Apple Is Sued Over Misleading Siri Advertising

According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple was sued by an iPhone 4S customer who alleges that the company promoted its personal assistant service Siri using "misleading and deceptive" advertisements. The plaintiff Frank Fazio claims that depictions of Siri in Apple’s ads suggest the service is easy to use, which he says is not present in real-world use.

“Fazio claims Siri is far less responsive in real life. When he asked 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 class action suit seeks unspecified amount of damages from the company and a court order forbidding Apple to engage in any misleading advertising relating to the service.

Apple has not made any public response to the suit, however the company has constantly said on its website and in many other places that Siri is a beta service. Apple rarely launches beta versions of its products to the public, but the company did so in the case of Siri to help build the database of voice input that is needed to improve voice recognition capabilities of the feature. Also the beta label has not prevented Apple from aggressively promoting Siri, making the feature a key part of the new iPhone 4S marketing campaign.

This month Apple and Vodafone won a legal case in the UK in which a plaintiff complained that iPhone 4S advertisement in this country was misleading for its representation of location-based services which are currently available only in the U.S.

The court ruled in favor of Apple when it determined that its UK advertisements did not show Siri integration with the Maps service (currently a U.S.-only feature) and that Siri’s ability to provide information on user’s local weather in the country was sufficient to prove Apple’s claims that Siri can use location-based information.