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I agree with you, this is an awesome ad. Apple always try to go the extra mile for those ads.
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Apple’s increasingly sounding disconnected. One minute lauding privacy and the next increasing advertising presence. The two are not as dissimilar as it may seem. Advertisers want to know who is responding to ads which leads to potential invasive privacy behavior.
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Perhaps, but I don’t click on ad links or buy from seeing ads, so in my case, there is little data regarding my response to ads except for a lack of one. 
I know, I know, “I’m more influenced by ads than I realize.” True to a degree. Indeed, ads increase awareness and mindshare and create impressions, affecting buying behavior. In those ways, I’m not immune to the effects of advertising.
But, my buying decisions for anything over $50 are predicated on researching, to the best of my ability, the correlation between a product’s or service’s features and my wants or needs. I never click on ad links (really, I never do), and most of the time, I mute TV commercials. I use Brave and ad blockers on YouTube. I don’t use social media so I’m spared manipulative advertising on those platforms. In fact, I even put on my LinkedIn profile, “Note: I do not respond to sales solicitations. Thank you.”
The one form of “advertising” that I have often fallen prey to has been app recommendations from podcasters and recommendations on this forum. But I’ve slowly weaned myself from these influences, reducing the apps I use to a bare minimum. I hasten to add that I appreciate and value the recommendations I’ve received, solicited and otherwise.
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All this value proposition around privacy is a weak one for Apple. Most people either think “they do not click ads” (which is probably wrong unless you are @bmosbacker ) or they think that the invasion on privacy is not that massive (which is also correct as collecting personal data becomes more and more scrutinised by regulation).
We could think: who is the target for this campaign? Does Apple think people will migrate from Android to iOS because of this? Is it going to try to entice Chrome users on iOS to switch to Safari?
Combine that with the awful mess that is the App Store, with more and more advertising of mediocre apps (is Apple not tracking my searches in the App Store?) and agreements with players like Taboola and well, I think this is only slightly better than the iPad Crush! ad.
I really don’t, except for some of those enticing podcast show-note links to apps and other products. Those I can be susceptible to. But I’m trying hard not to be. But those are not really ads.
I was not doubting you at all --if you have managed to only use stock apps, or only your iPad for a month, you are a titan!
I must admit I do click on ads, mainly just to “train” the algorithms to not show me stuff I am not interested in but sometimes there are such good offers that I can’t resist buying stuff, particularly music production.
Another example: I intend to buy a new car in the next months. So I clicked on a couple of Ford ads to finally have my Instagram start throwing offers from all kinds of manufactures and dealers (sorry Ford, you paid for the retargeting but now Meta has sold my shopping interest to everybody else)
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I’m sure if Apple were entirely committed to privacy in Safari they wouldn’t have Google as the default search engine.
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Apple is entirely committed to increasing growth and profitability. They also believe in privacy when it doesn’t conflict with revenue, IMO.
It makes sense to me for Apple to use Google as the default engine, even if they didn’t receive 36% of Google’s ad revenue from Safari users. Google isn’t the bogeyman to most of the world. For example, Google Chrome has 65% of the browser market, and I was surprised to read, 30% of iPhone users are running Chrome as their default browser.
IMO, Apple can be forgiven for making money by pre-selecting the most popular search engine.
I don’t don’t like ads I hate them.
My solution is to use browser extensions that suppress adverts and deal with tracking cookies. Currently running — even here — Ghostery, uBlock Origin, and FSF’s Privacy Badger. Plus a whole load of stringent privacy settings in Firefox. And for my occasional visits to Facebook I have FB Purity. Also use the DickDuckGo search engine.
On my iPhone I have AdBlockPlus, but recently installed the DuckDuckGo browser.
Oh and blow-ins in magazines/newspaper and advertising cards through the letter box are immediately consigned to the recycling bin. For extras recently issued “Cease and desist” orders against the right-wing political parties here in the U.K; not that they will take much notice I fear but if they do go against my wishes there are measures to take.