“Customers who sued Apple over the disappointing performance of their iPhone’s personal assistant, Siri, are out of luck after a federal judge concluded they didn’t show fraud or breach or warranty,” Jeff John Roberts reports for Gigaom.
“In a decision issued Friday in Oakland, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken said Apple’s marketing descriptions of Siri as ‘the coolest feature,’ a ‘breakthrough’ and ‘an intelligent personal assistant’ were just ‘puffery’ and could not be grounds for a lawsuit,” Roberts reports. “The judge’s reference to ‘mere puffery’ has been used by courts for over a century to reject false advertising and breach of contract suits.”
Roberts reports, “The judge concluded the ruling by saying that the customers could not amend their complaint for a fourth time, meaning their only option is to appeal to a higher court.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
Finally, a judge with some common sense when it comes to Apple and these frivolous lawsuits.
When I read the title, it sounded a bit offensive at first. But after reading the article, I say, “Good for you, Judge!”
Lol, can’t believe some people actually believed Siri was faultless and were disappointed as a result, good on the judge, she did the right thing, the fools left the court empty handed
The fools left the court empty handed.
Such words would compensate for a lifetime of sorrow and regret, if only justice and karma met and agreed.
Let’s hope they get a nice hefty lawyers bill for all their trouble.
Actually, I hope the lawyers were doing this 100% on a speculative basis for their fees and costs to be recouped ONLY if they won anything. I hope the lawyers lost all the money from the costs out of their personal pockets and wasted 100% of their time with absolutely nothing to show for it in the end.
If the lawyers in these types of cases stopped getting the windfall they usually do get, then these kinds of cases would be much, much fewer.
I reality, most of the time, if they lose the lawyers get minimum fees from the lead plaintiffs (not nothing) and if they win the lawyers get millions in fees and recoup all costs plus surcharges on those costs while the “class” of plaintiffs get a couple dollars each. This is quite probably THE single largest reason why class action suits happen so often.
Well it’s a win-win either way. 🙂
siri is a first step. there’ll be a second ..and a third ..and a fourth, etc. one of those steps will be exponential, then, those whiny plaintiffs and their ambulance chasing class action lawyer will sue for having soiled themselves, then a whole bunch of lemming rodents and 2 or 3 analysts will follow each other over a cliff. then again, i could be wrong.
Puffery defense is law school 101, so I gotta wonder what the plaintiff’s plan really was.
Were they hoping to do a nuisance suit and hoping AAPL (or their insurers, if AAPL isn’t self-insured) would settle the claim as the cheaper way out? Easy money, usually.
If that was their plan, they miscalculated, because Siri is too high profile for AAPL to take a quick settlement on it.
Maybe they were trying to prove their case by using Siri as a lawyer.
I’m sorry, Judge. I’m having difficulties right now…
They should sue their lawyer. He probably told them they would win.
Not sure if I like the fact that a judge has set the precedent that Apple advertising was ‘mere puffery’.
The end of the infamous Jobs Reality Distortion Field?
I always thought that was crap too. It is simple, no other product that I have seen has the forethought, quality, longevity or brilliance of design as those provided to use by Jobs/Ive.
No matter what other mfg/blind followers/sh$tty advertisements say or do, they cannot say or do this!!!! PERIOD!
Siri is alternately fabulous and useless, sometimes in the same conversation.
After repeated disappointment I now use it only for very basic things like calling people. Even then its iffy.
SO tired of “I dont know what you mean by ‘Martian tesseracts gone array’.” Or, “Would you like me to look up ‘fall my wife’ on the web?”
I love Siri and use it all the time:
“Set timer for 13 minutes.” -when cooking
“Remind me when I get home to set out the trash cans”
“Wake me up at 3:30”
“Call Pegasus Pizza”
“How did AAPL do today?”
“Remind me tomorrow at noon that I have an appointment with Dr. Kaiser at 2 pm.”
“Navigate to Mark Silver’s house.”
“Play Jeff Beck”
Siri understands me 90% of the time with these commands . . . which is a better record than I have with people. I think Siri is amazing. I feel like Apple has delivered the world of Star Trek to us.
More ways I use Siri:
“Get a table for 2 at Murray’s tonight at 7”
“13 times 27.8”
“Tell Zoe, ‘Call me when you get a chance’ ”
“What’s the temperature in Sochi today?
“What time is it in Sochi right now?”
“Show me a picture of a quago”
“115 inches is how many feet?”
Truly amazing
Whatever I ask I end up getting a list of nearby restaurants…😢
Like than Kenyan asschimp, puffery.