Watch Apple’s new musical holiday ad ‘A Critter Carol’, featuring iPhone 17 Pro

Apple has launched its new holiday ad , which features a misplaced being used by woodland critters to record themselves singing a Christmas carol.

Apple simultaneously released a that shows how the company also used iPhones in the making of the film, as well as how all the hand-crafted puppetry was animated and brought to life.

In the ad, two explorers in the wood accidentally drop their phone, leaving a blue iPhone 17 Pro on the woodland floor.

The animals pick up the phone and use it to film themselves recording a musical performance of the song .

The singing is cut-short when the phone’s owner uses the Ping feature on his Apple Watch to retrace his steps and recover the lost phone.

In the behind-the-scenes, you can see how the animal puppets are being hand-controlled by on-set animators wearing blue clothing, that is later removed digitally. The fake forest set was designed to sit on a platform that is suspended 3 feet off the ground, so the animators can hold the puppets up from underneath the ‘floor’.

Watch Apple’s 2025 holiday film here:

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