Apple opens $250 million AI iPhone settlement claims site

The case grew out of Apple's 2024 iPhone 16 launch, when the company emphasized an enhanced Siri that could act as an intelligent agent. The first Apple Intelligence features did not arrive until iOS 18.1, five weeks after the phones shipped, and the settlement says Apple "allegedly saturated the market with deceptive ads, inducing consumers to purchase iPhones based on the promise of certain enhanced Siri features." Some features did ship soon after launch — Visual Intelligence, Live Translation, Writing Tools, Genmoji and Clean Up — but not the advanced Siri interactions the ads highlighted, which are only starting to show up in Siri AI as part of iOS 27 released in early September.

The procedural timeline has been moving quickly. The court granted preliminary approval on July 17, and an Aug. 13 order from US District Court Judge Noël Wise moved the final approval date up by seven months, from Sept. 29, 2027, to Feb. 24, 2027. Apple was required to provide information on affected customers within five days of settlement approval, and after the data is verified a 45-day notice period begins to alert eligible consumers.

For Apple, the settlement closes a claim that its AI marketing outran what the phones could do, though the company says it resolved the matter to stay focused on its products. For buyers, the test is simply whether they file in time at SmartphoneAISettlement.com before Dec. 21, 2026, and whether the court keeps the current approval schedule, since the timing of payments still depends on court dates and possible extensions.