Apple Intelligence - how advertising turned unfinished crap into a goldmine

[Source]

A year since Apple Intelligence — Where are we now?

Apple had announced their newest and best around Q2 2024, showcasing a variety of tools—from writing, to photo editing, and even an entire overhaul of their virtual assistant, Siri. However, with it now being Q2 of 2025, a year later… has any of this actually happened?

The iPhone 16 launch — get (your wallets) ready!

Apple had advertised Apple Intelligence starting with September 2024. It was slapped on their website, on their products, and was one of the main focus points throughout their events and press releases surrounding the new iPhones.

So, fair to say, when the day came and the iPhone 16 was finally available to purchase, users were surprised to find that Apple Intelligence was not shipped out of the box. In fact, there wasn’t really any mention of it at all outside of advertising.

This was because Apple had delayed the release by a “few months,” with iPhone 15 and newer models expected to receive the awaited update—which had been one of the main selling points—in December 2024. A three-month delay on something they’d marketed as revolutionary.

So far, not so good. Apple had for months boasted about the iPhone 16 and all its amazing new features showcased at events, but what came out of the box? A regular iPhone, with nothing significantly new. Essentially the exact same as the prior year's.

Apple Intelligence arrives… barely

Fast forward to December. Crumbs of Apple Intelligence began to come out—and I really do mean crumbs. Partly finished features, most of them barely functional or riddled with bugs and glitches. Safe to say, this left a displeased audience whose money was now deep in the company’s pockets, but the product they’d paid for was still nowhere to be seen.

New Year, Same Excuses

The new year came… Apple Intelligence, once again, did not. Their heavily teased assistant was in an abhorrent stage and could hardly be called “intelligent” at all. If it could even be called an assistant, as it failed at even the most minuscule and simple tasks. Funnily enough, some of the tasks it could perform before the AI update were now either impossible or more difficult to achieve. Talk about innovation.

How did they do it?

How has Apple managed to sell to people what did not exist outside of their own internal mockups and showcases? Simple, good advertising. The adverts released were all of high quality and well produced but carefully done so as to show just enough to get people curious without fully revealing the product (as it wasn't even finished at the time, and still isn't at the time of this post). A good pitch and a few good examples can take you far, millions in sales far even, while Apple did not keep up their end of the promise, yet, the money is in the bank.