; this is a proof-of-concept only.
Poll: What's broken (or working) for you in iOS 5?
If you haven't updated to iOS 5 by now, let's face it: you never will. It's cool. We get it. Some of us are still using Netscape, too. For the rest of the iOS universe, though, iOS 5 has almost certainly been installed, and now that you've had a few weeks to tinker with it, we're interested in seeing what quirks are being found. We've received a number of reports surrounding call connection issues (on both Verizon Wireless and AT&T), "invalid SIM" warnings, a bug that shows an inbox as being full (when it clearly isn't) and iCloud refusing to load email altogether. Oh, and then there's that pesky Siri pincode bypass -- tsk, tsk! Toss your vote in below, and converse amongst yourselves in comments. Sharing is caring! %Poll-70290%
10 cool things you can do with Wolfram Alpha and Siri
Steve Sande and I have been collaborating on "Talking to Siri," an ebook that just recently hit the Kindle store. It's a how-to that will help you get the most done with your Siri intelligent assistant. We're sharing some of our favorite tips with TUAW readers. Today, we're looking at Siri's Wolfram Alpha integration. You can force Siri to use Wolfram by prefixing your request with "Wolfram." For example, you might say, "Wolfram, what is the square root of 2?" or "Wolfram, graph x-squared plus three." But there's a lot more that you can do with Wolfram than just math. Here are ten of our favorite Wolfram searches. These highlight the flexibility of this amazing information resource. Roll a Random Number. Say "Wolfram, random integer." Wolfram returns a random value between 0 and 1000. "Wolfram, random number" provides a 0 to 1 floating point value. Look up nature facts. Say, "Wolfram, what is the scientific name of a mountain lion?" It's Puma concolor. Rabbits are Leporidae, and Peacocks, Galliformes. Check upcoming holidays. Say, "How many days until Thanksgiving?" This returns both the number of days as well as a helpful calendar so you can chart out the time until then. Create a secure password. Say "Wolfram, password." Wolfram generates a difficult-to-crack 8-character password. Scroll down for alternates. If you need a longer password, you can append these together. Convert text to Morse code. Say, "What is Morse code for horsefeathers?" You'll see the entire sequence laid out for your tapping pleasure. Check your diet. Say, "How many calories in a small apple?" Wolfram will tell you that there are 75. Ask out about time zones. Say, "Wolfram, what is the local time in Jakarta?" Query about your chances. Say, "Wolfram, what is the probability of a full house?" For a random five-card hand, it's apparently 1 in 694. Have fun with pop culture. Say, "What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?" or "Wolfram, who shot the sheriff?" Visualize colors. Okay, I've saved the best for last. If you work with colors, this can save you a lot of time. Say, "Wolfram pound sign E 9 7 4 5 1" (for Burnt Sienna / Tangerine) or "Wolfram pound sign 2 9 A B 8 7" (for Jungle Green). This will also convert the colors to RGB values and look up closely-matching brand colors from Benjamin Moore. Make sure to scroll down to catch all the helpful information.
Thought experiment: hacking Siri to control your TV
Yesterday, our lead editor Mike Rose sidelined me to ask, "Could we tell Siri to control Apple TV?" Just as a thought experiment. After a bit of investigation, I had an answer for him, which was "Yes, you could, but no, you probably don't want to." That's because the degree of hacking necessary to make this happen, versus the actual real-world performance, really isn't worth the effort. It might make a cool demo, but not an effective remote control. The best and most obvious approach would have been to have Siri use URL schemes to trigger a local application on the iPhone, which would then coordinate with a Mac client or directly with Apple TV over Bonjour. Unfortunately, Siri does not allow you to open web pages -- yet. She's quite apologetic about this, but my hope for a URL-based solution was a no-go. Moving on, I investigated an AppleScript/email-based approach. Cory Bohon wrote up a series of tutorials a while back on TUAW demonstrating how to use mail rules to trigger scripts. You create rules (Preferences > Rules) that match message subjects and contents, and use the "Run AppleScript" choice to choose a script to trigger based on your rules. This was a much more promising avenue, but Mike and I agreed that the complexity of sending emails via Siri felt more complicated in practice than using SMS texting. I started investigating ways of triggering email rules by SMS. Fortunately, a simple solution quickly popped up: Google Voice. GV offers the option of forwarding text messages and provides the bonus feature of tagging subject lines with the incoming phone number. This makes it especially easy to authenticate and match incoming requests to Mail rules. In order to create the control scripts, I would use AirFlick rather than iTunes. I shall spare you the messy details, but I would extend the app to support external pause and play requests. Finally, you have to set up a contact on your iPhone using the Google Voice address. No big deal. Just make sure you use a name that Siri can easily recognize. The operational path then works like this: "Siri, text AirFlick 'pause'." You wait for Siri to compose the SMS message. You then send it. The iPhone texts Google Voice. Google Voice forwards the message to your inbox. The mail rule triggers and runs the AppleScript, which causes AirFlick to send a pause command. The whole latency from your spoken command to your Apple TV actually pausing? Probably under a minute. As I said, this is a not an optimal approach, but if I wanted to invest a couple of hours I could get it up and working today. So how close are we now to extending Siri control to our world and to third-party apps? Well, Siri can already pour you a beer and trigger any SMS-based Arduino set-up. But beyond using it for simple triggers, we're still pretty far away from fine-tuned control. Apple really needs to release a developer API that will provide third-party rules and vocabulary for Siri to follow before we can truly jump into "build your own remote with Siri" scenarios. Of course, by the time that happens the company may simply release a Siri-savvy TV of its own.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help Siri pronounce Dutch names
Dear Aunt TUAW, I am a great fan of your articles on all Apple-related products. I have a question for you about Siri. I am Dutch, live in Switzerland and work in a international company. How will this reflect on my Siri usage? Even with Voice Control I have a problem. My iPhone is setup in English (working language) but Dutch or Swiss/German names are not picked up well. So, did anyone try this out so far? Thanks for an answer. Your loving nephew, Hester B. Dear Hester, Here's a quick answer, courtesy of the "Talking to Siri" eBook: You can enter phonetic names in the Contacts app. These help with both pronunciation and recognition. Auntie created a contact for "Sergio Jones" in her address book, making sure to add a phonetic pronunciation field for the first name of "Ser hee yo" (Edit > Add field). Sure enough, once added, Siri was able to interpret Auntie's request to "Call Ser hee yo" to the right contact. The secret lies in using English-sounding phonemes. When Auntie pronounces Sergio correctly -- with rolled R, and the non-English-sounding "e" like "air" -- Siri will not pick it up. You need to English-ify the way you say it, so you better match what Siri expects. Auntie's friend Sjoerd van Geffen regaled her this morning with hilarious stories about trying to make a C-64 pronounce the Dutch "eu" sound. For some names, Auntie is afraid, you're just going to have to sacrifice the proper vowels. When talking to Siri with US-English set as your default language, you have to adapt the way you speak: unnaturally enunciated word endings, longer pauses between words than you're used to, and flatter English-y vowels. Try using "Choord" for "Sjoerd" and "Leak ah" for Lieke. Your Mac offers a great way to build these up. Use the "say" command from the Terminal app's command line, e.g. "Say leak ah". Fortunately Siri is even a little better at the "sounds like" translations than "say" is. Hugs, Auntie T.
