iPhone 3G ad: Apple finally succumbs to own hubris
At last, an opportunity to legitimately write about something Apple-y (outside of my other bloggy stuff). The worst-kept secret in recent tech history, the announcement of the iPhone 3G (it’s just like the old one, but a bit quicker), brought with it a brand new TV ad to celebrate/begin-the-brainwashing-of-gullible-idiots-like-me.
This one has a pair of burly security types basically hauling said Jesus-phone product into, well, a different room, to unveil the handset in all its glimmering just-like-the-old-one glory. Aaaaaaand that’s it.
Pretty much the only thing this ad shares in common with those for the original iPhone is a commitment to simplicity. But whereas those old ads took the form of only-slightly-patronising ‘tutorials’ on how the thing worked, this one goes for the kind of simplicity that just seems cocky – it’s trying way too hard, and probably overestimates the general populace’s interest in what is, after all, just a phone.
Which also kinda smacks of the same problem Apple had with their ‘Mac vs PC’ ads here in the UK. Whereas in the States the Mac guy is only borderline patronising, key to avoiding the all-too-credible stereotype of Mac users as smug, superior beings just waiting to beam about their beloved computers, here in the UK someone had the disastrous idea of employing comedians-of-the-moment Mitchell & Webb to enact almost the exact same scripts, with their own distinctive characters. The well-documented problem with this was Robert Webb’s take on Mac: smug, superior, and positively beaming patronising gumf about the Mac platform. The ads tanked and have since been pulled.
Full disclosure: I use Macs all the time and also own an iPhone. So, uh, it’s OK to criticise…
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