Apple has been hitting the headlines for the past few months. Aside from iPhone 17 phone leaks, its delayed AI (Apple Intelligence) strategy and President Trump’s stringent tariffs that could shoot the iPhone’s price to as high as $3,900, have left the company in a tough spot while Microsoft moves forward with AI features like Copilot Vision.
iPhone sales have dwindled over the past few years, especially in the Chinese market. Recently, the iPhone maker was placed on the spot for using its well-publicized AI strategy to push iPhone 16 sales.
Apple delayed Apple Intelligence’s launch to 2026 without really providing a credible reason for its change in plans, despite concerns among insiders that Apple Intelligence might already be two years behind ChatGPT, even before it ships.
Last month, Apple made a not-so-subtle change to its Apple Intelligence page, removing “available now” from its marketing.
The National Advertising Division (NAD), an independent ad standards body, highlighted that the Apple Intelligence page listed several AI-powered features that were yet to ship and others that shipped at a later date than expected (via Tom’s Guide).
These findings prompted the body to recommend that Apple scrap any ads that suggest the listed AI tools were already available. Apple has since made this change quietly.
It’s worth noting that Apple has already highlighted some of these issues in the Apple Intelligence page footnotes. However, NAD claims that they weren’t “obvious enough.”
According to Apple:
“While we disagree with the NAD’s findings related to features that are available to users now, we appreciate the opportunity to work with them and will follow their recommendations.”
Scrapping the messaging could suggest to me that the company was already anticipating the NAD’s report. That, or it was anticipating backlash from its delayed AI strategy.
To that end, the company has only delivered trivial features, like Writing Tools (for text editing) and Image Playground (for image generation), while its flagship AI features remain its best-kept secret.
Veteran Apple commentator John Gruber described Apple Intelligence as “vaporware” masked behind deceitful demo videos that may never see the light of day, and it feels even more accurate with this recent (forced) marketing change.
