$250 million. That’s what Apple agreed to pay back in May to settle a lawsuit over Siri’s delayed launch, and now the settlement website where you actually collect your share just went live. We covered this settlement earlier when Apple first confirmed the payout schedule, and now the actual claims process has officially opened. Eligible iPhone owners can file a claim starting tomorrow, September 21, with a window running all the way through December 21.
Why Apple Got Sued in the First Place
Back in June 2024, Apple showed off a version of Siri that sounded genuinely impressive, one that understood personal context, knew what was on your screen, and could dig through your apps for you. There was that demo where Siri pulled up someone’s mom’s flight details straight from Mail and cross-referenced lunch plans buried in Messages. Apple ran with this everywhere too: keynotes, its website, even a TV spot starring Bella Ramsey. Big promises, in other words, and the kind of promises that end up mattering a lot once people actually pull out their wallets.
Then March 2025 rolled around, and Apple pushed the whole thing back. That delay is exactly what sparked the lawsuit, built on a fairly simple argument: Apple sold a lot of people iPhones based on Siri capabilities that never actually showed up on time. The core claim boiled down to false advertising, the idea that Apple’s marketing painted a picture of a smarter, more personal Siri that customers were paying for indirectly through their phone purchase, only for that version of Siri to stay vaporware for over a year.
Apple pointed to everything else it had already shipped under the Apple Intelligence umbrella at the time, arguing the broader platform delivered real value even without the personalized Siri features. Still, the company ultimately settled anyway, saying in a statement that it wanted to stay focused on shipping products and services rather than fighting this out in court for years. Apple has been careful to note throughout this process that it denies all the allegations in the lawsuit. Settling wasn’t an admission of wrongdoing, according to the company, just a practical decision to avoid the cost and distraction of a prolonged trial.
Siri AI Finally Shipped, More Than a Year Late
Siri AI, the real version this time, finally arrived at WWDC back in June. It’s rolling out now on iPhone 15 Pro and later, running on iOS 27, which shipped last week. Worth noting, it’s technically still labeled a beta feature even though iOS 27 itself has moved past beta status, which says something about how much work Apple clearly still wants to put into refining it before calling it finished.
Who Actually Qualifies for a Payout
You need to be a U.S. resident, and you need to have bought one of several specific iPhones in the U.S. between June 10, 2024, and March 29, 2025, and not for resale. That list covers the iPhone 15 Pro, 15 Pro Max, 16, 16e, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max. That date range isn’t arbitrary either; it lines up almost exactly with the period Apple was actively marketing the delayed Siri features, which is presumably why the settlement drew the eligibility line right there instead of covering every iPhone ever sold.
Apple’s expected to start emailing eligible customers soon with a claim ID and PIN, though the site also lets you file without either if you never get that email or can’t find it buried in a spam folder somewhere. That’s a genuinely useful detail, since plenty of class action notices get missed entirely, and having a backup path to file without needing that exact email keeps the process from locking people out over something as small as an overly aggressive spam filter.
Filing itself asks for basic personal info plus your iPhone’s serial number. No serial number handy? The form falls back to asking for your Apple Account email and the phone number tied to that eligible device instead. It’s a reasonably low-friction process on paper, closer to filling out an online form than anything resembling paperwork.
How Much You’ll Actually Get
Base payout sits at $25 per device, but that number climbs as high as $95 if fewer people end up filing than Apple originally expected. Simple enough logic: fewer claims mean a bigger slice for everyone who actually bothers to submit one. It’s worth remembering that $250 million represents a hard ceiling for the entire settlement, so the final per-person number really does depend heavily on how many other eligible owners show up to claim their share too. If history with similar tech settlements is any guide, the real number likely lands somewhere in the middle of that $25 to $95 range once everything gets tallied.
When You’ll Actually Get Paid
Don’t expect a check anytime soon, though. A final approval hearing isn’t scheduled until February 24, 2027, which means actual payments won’t start going out until sometime after that. Nothing about the current window changes that timeline either; filing early doesn’t get you paid any faster since every claim gets processed together once the court gives final sign-off.
For anything else – opting out of the settlement, specific deadlines, extra fine print about how the process actually works behind the scenes – the settlement website itself covers all of it in more detail than any single article realistically could. Anyone who bought an eligible iPhone during that window and hasn’t decided whether to file yet has a few months to figure it out, given the claim window doesn’t close until late December.
