Siri helps Santa fill stockings in festive Apple ad

Santa Claus is coming to town... with the help of his Apple iPhone 4S and Siri. Apple's voice-controlled personal assistant is Santa's newest little elf as it helps Santa manage his 3.7 billion appointments in a new advert.

Siri gets seasonal, offering directions and help to Father Christmas as he sets off on his annual mission to deliver the world's presents.

In the ad, Siri helps Santa check the weather around the US, finds the email with the naughty or nice list attachment, and reads out a message from Mrs Claus.

Santa also uses Siri to find childrens' homes, getting directions from Google Maps. Its a good thing he isn't relying on Siri for local information, as that service doesn't work outside the US. Click play below to see Father Christmas recruit Siri for his yuletide journey.

One present all Apple fans would like is for Siri to work on other phones, not just the 4S. It's technically possible, but Apple says it has "no plans" to bring Siri to the iPhone 4, iPad or iPod. Still, there are plenty of free alternatives.

Fingers crossed that come Christmas Eve, Siri holds up to Santa's demands. The service has suffered from occasional outages.

To see how Siri stacks up against Android, we pitted it against Vlingo on the Samsung Galaxy S2 in a boardroom battle: check out our video The Assistant: Siri vs Voice Talk.

Have you been naughty or nice this year? Are you expecting an Apple product in your stocking, or a lump of coal? Pop down the chimney to the comments or leave us a present on our Facebook page.