Apple is paying $250 million to end a legal fight with some of its own customers. The case involved people who bought new iPhones expecting a smarter version of Siri that never actually arrived on time.
Back in 2024, Apple held its big annual event for developers and showed off a major update to its voice assistant. The company promised this new Siri would understand the context of what you were doing on your phone and take actions inside different apps. It said the feature would be available sometime in 2024.
But almost two years later, that version of Siri is still missing. Apple did release some other AI tools during 2024 and 2025, like image creation, text help, and ChatGPT access. The main Siri upgrade, however, never shipped.
The lawsuit covers people in the United States who bought an iPhone 16 Series or an iPhone 15 Pro. If a judge agrees to the settlement, those buyers can expect some money back. But as part of the deal, Apple does not have to say it did anything wrong.
The company stayed quiet about the delay for months. It waited until March 2025 to admit the Siri update wouldn’t be ready. That was more than five months after the iPhone 16 went on sale, even though Apple had marketed that phone as being built for Apple Intelligence.
After finally confirming the delay, Apple removed the ads it had been running that showed off the new Siri features.
Now the company says the improved Siri should arrive later this year. That is partly because Apple is working with Google and using its Gemini AI models. The new assistant is expected to be part of the iOS 27 update.
Source: The Financial Times