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Apple Sued over 'Misleading' Advertising in Siri Depictions

The fun part about advertising a feature, is that nobody cares that its a beta. If you are making a false claim, the likes of the FTC can harrass you.
 
soco said:
You're ignoring the point of the suit. It's not a suit over whether or not states the product is in beta. It's a suit over the fact that if you don't go to the website or ask someone if it's in beta, you're led to believe, by the commercials, that it works as advertised. It does not.
Click to expand...

I believe what Apple will do should this go to court is enter into evidence a video of a person doing exactly what the ads show it does and then noting that the product is still in beta and based on the particular dialect or accent of the person using the device, their specific location, etc., etc.... that user experience may vary. It cannot work for every person the way they show on the ads. All those people speak slowly and perfectly and Siri is being asked for data that the advertisers already know is available to it in scripted ways that they know Siri will respond appropriately to.

I think if you watch the ads, they do specify that Siri is beta software and I think that will be enough to get Apple off the hook. I don't know if that's really right or not... but I think that will be the final result. Unfortunately for us, the consumers and citizens of the world, advertising is an unscrupulous endeavor. Someone mentioned the pictures of Big Macs or something earlier. That really IS misleading advertising. Their burgers look nothing like the pictures they put up. Okay, maybe not NOTHING like them, but seriously less appetizing and fresh than the photos they use in advertising everywhere. I wish there was a law requiring that advertising and advertising media represent the actual product or service being offered rather than.... well stuff that's just not accurate. And I also wish they'd stop trying to be funny and instead tell me more things that I actually want to know. But I digress. I don't think Apple loses this.
 
And this is why Apple offers a standard return period. Haha, love people like this. So every time I buy something I don't like, I'm supposed to sue??? Awesome.
 
cycomiko said:
The fun part about advertising a feature, is that nobody cares that its a beta. If you are making a false claim, the likes of the FTC can harrass you.
Click to expand...

Which is fair because Apple is advertising how great their Beta version works and they are clearly lying. If the adds said that this is how the final version of Siri will be working in year 2050 but the current version is nowhere near, nobody would sue Apple.
 
ARandomFellow said:
I believe what Apple will do should this go to court is enter into evidence a video of a person doing exactly what the ads show it does and then noting that the product is still in beta and based on the particular dialect or accent of the person using the device, their specific location, etc., etc.... that user experience may vary. It cannot work for every person the way they show on the ads. All those people speak slowly and perfectly and Siri is being asked for data that the advertisers already know is available to it in scripted ways that they know Siri will respond appropriately to.

I think if you watch the ads, they do specify that Siri is beta software and I think that will be enough to get Apple off the hook. I don't know if that's really right or not... but I think that will be the final result. Unfortunately for us, the consumers and citizens of the world, advertising is an unscrupulous endeavor. Someone mentioned the pictures of Big Macs or something earlier. That really IS misleading advertising. Their burgers look nothing like the pictures they put up. Okay, maybe not NOTHING like them, but seriously less appetizing and fresh than the photos they use in advertising everywhere. I wish there was a law requiring that advertising and advertising media represent the actual product or service being offered rather than.... well stuff that's just not accurate. And I also wish they'd stop trying to be funny and instead tell me more things that I actually want to know. But I digress. I don't think Apple loses this.
Click to expand...

And then the lawyer for this guy should pick 10 random persons from the jury (or the street) and ask them to do the same and Siri will fail in 60...80% of cases. How will this square with their commercials?

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Benguitar said:
I really hope this is fake..
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It's not fake. It's Beta version.
 
Apples Lawyers

lilo777 said:
But did you know that the majority of them work for Apple?
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Yes, but none of them are doing class action cases. Class action is where each
person gets $1.20 and the lawyers split up millions for themselves.
 
In this case, Google should be facing a lawsuit for astronomical amounts of money . . .


For all of Android.
 
blow45 said:
Yes it would have been different, they should explicitly state the limitations of the tech they are promoting before getting their marketing dept. to make big unfounded claims. I dont care what ms does, and btw windows 8 hasn't been released yet. They can, and they must modify away to make it behave as expected but they shouldn't tout it via marketing as feature complete when it's anything but.
Click to expand...

I was making two points. One, even if they defined beta, I don't think people would think twice about buying it or using it. And two, I have looked around, and Beta is not "clearly" defined on any website that I've come across yet (besides a dictionary or wikipedia of course).

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200803/032708PhotoshopExpress.html

http://windows8beta.com/

http://www.opera.com/browser/next/

...
 
MacDav said:
Yes, but none of them are doing class action cases. Class action is where each
person gets $1.20 and the lawyers split up millions for themselves.
Click to expand...

Apple would do class action cases but they can't (by law). However, because of the number of lawsuits filed by Apple, they are a class action lawyer equivalent of the corporate World.
 
soco said:
You're ignoring the point of the suit. It's not a suit over whether or not states the product is in beta. It's a suit over the fact that if you don't go to the website or ask someone if it's in beta, you're led to believe, by the commercials, that it works as advertised. It does not.
Click to expand...

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.
 
bacaramac said:
And this is why Apple offers a standard return period. Haha, love people like this. So every time I buy something I don't like, I'm supposed to sue??? Awesome.
Click to expand...

Exactly, just return it ... an unlike the Schticky you don't have to pay S&H !!! ;)

.
 
Since Siri is clearly labeled as a BETA software, I think suing Apple over the fact that it doesn't always work the way you want it to is going a bit too far.

A Final Cut Pro X editor, on the other hand, might have a case... ;)
 
I cant speak directly for Siri and its voice recognition but I do know that other apps I use are very particular about how you say your words and that the pronunciation is clear. I have had friends with accents or ones who don't speak up trying to use my Kinect and it is a no go. Same for the voice recognition software on my computer. I know they keep getting better but Siri was not advertised as the replacement for keying in your information/request it was advertised as a neat new feature that you should try.

On a more personal note I will get an iPhone that supports Siri just as soon as AT&T gets us off this Edge network where I live and upgrades to something that is useful for data. Until then my 3gs is fine.
 
ABernardoJr said:
But if Apple should define "beta," then why shouldn't they define "every word that people might not understand" on their site? That may be extreme but that's the point. If you're going to make that argument then why stop at beta? It seems arbitrary to need to define beta and leave the other words that people might not understand alone.
Click to expand...

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.
 
I don't know how much laws vary from state to state, but in my state andyone can file a law suit against anyone else for any reason for only $60. It's a great way to get your 15 minutes of fame.
 
I hear people talking to Siri all the time. She must have hearing issues because I hear people repeating themselves a lot. Most of the time you can find it your damn lazy self by clicking a few buttons.
 
Apple Key said:
I was making two points. One, even if they defined beta, I don't think people would think twice about buying it or using it. And two, I have looked around, and Beta is not "clearly" defined on any website that I've come across yet (besides a dictionary or wikipedia of course).

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200803/032708PhotoshopExpress.html

http://windows8beta.com/

http://www.opera.com/browser/next/

...
Click to expand...

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. :)
 
Frank Fazio? Hmm.

I wonder why Siri has issues - Could it be that Jersey accent?

(I kid, I kid... kind of)
 
You missed the point entirely

lilo777 said:
Apple would do class action cases but they can't (by law). However, because of the number of lawsuits filed by Apple, they are a class action lawyer equivalent of the corporate World.
Click to expand...

Your statement is pure opinion and completely illogical. Your hatred of Apple
distorts your thinking. I was commenting on the money grubbing nature of class action cases in general. It has nothing to do with Apple except that they are the
target for a ton of this type of suit by sleazy money sucking lawyers.
 
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