Apple Pulls Bella Ramsey Ad That Promoted Vaporware Personalized Siri Feature

Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:

Since last fall, Apple has been marketing the iPhone 16 and Apple Intelligence with an unreleased Siri feature. After confirming today that the more personal version of Siri isn’t coming anytime soon, Apple has pulled the ad in question.

The commercial starred Bella Ramsey who should probably win an award for acting like Siri worked.

In the ad spot, Ramsey sees someone familiar approaching and asks Siri the name of the person they had a meeting with the previous month at a specific restaurant.

Siri immediately responded with the name presumably based on a calendar event, email, or message on Ramsey’s iPhone.

I think that was the only TV commercial Apple ran showing the “personalized Siri through App Intents” feature that Apple has now admitted won’t ship in iOS 18, but I saw that commercial a lot during the baseball playoffs and NFL season. (I tend only to see TV commercials while watching sports.) The other Bella-Ramsey–starring Apple Intelligence ads all showcase Apple Intelligence features that are now shipping. But did Apple run other ads (TV, print, billboard) promoting this non-existent feature? I’m wondering what else they might send down the memory hole now that they’re facing reality on these personalized Siri features.

Apple’s product pages for Apple Intelligence, iOS 18, and MacOS 15 Sequoia are lousy with references to these “new era for Siri” features that we now know aren’t going to ship this year. This is a marketing fiasco.

★ Saturday, 8 March 2025