Apple faces lawsuit over iPhone 16 AI 'misrepresentations'

A putative class action in Los Angeles County Superior Court accuses Apple of misrepresenting a host of AI features on the iPhone 16, which it began promoting in June last year.

Apple walked back some of those claims after the phone was released in September, saying it was taking longer than the company expected to get those features ready. The plaintiff in Los Angeles claims eight causes of action, including fraud, negligent misrepresentation, violation of the false advertising law and the consumer legal remedies act. Similar cases are pending in Northern California.

The plaintiff's attorneys with Malk & Pogo Law Group LLP argue that even if the features arrive years later, similar technology will be available on competing devices as well, which renders Apple's early advertising blitz meaningless.

"Based on its historical production cadence, it is also likely that Apple will be marketing another new iPhone series, leaving consumers who bought into Apple's false promises for the 16 series stuck with outdated technology for which they also overpaid. This is exactly the kind of calculated deception and market impact that California consumer protection laws were designed to prevent," the complaint states. Isamar Albertto v. Apple Inc., 25STCV20217 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed July 8, 2025).

Valter Malkhasyan, the firm's founding attorney, said it's too early to estimate the size of the class.

"Consumers deserve honest information when making purchasing decisions. It's unfair to entice them with innovative tech like AI that fails to deliver. It erodes consumer trust and undermines fair competition," he said.

Apple representatives did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Malkhasyan and his partner, Erik Pogosyan, filed a similar lawsuit on May 29. That case was removed to federal court on June 17.

"By the time plaintiff filed the complaint, there were already three class actions pending in federal court, asserting nearly identical claims on behalf of an identical putative class of California 'residents,'" Megan L. Rodgers wrote in Apple's notice of removal to federal court. Rodgers is a partner with Covington & Burling LLP.

Those cases have been consolidated before Judge Noël Wise in California's Northern District. Landsheft v. Apple Inc., 5:25-cv-02668-NW (N.D. Cal., filed March 19, 2025)

Malkhasyan said that the plaintiff in the earlier matter voluntarily dismissed her case. The plaintiffs in the Albertto case are all residents of California, so they'll file to remand the case back to Los Angeles trial court, he said.

Some of Apple's shareholders were also unhappy with the company's marketing and roll-out of Apple Intelligence. Two cases filed in June accuse the company of downplaying how long it would take to integrate various AI features into Siri. The investors' proposed class action says Apple misled investors by overstating the readiness of its AI-powered Siri enhancements during the June 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference. Tucker v. Apple Inc. et al., 5:25-cv-05197-NW (N.D. Cal., filed June 23, 2025).

The shareholder derivative action makes similar allegations: "[U]nbeknownst to investors, Apple lacked a functional prototype of these advanced AI-based Siri features at the time of the 2024 WWDC and had no reasonable basis to believe it could deliver the product it was advertising within the iPhone 16 product cycle, if ever," M. Anderson Berry wrote in the complaint. Berry is with Arnold Law Firm. Hill v. Apple, Inc. et al., 3:25-cv-05364-EMC (N.D. Cal., filed June 26, 2025).