Apple sued over delayed launch of Apple Intelligence in iPhone 16: Report

The federal lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in San Jose and aims to be treated as a class action [File]
| Photo Credit: AP

Apple has been sued over its delay in fully rolling out the AI or ‘Apple Intelligence’ features that were promised with the release of the iPhone 16 series.

The federal lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in San Jose and aims to be treated as a class action lawsuit.

The legal filing dated March 19 went into the details of how Apple advertised Apple Intelligence and an enhanced AI-powered Siri in order to promote the Apple iPhone 16 model, when it reportedly knew this was not true.

“Apple deceived millions of consumers into purchasing new phones they did not need based on features that do not exist, in violation of multiple false advertising and consumer protection laws,” claimed the lawsuit filing, adding that Apple’s “pervasive marketing campaign” was “built on a lie.”

Apple recently announced that some previously promised Apple Intelligence features that included improvements to Siri may only come out in 2026 instead of this year.

The development reportedly led to shakeups in departmental leadership roles at Apple as CEO Tim Cook tried to carry out damage control on the AI front, reported Bloomberg.

“Recently, under mounting pressure from outraged consumers and industry scrutiny, Apple was forced to acknowledge that the heralded Apple Intelligence features, including the Siri enhancements that fueled the greatest consumer excitement, did not exist then and do not exist now,” claimed the lawsuit.

The lawsuit filing referenced an earlier Apple ad for Siri’s personalisation upgrade that featured celebrity Bella Ramsey even though the awaited features are yet to be rolled out to iPhone 16 users. The ad was later taken down.

U.S. tech and consumer regulators are meant to seriously scrutinise cases where not-yet-available or existent features/devices are widely advertised in order to build up customer excitement, because this can steeply affect competition in the market and hurt rivals.

The filing noted that the goal was to secure “injunctive relief to ensure Apple permanently ceases its deceptive conduct” and obtain monetary damages to recover price premiums paid by Apple customers for the iPhone-maker’s “mirage of innovation.”