Apple which was slammed by a federal lawsuit in the US last week over its delayed Apple Intelligence features, is now facing further trouble in international markets.
A civic group in South Korea has filed a complaint with the Fair Trade Commission against the company over alleged violations of advertising laws regarding its AI features in the iPhone 16, reported The Korea Herald.
The Seoul YMCA said the complaint was in response to the exclusion of the AI Siri feature in the iOS 18 operating system for Apple’s latest smartphone model.
The feature had initially been promised to be included in the iOS 18 system for the iPhone 16 but was later postponed.
“We will closely monitor the investigation process and results, and take further action if necessary,” the group said.
iPhone 16 Pro.
Their complaint echoes similar concerns raised in the US lawsuit filed in the District Court in San Jose last week. It seeks class action status and unspecified financial damages on behalf of those who purchased AI-enabled iPhones and other iOS devices.
“Apple’s advertisements saturated the internet, television, and other airwaves to cultivate a clear and reasonable consumer expectation that these transformative features would be available upon the iPhone’s release,” the suit reads.
“This drove unprecedented excitement in the market, even for Apple, as the company knew it would, and as part of Apple’s ongoing effort to convince consumers to upgrade at a premium price and to distinguish itself from competitors deemed to be winning the AI-arms race.”
“Contrary to Defendant’s claims of advanced AI capabilities, the Products offered a significantly limited or entirely absent version of Apple Intelligence, misleading consumers about its actual utility and performance. Worse yet, Defendant promoted its Products based on these overstated AI capabilities, leading consumers to believe they were purchasing a device with features that did not exist or were materially misrepresented.”
The suit highlights an ad from September featuring actor Bella Ramsey touting Siri capabilities, and which has been pulled from YouTube. “Still, it has failed to retract all the similarly false representations in the market that began in the Summer of 2024, much less take any action that would adequately remedy the consumers harmed by the company’s widespread deception.”
As the company struggles to get its Apple Intelligence platform in order, rivals Samsung and Google are racing ahead with their own artificial intelligence offerings. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has now reportedly lost confidence in AI head John Giannandrea’s abilities on product development, reported Bloomberg.
Vision Pro creator Mike Rockwell is being drafted in to help. Rockwell will be in charge of Siri and will report to software chief Craig Federighi, removing Siri from Giannandrea’s command. For now, Giannandrea is expected to continue working at the company.
Apple has struggled to release new features within Siri announced last June. It has now said that an AI-version of Siri will only be released in the “coming year”. In a statement, it confirmed: “In just the past six months, we’ve made Siri more conversational, introduced new features like type to Siri and product knowledge, and added an integration with ChatGPT.
“We’ve also been working on a more personalised Siri, giving it more awareness of your personal context, as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps. It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features, and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year,” the company said.
