Apple in legal trouble after postponing Siri updates until 2026

Apple investors filed a lawsuit against the tech firm in a proposed class action for securities fraud on Friday, June 20.

The shareholders accuse the company of overstating the maturity and readiness of its “Apple Intelligence” AI features—especially those tied to the Siri voice assistant—during its June 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

They claimed that the iPhone maker minimized the time it would take to add advanced artificial intelligence to its Siri voice assistant, negatively affecting iPhone sales and lowering its stock price. 

The lawsuit includes shareholders who lost hundreds of billions of dollars in the year ending June 9, after the tech firm unveiled several features and aesthetic changes to its products but kept its AI changes modest.

Apple finds itself in trouble after postponing some Siri updates until 2026

In their statement, shareholders led by Eric Tucker said they were convinced at the June 2024 WWDC conference that AI would emerge as a key driver in future iPhone 16 devices. This followed the launch of Apple Intelligence in a bid to make Siri, Apple’s intelligent personal assistant, a more powerful and user-friendly product.

However,  they said the Cupertino, California-based company did not have a working model for AI-based Siri features. 

They felt it was unlikely that these features would be ready in time for the iPhone 16s. Shareholders noted that the truth started to come out on March 7 when Apple postponed some Siri updates until 2026. This feeling continued during this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9, where Apple’s view of its AI advancements did not meet analysts’ expectations. 

Meanwhile, since reaching a record high on December 26, 2024, the tech firm’s shares have dropped by almost 25%, resulting in a loss of about $900 billion in market value. 

The case is Tucker v. Apple Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 25-05197. 

Notably, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh, and former CFO Luca Maestri are defendants in the case, filed in San Francisco federal court.

The iPhone maker did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Apple unveiled plans for new AI features for future improvement 

Earlier, Apple unveiled several new artificial intelligence features, including a modest update to its software and services that shares the basic technology behind Apple Intelligence. This move had set the stage for future improvements. 

The announcements at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference were more about a series of small improvements. This included live translations for phone calls, which improve everyday life instead of the big plans for AI that Apple’s rivals are using to promote themselves.

Interestingly, a year after it could not deliver promised AI-based upgrades to important products, including Siri, the tech firm has been careful about its AI promises to users, letting them know that it can assist with tasks like locating where to purchase a jacket similar to one they spotted online. 

Behind the scenes, Apple hinted at a plan to provide its own tools to developers alongside those from competitors. This strategy was similar to Microsoft’s last month.

Craig Federighi,  a senior vice president of software engineering at Apple, said the company will provide both its own and OpenAI’s code completion tools in its key Apple developer software, and that the company is opening up the foundation AI model that it uses for some of its own features to third-party developers.

According to Federighi, they make connecting directly to the large language model on Apple devices easier.

In an early example of this feature, the company integrated image generation from OpenAI’s ChatGPT into its Image Playground app. They assured users that their data would not be shared with OpenAI unless they agreed. 

Ben Bajarin, CEO of analyst firm Creative Strategies, commented on the situation. Bajarin explained that one can see that Apple focuses on developing behind the scenes rather than what users see on the surface, which, according to him, most people are not really concerned about.

The iPhone maker encountered unique technical and regulatory challenges as its software developer conference began. 

KEY Difference Wire: the secret tool crypto projects use to get guaranteed media coverage