Apple (News - Alert) is no stranger to legal troubles, waging a cornucopia of battles on multiple continents, taking on huge names across the electronics industry. Samsung, Motorola (News - Alert), and plenty of others have stepped up against the Apple legal machine, and yielded only mixed results at best. This is why it's strange to hear about a recent lawsuit filed by Frank M. Fazio of Brooklyn that says Siri doesn't work nearly as well as the advertisements would suggest.
Admittedly, most of us who've tried Siri have been reasonably impressed, yet come away from the experience noting that it couldn't really do everything the commercials suggested. But most of us just kind of shrug our shoulders, and remember two important facts: one, this is the closest we've ever been to a computer with Majel Roddenberry's voice doing what we tell it to do in the grandest Star Trek: The Next Generation tradition, and two, Siri is still technically in beta.
For those not familiar with the term, beta is another word for “not quite ready for prime time”, and is thus still being polished and to be supplied with regular updates to bring it up to snuff. Frank M. Fazio, meanwhile, isn't taking beta for an excuse and is therefore taking Apple to court.
The lawsuit itself features lots of juicy and hostile language like “...misleading and deceptive message...” and “...fundamentally and designedly false and misleading”. And indeed, on the surface, it seems like Siri is an amazing product that does a variety of exciting things, not a piece of software that's still being developed.
It's hard to believe that Fazio and his lawyer – or possibly multiple lawyers, no one's quite sure – would be able to walk into the same room as Apple's massive army of lawyers without getting turned into a pillar of salt where they stood, but the lawsuit is going forward, and as such, will need to be followed to find out just how it all turns out.
But whether Fazio is expecting too much from a beta program or Apple is promising too much of the same is an issue only the courts will be able to decide, and a decision I'm sure we're all looking forward to see come out.