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April 13, 2025
The delay of the announced AI improvements for Apple's voice assistant Siri is attracting further legal consequences. Following an initial lawsuit in San Jose, California, for alleged consumer deception, two further lawsuits have now been filed – one also in California and one in British Columbia, Canada. The plaintiffs accuse Apple of advertising features that were not available at the announced time. At the same time, there is internal movement at Apple: According to reports, a new internal deadline has been set for the release of the Siri improvements.
The new lawsuit in California was filed in the same court as the first lawsuit. It is possible that the lawsuits will be combined into a class-action lawsuit if a judge deems it appropriate. Similar to the first lawsuit, the plaintiffs accuse Apple of misleading advertising and violating competition law by advertising "Apple Intelligence" and Siri upgrades that did not yet exist. The plaintiffs state they would not have purchased the iPhone 16 if they had known about the delays. Apple had originally promised to introduce a context-sensitive Siri with access to iPhone data, as well as app control with screen reading, with iOS 18.4 or 18.5. These features were supposed to function locally and be privacy-friendly.
Apple is also facing similar accusations in Canada. The plaintiffs argue that Apple Canada engaged in misleading advertising and thereby induced customers to pay "unjustifiably inflated prices" for the iPhone 16. Here, too, damages are being sought, which in the US, in the case of a class-action lawsuit, could well reach millions.
Apple seems to be reacting internally to the criticism and the legal steps. According to reports, the company has restructured its Siri team and given the project new momentum. The New York Times reports that the further development of the Siri functions has not been discontinued and features such as voice-controlled editing and sending photos are still planned. According to the report, the problems are said to have begun as early as the beginning of 2023, when the then AI chief John Giannandrea requested additional AI chips for Siri development. While CEO Tim Cook allegedly wanted to double the budget, the then CFO Luca Maestri is said to have rejected this, which led to budget cuts and delays.
Giannandrea is then said to have tried to increase the efficiency of the existing training infrastructure, which, however, took time. In addition, Apple resorted to cloud providers such as Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services. According to reports, Apple had only 50,000 GPUs at its disposal in the meantime, most of them already five years old. This represented a significant disadvantage compared to the competition. Internal conflicts between the various teams and disagreements about project management are also said to have contributed to the delays.
Although Apple has internally set a new timeline and the improved Siri features are now expected by fall 2025, it remains to be seen whether this deadline can be met. The delays and the associated lawsuits highlight the challenges Apple faces in developing and implementing advanced AI features.
Quellen: - Heise Online: Weitere Klagen gegen Apple wegen verschobener Siri – neuer Termin steht. - Heise Social: @macandi/114324111394463731 - Socialpromo: Weitere Klagen gegen Apple wegen verschobener Siri – neuer Termin steht. - Golem.de: KI-Siri: Klage gegen Apple wegen irreführender Werbung eingereicht. - NG-IT: Weitere Klagen gegen Apple wegen verschobener Siri – neuer Termin steht. - IT-Boltwise: Apple steht vor neuen Herausforderungen wegen Siri-Verzögerungen. - Threads.net: @heiseonline/post/DIWjZtOC-4w/apples-gebrochenes-versprechen - Netzwelt: Sammelklage gegen Apple: Versprechen vom Konzern nicht gehalten. - MacTechNews: Klage gegen Apple wegen Kundentäuschung: Apple Intelligence sorgt für mehr Ärger.