Apple Responds to Lawsuits Over Siri

A couple of months ago, Apple was hit with a number of class action lawsuits which claimed that Siri's performance didn't quite match up to what was advertised, accusing the company of false advertising.

Apple has now responded to these lawsuits in a legal filing, defending Siri's performance and calling out the plaintiffs for not being specific enough:

They [the plaintiffs] offer only general descriptions of Apple’s advertisements, incomplete summaries of Apple’s website materials, and vague descriptions of their alleged—and highly individualized—disappointment with Siri. Tellingly, although Plaintiffs claim they became dissatisfied with Siri’s performance “soon after” purchasing their iPhones, they made no attempt to avail themselves of Apple’s 30-day return policy or one-year warranty—which remains in effect. Instead, they seek to take an alleged personal grievance about the purported performance of a popular product and turn it into a nationwide class action under California’s consumer protection statutes. The Complaint does not come close to meeting the heavy burden necessary to sustain such claims.

The response goes onto note that the plaintiffs' claims are "lack standing" (fit to be dismissed) since they are not residents of California, where the lawsuit was filed.

Apple also brings in Siri's beta status as an added layer of defense:

As a cutting-edge technology still under development, Siri was released (and remains) in “beta.”  

[...]

Although Plaintiffs acknowledge that the Siri “FAQ” page and a footnote on the “iPhone Features” section of Apple’s website disclose Siri’s beta status, they neglect to mention that, both the Siri section on the “iPhone 4S Features” page and the “Siri Features” page to which it links also prominently disclose Siri’s beta status.

While Siri's beta tag might be a genuine enough reason for its far-from-perfect performance, it will be interesting to see if Apple will be able to get away by saying that Siri is a beta feature, especially when the beta tag hasn't stopped Apple from promoting Siri in the iPhone 4S ads (without the "beta" disclaimer).

For Apple's entire response to the lawsuit, head over to this link.

[via WSJ]