Apple has begun airing 4 new iPhone 4 commercials and once again, it’s all about FaceTime, and heavy on the emotion and sentimentality. Titled Smile, Meet Her, Big News, and Haircut, each focuses on a moment of shared intimacy, of insecurity and anticipation, of surprise and joy. And they do it in a way that makes the visual integral to he communication.
Again, incredibly smart advertising on Apple’s part, and another step towards mainstreaming video calling and the way they’re doing it…
It’s no longer about their being an app for that. Now it’s about there being a phone — specifically iPhone 4 — for that.
Apple began airing their first iPhone 4 commercial last night, an extract of the FaceTime feature video they debuted at WWDC 2010. The original iPhone 2G focused on features, the internet in your pocket, music on your phone. After the launch of the App Store, iPhone 3G focused on disparate apps for (this and) that for a while, until later on in the iPhone 3GS cycle they shifted slightly into apps for specific use cases. iPhone 4 brings it back around to the beginning but with less blatant techno-wow and more sentimentality. It isn’t about the cool feature, its about real people — a new father, a graduate and her grandparents, a couple using sign-language — making a real, visible, emotional connections.
Hot on the heels of their spunky new “there’s a map for that” anti-iPhone/AT&T programming, Verizon looks set to unless yet more attack ads. Engadget Mobile says:
We’re hearing that the carrier will be kicking off a major new campaign this evening during the Yankees-Angels game that’ll feature “a very different look and a whole new attitude,” calling out the “iDevice” (their words, not ours) for all the things it can’t do.
Yeah, from the network that famously locked down GPS, wouldn’t allow Wi-Fi, and removed OS-specific application markets for their own bloatware, that’s a lot of nerve. Especially given the lukewarm reception Verizon is already getting for their new BlackBerry Storm2 (never mind their deceptive comparisons…), their Android savior still on the horizon, and hardly exclusive, and they seemingly won’t be landing an iPhone of their own anytime soon.
Still, it should also be a lot of fun! If you catch the new ads, let us know what you think!
Updated with iPhone friendly video from WMExperts (irony!).
Would you watch un-skippable ads on your mobile device in exchange for free apps and games? That’s the question we’re pondering in light of Zune HD doing just that. You pay your hundreds of dollars for the device, and Microsoft provides a few extra games/apps, but sometimes an ad will play before the app launches, and you can’t skip them. See the video above for an example (apologies to those on the iPhone, we didn’t make the video, so have no control over the iPhone-unfriendly format).
We first heard about this from Matt Miller, editor of NokiaExperts.com and last night during iPhone Live! We discussed it with special guest, Phil Nickinson of WMExperts. At first Phil said he’d never seen one, but then lo and behold, right there live, one of those Kia car commercials began to play when he tried to launch and app.
Of course, watching commercials in exchange for free content is how broadcast TV works, but does that model translate to mobile devices?
Personally, I’m okay with it as long as I know about it up front and I have the option of paying something to get a commercial-free version in case my time (and, frankly, tolerance for seeing the same commercials over and over every time I launch an app) is worth more to me than a few dollars.
iPhone apps, since the beginning with Twitterrific have provided free (ad supported) and paid (no ads) versions, though even then the ads were far less intrusive than full screen video, un-skippable TV style commercials.
What do you think? More free apps the better, or can commercial monetization go too far? And is it more acceptable to put a commercial before a game than it would be, say, to put it before something more vital like the music player, web browser, or email client?
