Apple agrees $US250m settlement over Siri AI features that didn't ship on time

Apple has agreed to pay up to $US250 million to settle a US class action over advertising for the Apple Intelligence features previewed at WWDC 2024, including a more capable Siri that the company has yet to fully ship.

The agreement, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California in the case Landsheft v. Apple, covers buyers of the iPhone 16 line, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max who purchased between 10 June 2024 and 29 March 2025. The settlement fund covers an estimated 37 million US devices.

Eligible US owners can file claims for between $US25 and $US95 per device. The exact per-device amount depends on how many claims are filed. The settlement is non-reversionary, so all of the $US250 million is paid out among claimants.

The settlement applies only to US purchasers. Australian iPhone owners are not part of the class. There is no equivalent Australian class action under way, and no ACCC investigation into Apple's marketing of Apple Intelligence has been disclosed.

What was promised and what shipped

At WWDC in June 2024, Apple previewed a "new era" of Siri that would understand personal context, take action across apps and read screen content. Most of those headline features did not ship with iOS 18. The most ambitious context-aware Siri capabilities have been pushed back repeatedly, and Apple has yet to give a firm release date for the full set.

The plaintiffs alleged Apple created an impression that those AI features would be available sooner than they actually were, prompting customers to upgrade to phones that did not deliver them.

Apple did not admit wrongdoing. "Since the launch of Apple Intelligence, we have introduced dozens of features across many languages that are integrated across Apple's platforms, relevant to what users do every day, and built with privacy protections at every step," the company said in a statement to media.

What happens next

The settlement still needs preliminary court approval, with a hearing scheduled for June. Final approval and the claims window would follow. Apple's WWDC keynote on 8 June 2026 is expected to include another preview of upgraded Siri capabilities, with reports suggesting parts of the assistant may be rebuilt around Google Gemini or other third-party language models. Apple has not commented on those reports.

For Australian buyers, the practical impact is mostly reputational. Apple ships the same iPhone hardware here as in the US, and Australian iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 owners have seen the same staged feature delivery, without the option to claim under the US settlement.