Back in March, Apple was hit with a class action lawsuit over Siri being dumb and bad. Which, well—yeah, pretty much. But instead of rushing to the defense of its prized new software, Apple has run out a defense of, basically, "No, YOU ARE."
Here's the introduction and summary of Apple's motion to dismiss the case, as dug up by the Wall Street Journal:
Tellingly, although Plaintiffs claim they became dissatisfied with Siri's performance "soon after" purchasing their iPhones, they made no attempt to avail themselves of Apple's 30-day return policy or one-year warranty-which remains in effect. Instead, they seek to take an alleged personal grievance about the purported performance of a popular product and turn it into a nationwide class action under California's consumer protection statutes. The Complaint does not come close to meeting the heavy burden necessary to sustain such claims.
And hey, sure, that makes sense when you're trying to get a lawsuit tossed. But once it gets to talking about Siri's actual performance, here's all Apple has to say: "As a cutting-edge technology still under development, Siri was released (and remains) in "beta." ... Apple disclosed Siri's beta status both during the October 4, 2011 press event in which Apple announced iPhone 4S and in the accompanying Press Release."
Not exactly a shining endorsement.
And it's not like Siri deserves one. Everyone kind of comes off looking bad here. Apple is right that Siri is in beta, but that's fine, fine print in the glossy ads that it's shoving down tech-dumb America's throats. And the jackasses suing over voice command software are jackasses—the kind who class-action sue over something as asinine as voice command software.
Still, it's fun that when Apple has to come down to it, in legal terms, its description of Siri boils down to, "WE'RE WORKING ON IT, OK?" [WSJ via 9to5mac]