Apple continues to face the fallout from its decision to delay the “more personalized Siri” that it first announced last summer as part of Apple Intelligence. Axios reports that Apple is facing a federal lawsuit alleging that its “promotion of now-delayed Apple Intelligence features constituted false advertising and unfair competition.”
Apple Intelligence lawsuit
Apple Intelligence has played a key role in Apple’s marketing of the iPhone 16. The company has run ads promoting features including Image Playground, Genmoji, and Siri with personal context. After its decision to delay the feature, Apple pulled its ad promoting the more personalized Siri from YouTube. It also added new disclaimers to its website about the availability of the feature.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit note that Apple’s ads “saturated the internet, television, and other airwaves to cultivate a clear and reasonable consumer expectation that these transformative features would be available upon the iPhone’s release.”
Additionally:
Contrary to Defendant’s claims of advanced AI capabilities, the Products offered a significantly limited or entirely absent version of Apple Intelligence, misleading consumers about its actual utility and performance. Worse yet, Defendant promoted its Products based on these overstated AI capabilities, leading consumers to believe they were purchasing a device with features that did not exist or were materially misrepresented.
The plaintiffs acknowledge that Apple pulled the ad promoting the more personal Siri from YouTube, but still note the company “has failed to retract all the similarly false representations in the market that began in the Summer of 2024, much less take any action that would adequately remedy the consumers harmed by the company’s widespread deception.”
The lawsuit says that the promotion of Apple Intelligence features “drove unprecedented excitement” as Apple aimed to “convince consumers to upgrade at a premium price point.”
The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in San Jose. It seems unspecified damages for people who purchased devices capable of running Apple Intelligence features. As Axios notes, the lawsuit was filed by Clarkson Law Firm, the same firm that “also sued Google and OpenAI over their AI practices.”
Is a lawsuit against Apple over its botched Apple Intelligence rollout justified? Let us know what you think in the comments.
You can read the full lawsuit over at Axios.
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