Many things have impressed consumers about the iPhone 4S, but none more than Siri, Apple’s brilliant new digital assistant technology. But Siri wouldn’t exist today if it weren’t for Norwegian entrepreneur Dagg Kittlaus, Siri’s original inventor.
Kittlaus was recently profiled by Norwegian publication E24, and 9to5Mac shares the translated version of the story.
Kittaus, who is just 34 year’s old, left his post as a Motorola executive in 2007 to co-found Siri along with 3 colleagues: Adam Cheyer, Tom Gruber, and Norman Winarsky. Originally formed at Stanford, the company and its ideas quickly grew, forming the basis for the Siri technology we know today.
After developing their idea for a few years, Kittlaus and his colleagues received a personal phone call from Steve Jobs, asking to purchase their company, and offering $200 million dollars. Kittlaus accepted the offer, and joined Apple to refine the software into what we see on the iPhone 4S today.
It’s a pretty amazing moment for anybody to get a call from Steve Jobs, especially one involving $200 million dollars! I guess you could say that Kittlaus’ decision to leave Motorola really paid off.
What’s even more interesting about the story is that Kittlaus himself claims that Apple will bring Siri to other platforms in the future, and specifically that Apple “will produce TVs with Siri as an integral part of the package.”
Kittlaus recently left Apple in order to spend more time with his family and work on other projects – and I can’t say I blame him. If I had a chunk of change the size of his, I’d probably move about pretty freely as well – why be tied to a company if you don’t have to be?
Perhaps one of the most notable sections of the profile, however, was the thoughts that Kittlaus shared on the passing of Steve Jobs:
Well, my strongest reaction came when I realized how sick he was, that he had not long to live. There I realized the job, we were together every day. My reaction to that was a lot stronger than I was prepared, it put me out properly. He is the inventor in history that changed the most, dozens of industries around the world is turned upside down.
It’s a pretty amazing story, and personally I love to hear things like this about the technology I use every day – it makes my experience in the technology world that much more meaningful.