Apple's $250 Million Siri Settlement Covers About 37 Million iPhones — $6.76 Each if Everyone Claimed. The Court Presumes $25, Caps It at $95, and Claims Opened September 21. The Deadline Is December 21, 2026.

If you received a small Apple payment in late January 2026, it came from Lopez v. Apple: the $95 million settlement over Siri recordings, administered at VoiceAssistantSettlement.com, with claims that closed on July 2, 2025 and payments sent January 23–26, 2026. That case is finished. Our tracker for it says so at the top.

The settlement that people are searching for now is a different lawsuit with a different theory and more than two and a half times the money. Landsheft, et al. v. Apple Inc., Case No. 5:25-cv-02668-NW in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (San Jose), is a consolidated class action alleging that Apple marketed “Enhanced Siri” features powered by Apple Intelligence when it launched the iPhone 16 line, and that buyers paid a premium for features that were not delivered. Apple denies wrongdoing; MacRumors quotes the company as settling “to stay focused” on “delivering the most innovative products and services to our users.”

The first complaint was filed March 19, 2025. Plaintiffs moved for preliminary approval on May 5, 2026, the hearing was held July 8, 2026, and District Judge Noel Wise signed the Order Granting Preliminary Approval on July 17, 2026 (Docket No. 94). Nothing has been paid; claims opened on September 21, 2026, and the deadline is December 21, 2026.

The order certifies, for settlement purposes only, a nationwide class defined as:

“Purchasers of the Eligible Devices (iPhone 16, iPhone 16e, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, or iPhone 15 Pro Max) who reside in the United States and purchased an Eligible Device in the United States for purposes other than resale, during the Class Period (June 10, 2024, to March 29, 2025).”

Three things in that sentence decide most eligibility questions. The base iPhone 15 and 15 Plus are not included — only the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max. The window opens on June 10, 2024, the day Apple announced the features, not on the iPhone 16's September launch — so a 15 Pro bought in the summer of 2024 counts. And the class runs by device: the motion for preliminary approval says the number of Eligible Devices is “approximately 37 million,” held by “approximately 36 million consumers.” Payments are per device, so a household with two qualifying phones has two claims.

Excluded are Apple, entities it controls, its officers, directors and employees, and the judicial officers on the case with their staff and immediate families.

The settlement creates a $250,000,000 non-reversionary fund — none of it goes back to Apple. Plaintiffs' motion describes the payment as “a presumptive Per-Device Payment of $25 for each Eligible Device, which may decrease or increase up to $95 per device depending on claim volume and other factors.” Every dollar of that is contingent on how many people file, so it is worth working through the fund.

Start with the top: $250 million divided by roughly 37 million eligible devices is $6.76 per device if every single one were claimed. That will not happen, and the $25 presumption is a bet on how few will. Work the deductions plaintiffs disclosed: Class Counsel “anticipate seeking an award of Attorneys' Fees and Expenses of no more than 28% of the Settlement Fund” — up to $70 million — with litigation expenses estimated at not more than $600,000 inside that; administration by Verita Global is budgeted at up to $5,444,056. Take those off and about $174 million is left for class members. At $25 a device, that pays roughly 7 million devices — about 19% of the 37 million. Fewer claims than that and the per-device amount rises, until it hits the $95 cap at roughly 1.8 million devices, about 5%. More claims than 7 million and the payment falls below $25. These are our figures from the motion's inputs; the actual fee award is the court's decision in February.

One more sentence from the motion belongs next to the money: plaintiffs describe the $250 million as “representing approximately 11% of estimated damages for a class of approximately 36 million consumers.” That is their damages model, offered to show the deal is within the range courts approve (they cite a MacBook keyboard settlement approved at 9–28% of estimated damages). It also tells you the scale of what was alleged.

The July 17 order sets the machinery in relative terms. Notice “will commence no later than forty-five (45) days from the date of this Preliminary Approval Order” — that is August 31, 2026. The Claims Deadline, the Objection Deadline and the Exclusion Deadline are each “90 days from the Notice Date.” Under that schedule, claims would have opened by the end of August and closed at the end of November.

The final-approval hearing moved first. The order originally set it for September 29, 2027; on July 27 plaintiffs asked to bring it forward, noting that “Notice has not yet gone out to the Class, so there is no risk of confusion,” and on August 13, 2026 Judge Wise reset it to February 24, 2027 at 9:00 a.m. in San Jose (Docket No. 97).

Then, on August 28, 2026 — three days before the notice deadline — Apple filed a “Stipulation with Proposed Order to Extend Settlement Notice Date, Claims Deadline, and Objection and Exclusion Deadlines” (Docket No. 98). The document itself is not freely available on the public docket; MacRumors, which read it, reports the proposed schedule as notice beginning Monday, September 21, 2026 and the claims period ending Monday, December 21, 2026. Judge Wise granted the stipulation the same day, August 28, 2026 (Docket No. 99). Under that order, notice began on September 21, 2026, and the claims, objection and exclusion deadlines are all December 21, 2026 — 91 days after the notice date.

How you will hear: the order appoints Verita Global, LLC as Settlement Administrator (working with a fraud-screening firm, Covalynt). Apple hands Verita its customer list; Verita emails a notice with “two or more reminder emails,” and mails a postcard to class members for whom Apple has a postal address but no email. The settlement website named in the papers is SmartphoneAISettlement.com. When we loaded it on September 1 it returned a bot-check page, and MacRumors describes it as a “coming soon” page. Since September 21, 2026 it takes claims; its “File A Claim” buttons lead to the administrator's claim portal at aplsconnect.com. Anyone else offering to file for you is selling something else.

File a claim by December 21, 2026: online through SmartphoneAISettlement.com, whose “File A Claim” buttons lead to the administrator's claim portal at aplsconnect.com, or on a paper form postmarked by that date. A notice by email or postcard is not a claim. The official FAQ says you must personally submit a valid claim form, with one claim per eligible device, confirming the purchase and giving “information sufficient to confirm your purchase and/or ownership”; you choose payment by physical or digital check. The official site adds that you must be the original purchaser. Keep the receipt or the order confirmation and the serial number of each qualifying phone.

Objections and opt-outs are due the same day as claims, December 21, 2026; an opt-out must be individual — the order says “so-called ‘class’ or ‘mass’ opt-outs shall not be permitted.” After that deadline, the next date is February 24, 2027, when the court decides whether the deal is final and how much of the $250 million the lawyers get. Payments cannot start before that, and appeals can push them later. We will update this page when the court rules on final approval.

Correction, September 30, 2026: an earlier version of this article said that, as of September 1, no order granting Apple's August 28 extension request had appeared. Judge Wise granted it on August 28, 2026 (Docket No. 99); claims opened September 21 and are due December 21, 2026. The article also advised checking that links point to SmartphoneAISettlement.com; the official site's “File A Claim” buttons lead to the administrator's claim portal at aplsconnect.com.