Student Sues Apple Over ‘Sponsored Responses’ From Siri

Apple launched Siri last October on the iPhone 4S and has since carried over to the New iPad during the iOS 6 beta phase. Overall Siri has performed well with functions such as searching the web, setting reminders, and even telling a few jokes. But the information that Siri spits out isn’t all factual, and that’s why a law student is suing Apple.

If we take things back to May, it was discovered that if you ask Siri “what’s the best smartphone ever,” she would reply with the Nokia Lumia 900. The answer was relayed from Wolfram Alpha, a computer knowledge search engine. It turns out the phone was given one five-star rating, thus making it to the top rated phone on the market.

So what did Apple do about that situation? They eventually removed the response and Siri will now answer with something along the lines of “the phone you are holding.” A similar response is granted to questions like, “what is the best tablet?”

As we said above, a law student named Sean DeVries will be suing Apple over the false advertising issues with Siri. PocketNow has the full details:

One of our law-student Pocketnow readers decided to sue Apple about this on-device false advertising simply out of principle.  Sean DeVries’ goal is to get Apple to at least change their website and end user agreement to include this information though an indicator of “sponsored responses” would be best during Siri’s answers.  Sean’s court date is scheduled for October 9th.

I’ve never thought this to be a huge deal. I know when Siri tells me that the iPhone is the best smartphone, she is just humoring us. The iPhone is a great phone, but Siri acts like the iPhone is the only existing phone on the planet.

Does Apple’s ‘sponsored responses’ bother you?

[via 9To5Mac]

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