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Apple sued over 'deceptive' Siri ads

Written by James Delahunty @ 13 Mar 2012 1:23 User comments (16)

Apple sued over 'deceptive' Siri ads Disappointed iPhone 4S owner sues Apple.
A New York man has filed a lawsuit against Apple, claiming that the advertisement's for Siri are deceptive and misleading. Frank Fazio bought his iPhone 4S in November last year after seeing advertisements showing Siri being used.

"Defendant's advertisements regarding the Siri feature are fundamentally and designedly false and misleading," the complaint reads. "Plaintiff would not have paid the price he did for the iPhone 4S had he not seen these representations."

The suit specifically mentioned ads showing Siri helping users to locate restaurants, make appointments, tie a tie and even learn guitar chords. Fazio found that Siri just didn't work as advertised in his own experience, and so the lawsuit describes the iPhone 4S as "merely a more expensive iPhone 4."

"When Plaintiff asked Siri for directions to a certain place, or to locate a store, Siri either did not understand what Plaintiff was asking, or, after a very long wait time, responded with the wrong answer," the lawsuit states, though it does acknowledge that Siri is still in beta.



Fazio is not alone in criticizing Siri's performance however, with even Steve Wozniak suggesting that Siri has gotten less useful than it was at launch.

Tags: Apple
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16 user comments

113.3.2012 04:28

if he using it few days after he bought it, should of return it

213.3.2012 07:58

Good luck with that one Apple will laugh it out of court......

313.3.2012 10:46

This guys got balls going up against apple lawyers. But who buys a phone for just one specific feature?

413.3.2012 12:06

i guess someone has to stand up to the big boys at some point. i defense of him buying a phone for one feature, i myself was quite impressed with their siri ads, but i wondered how it could work so good. seems too much like artificial intelligence.

513.3.2012 13:07

"Siri, Why do you suck?"

"I'm sorry. I do not understand."

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 13 Mar 2012 @ 1:08

613.3.2012 17:32

Originally posted by birdiebandit18:
i myself was quite impressed with their siri ads, but i wondered how it could work so good.
I thought as much until I got a 4S, which I needed since my old 3G was just miserable to use anymore. I must say I thought of Siri as a marketing gimmick and didn't think of it as a "must have" feature until I started using it... and though the ads seem to be farfetched, it works pretty much as advertised, so much so that I can tell it to call my wife and it will! (Of course it asked who my wife was the first time I asked this question.)

Now and then I'll try to throw dumb questions at it just to see how it will respond and if it understands what I'm asking. The devs spent a lot of time with this, as asking to "get laid" will try to uncover escort services, asking Siri's favorites such as color, will have an off the wall answer or even a "Do you love me Siri?" to which I've seen about a dozen different answers! (All you need is love... and an iPhone.)

That said, I'm far from an Apple fanboy, but the thing works. Maybe this guy has tourettes or can't speak proper English, who knows. How many people can get away with suing because they were unhappy with a personal decision, such as buying a product? Ridiculous if you ask me.

713.3.2012 17:50

My opinion about Siri is that it's not the dictation that makes it usable... It's the macros that it builds to do the things you ask.
To me that means that maybe they should make those macros available without the voice activation. By that I mean that they seem capable of building a UI that responds to voice but is hidden. Make that UI available.

814.3.2012 01:15

Originally posted by nbfreak2:
Good luck with that one Apple will laugh it out of court......
More than likely it won't go to court. Instead, Apple will agree to a settlement (possibly a large one) that has a clause stating the plaintiff can't participate in (or file) a class-action lawsuit over the issue.

914.3.2012 11:06

Originally posted by Pop_Smith:
Originally posted by nbfreak2:
Good luck with that one Apple will laugh it out of court......
More than likely it won't go to court. Instead, Apple will agree to a settlement (possibly a large one) that has a clause stating the plaintiff can't participate in (or file) a class-action lawsuit over the issue.
I agree,Apple will want to put this away quickly and as quite as possible..

1015.3.2012 15:35

Siri is so bad that Google is scrambling to copy it.

Settlement: Give the dope his money back and a free Android.

1115.3.2012 16:00

Hmmm, what does "Siri is still beta" suppose to mean?

1215.3.2012 20:44

Originally posted by plutonash:
This guys got balls going up against apple lawyers. But who buys a phone for just one specific feature?
My guess is that this is a new version of the "Patent Troll". But, instead of patents, it's advertised features. So he buys the iPhone, and tests out its Siri feature. Siri doesn't work as advertised, so he sues instead of taking the thing back for a refund, like most people would do.

1315.3.2012 22:58

In fine print on the commercial it even says screen sequences shortened.

I have not used the application myself, but of course you have to expect that on the commercial is going to work perfectly and that in real life it is not going to be perfectly smooth. I just think these things must be approached with a healthy amount of skepticism.

I am not defending what Apple did I just think that you should naturally be skeptical. Of course, it really makes a difference how large the gap is between what the software is actually capable of for the average individual and what is depicted on the commercial.

1416.3.2012 00:54

Originally posted by wheelstb:
In fine print on the commercial it even says screen sequences shortened.

I have not used the application myself, but of course you have to expect that on the commercial is going to work perfectly and that in real life it is not going to be perfectly smooth. I just think these things must be approached with a healthy amount of skepticism.

I am not defending what Apple did I just think that you should naturally be skeptical. Of course, it really makes a difference how large the gap is between what the software is actually capable of for the average individual and what is depicted on the commercial.
Personally, I think he was looking for it to fail *somewhere*, so he could bring a lawsuit against Apple, and maybe get some cash for just going away.

1516.3.2012 20:45

Apple is notorious for grossly exaggerating features in its ads. Remember how the EU banned iPhone 3S ads claiming that 3S was more than twice as fast as 3?

Of course we don't have an honest governmental watchdog that can ban corporate lies so it's a step in the right direction for a consumer to sue over ridiculously ambitious marketing campaigns.

It's really sad how many people buy Apple and other companies' products merely because they have excellent (deceptive) marketing. After forking over so much money many people want to believe it's worth what they paid for and it becomes easier to just buy into the hype. The rest of consumers probably assume it's their fault and they just haven't figured out how to work it. Very few will admit they got ripped off and go back to return the product as long as it still works half as promised.

Don't get me wrong. Apple does from time to time make great products. But most of the time the quality of Apple products don't justify the hype of Apple fans. It really takes great marketing to push fans into becoming loyal zealots.

1617.3.2012 16:08

Originally posted by phobet:
Originally posted by wheelstb:
In fine print on the commercial it even says screen sequences shortened.

I have not used the application myself, but of course you have to expect that on the commercial is going to work perfectly and that in real life it is not going to be perfectly smooth. I just think these things must be approached with a healthy amount of skepticism.

I am not defending what Apple did I just think that you should naturally be skeptical. Of course, it really makes a difference how large the gap is between what the software is actually capable of for the average individual and what is depicted on the commercial.
Personally, I think he was looking for it to fail *somewhere*, so he could bring a lawsuit against Apple, and maybe get some cash for just going away.
You're probably right. It would seem to me that any reasonable individual would not expect the immediate performance that you see in the commercial.

Although, my opinion may not be the same as the average user because I routinely use speech recognition software so I know what to expect from it.

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