Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
In this case, Google should be facing a lawsuit for astronomical amounts of money . . .

For all of Android.

To each his own (lawsuit), google will get what's (rightly) coming to them via Larry Ellison's oracle. That doesn't give apple pardon. :)
 
what a load of horse manure, because beta is a vague term that bears definition since it doesn't really mean anything on what a product can or cannot do. And, no it's not arbitrary the need to define beta as opposed the need to define hfs, or computer, or "the", because beta is a generic term, it means nothing other than it's after the alpha version, the preliminary software version.

lol First of all, I was referring to defining words that people might not understand along the lines of "beta" (apparently), not words like "the" that you might find confusing. Anyway, beta is a bit more than just being after the alpha version, but you don't really seem to know that. It's noted by nature that the beta phase is, indeed, a phase following alpha testing, but that it is a product that still has bugs and is not perfect. It's funny that you tried this argument though. So you think you could just make up an application that's nowhere near finished and call it "beta" and say it's okay because "beta is a vague term"? haha That's "a load of horse manure." "Beta" is an actual phase.
 
Is there actually something they show it doing in the ads that it cannot do? I've tried duplicating a number of things shown in the ads, and I've been able to get them to work. I didn't try everything, though, so if you've found a gap, I'd be interested.

If you watch the ads closely, notice that people ask a lot of questions, but you don't hear Siri responding, they just go onto the next question.

By any account, Siri is far better than the piece of dung I have in my new Ford. If you don't use the exact word commands, clearly enunciated and separated, you don't get what you want. I've managed to memorize about 8 of the commands. At least Siri takes a good SWAG at what you're saying.
 
It's called Siri for a reason too.

Siri is just the name. It doesn't have a meaning in terms of performance. Even if it did, some notebook is called "MacBook Air", does that mean Apple needs to ship a packet of air with it?

What does it have to do with this lawsuit?

The person involved is trying to find a crack to sip a drop from Apple's $100bn pool of cash, ergo the idiotic lawsuit.

Do Apple have a disclaimer in their commercials explaining that Siri is a Beta software and it works nowhere near what the ads say it does?

I don't know what you mean by 'nowhere near what the ads say'. If it really was like that, I'm pretty sure we'd have read about it on tech blogs over and over again by now. To whatever Siri is limited to it works perfectly, at least for me, my friends and family.

However, to answer your question, yes Apple does have a disclaimer on their iPhone page:

Screen%20Shot%202012-03-12%20at%2010.29.43%20PM.png


The word 'Beta' is used in it as a noun, which means that there might be bugs in it, and when you open up a new iPhone, Siri is disabled by default. By enabling to use it, you choose to use Siri in Beta. You should research a little more in the future.
 
court system

I say reform the court system to throw out nuisance suits like this one.[/QUOTE]

I think the plaintiff should have to pay court cost.

(Is't that like in the rest of the world?)
 
Precisely because it is a vague term, apple should not be hiding behind it and should explicitly claim what their product can or cannot do. That's my original point. :)

That is true, beta is a vague term. But, beta or not, I don't think many products claim what they actually can or can't do. That is not such a simple task. Furthermore, if they did, they would probably be opening themselves up to even more lawsuits.
 
The guy is an idiot, for trying sue over the status of a beta product.

All Apple will have to do is show the product is clearly labeled as Beta, and the case will be dismissed.

End of story.

On a side note: Siri's real-world performance is dismal at best. I enjoy using it, when it works, and am left utterly frustrated when it doesn't work. Same with Voice Dictation aspect of Siri, which is far more reliable, but not completely.

Apple needs to do better with Siri. Forget new features, which it needs, but they need to speed up response time, and reliability.
 
Will be interested to see how this works out. Apple does seem to be stretching it a bit with how great Siri is.

I won't say it's entirely useless, but I'll manually play the song, google the restaurant I'm looking for, etc., without waiting to see if Siri got it right.

photo.png

Stretching? Welcome to consumer marketing 101. Misleading? No.

For all we know this guy has turrets syrndrom, and screams at Siri.

The problem with anything using voice recognition is that there are billions of different voices.
 
LOL. I knew something like this would happen. Whenever I see those commercials, I always open my Siri and ask "Why don't you ever work as well as you do in the commercials?" And of course, she has no response and always offers to search the web.
 
So it is in 'beta'.... Fine.

BUT when is it going to be out of 'beta'???

My prediction: Not for a very long time. It is a convenient excuse for Apple.
 
Another guy looking to get money the easy way instead of earning it.
He has no case, especially when Apple can find many customers that are satisfied with how Siri works. It is not perfect, but more often then not it works for me.
 
Whatever happened to earning an honest living??
Apple has set the precedence for hyping products via wild claims, to new heights.

Leading the way and setting an example of suing others, the tables are now turned.

Yet Apple's massive amount of cash assures their legal team will be able to manipulate the case and prevail.

It's not about what's fair, honest and just.

It's about Apple cultivating and refining their ability to control all things within their own reality sphere.

Remember it's only a game, one in which Apple amasses all the money...

The Apple followers cheer, join in on the celebration and live happily ever after :D
 
to all you people saying its a beta, then Apple should not be advertising it as a full, integrated function in the phone. It's false advertising.

Siri is useful for one thing...setting my alarm when I am too lazy to unlock my phone, navigate to alarm settings, and flip the switch,
 
Speaking of Siri, I'm glad it wasn't included officially in the New iPad. Shows that Siri only ever was and still is only a beta feature and Apple don't want to make a commitment yet. Entirely logical.


:apple:
 
I'm pretty sure not every product works "as advertised" but that basis alone is not one sufficient for suing, and that's a problem with many over-litigious people nowadays.
I'm in agreement. You watch a commercial, you come away with two things: first, objective expectations, and second, personal expectations. Suits against false advertising should be over the objective expectations. For example, a car company hypes in its ads how good it's airbags are, but they don't work. THAT is worthy of a lawsuit because you risked your life or money or something really important on the fact that the ad said this feature would work exactly as advertised.

But if something falls short of personal expectations that's different. Like you expected the leather in the car to be softer or a nicer color, or the dashboard to be larger, etc. The ad must be accurate, but as an ad, it's job is to make the product look nice. So the question becomes, did the ad really mislead, or did you, personally, put more on the product than was actually shown because the ad was so nice?

The funny thing about Siri advertising is that it is accurate (aside, of course, from Santa Claus' questions). Siri CAN, when commanded, create a reminder, send a message, find a webpage showing you where Orion's belt is, or indicate how to get from one place in the U.S. to another. It really CAN do all that. The ad is accurate--but being an ad, it can, like all ads, raise expectations beyond what is shown. If an individual's expectations aren't met, that could mean the ad was misleading, but it could also mean that the individual imagined there was more there then was shown. Either way, I think this person is going to have to prove that some damage was done by Siri failing to meet those expectation before this lawsuit goes anywhere.

And I think asking the person why they didn't try Siri out before buying (test drive to see if the leather is soft and colorful enough), or even why they didn't just return it if it didn't satisfy. The phone isn't cheap, but a lawsuit over something that didn't end in injury, that could have been not bought or returned is either stupid or transparently hoping to get free money.
 
Alright you clearly aren't grasping the point I'm getting at, nor are you recognizing the idea of applying this principle of arbitrariness beyond the case at hand. But as one last attempt to clarify, I'll put it this way. Making the argument that people don't know what "beta" means as a way to justify someone's uproar over frustrations with said beta (due to the nature of the product being in its beta phase) is a poor and weak argument. You could try to apply this to any kind of disclaimer and say "I didn't know what (insert term here) meant, and so the fact that it says its (term) is irrelevant". Yes, that might work in some cases, where the term is too vague or complex for one to understand or learn about. However, that is not so in this case because the term "beta" is neither an overly complex term whose definition cannot simply be found with a dictionary search, nor is it a "marketing term" like "Retina Display" that is vague and seemingly undefined (explicitly).

All I'm saying is that calling it a beta is not insufficient on Apple's part (and no, I wouldn't change that stance if it were Microsoft, RIM, etc.). The term beta is not some excessively obscure, confounding term, and it is not too difficult to find out what it means. But some people are far too eager to make a quick buck off of lawsuits that are frivolous.

All words are not created equal. Beta is the defining term of Siri and its functions/limitations, which in turn, is the major selling point of the iPhone 4S. Therefore, it should be defined. Sure, Apple and other companies probably have tons of ambiguous language. But when a specific word can have such a big impact on whether or not a customer is going to buy a product, it should be defined. And not all of their undefined words hold such significance.

The same can be said for a disclaimer. If an undefined word is the key term, one that drastically changes the disclaimer based upon how it's interpreted, then it should be defined. This doesn't mean that every undefined word in said disclaimer is as important as that one and thus, needs to be defined.
 
Unbelievable!

I can't believe these people believes what they always see on TV, especially the commercials.
 
Siri is just the name. It doesn't have a meaning in terms of performance. Even if it did, some notebook is called "MacBook Air", does that mean Apple needs to ship a packet of air with it?



The person involved is trying to find a crack to sip a drop from Apple's $100bn pool of cash, ergo the idiotic lawsuit.



I don't know what you mean by 'nowhere near what the ads say'. If it really was like that, I'm pretty sure we'd have read about it on tech blogs over and over again by now. To whatever Siri is limited to it works perfectly, at least for me, my friends and family.

However, to answer your question, yes Apple does have a disclaimer on their iPhone page:

Image

The word 'Beta' is used in it as a noun, which means that there might be bugs in it, and when you open up a new iPhone, Siri is disabled by default. By enabling to use it, you choose to use Siri in Beta. You should research a little more in the future.

It's really simple. Apple commercials are advertising Beta version of Siri and they grossly misrepresent how well/poor Beta version of Siri works. The guy is suing Apple for false advertising of Beta version of Siri. Are you saying that as long as the software is in beta, the company can lie about its performance any way it wants?
 
I heard that this guy also sued McDonald's restaurant because his Big Mac didn't look like the picture. :)

While this made me laugh, THAT would actually be kind of valid, though. Those pictures are never even close to what you actually get, and sometimes, when I get a spongy piece of **** with some of the ingredients shown are simply missing altogether , I really think "how the **** do they get away with this..."

Siri's buginess can't really compare to that. Remember, Siri often gets it right after all -- but has there ever been a single instance in history where anybody got a Big Mac like the pictures show? I doubt it, but if that's the case I'd like to eat it.
 
I can't see this suit being successful.

Siri can do all the things shown in the commercials...
...if you enunciate well enough
...if you have an internet connection
...if there isn't too much background noise
...if (etc.)
The ads show the best case, where all the stars align.
That's pretty much how all informational ads do it.

(Personally, I'd estimate that I get the best case about 1/3rd of the time -- not enough for me to bother using Siri except for entertainment purposes.)

edit: by the way, I think this whole Beta thing is irrelevant -- Apple is advertising the current Siri as a feature of iPhone 4S. So the question is, does it work as advertised.
 
Oh give me a ****ing break. Siri works better than any voice recognition thing in any phone I've ever used. Sure it ain't perfect, wasn't expecting it to be. But it does remarkable things. Setting appointments, reminders is totally worth it for me. The location searches and the web searches by voice are amazing icing on the cake.
 
"Honey I'll be home in 20 minutes and Chris is stopping by to help moving that big dresser."


This is a daily occurrence for me. I don't get why people can't use Siri effectively.:confused:

Man... How many places can one person move a big dresser? :eek:
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.