The FaceTime promo video that's not what you think

Last month a pair of actors inadvertently revealed that Sam Mendes, director of American Beauty, was holding auditions for an Apple TV ad that featured an as-yet unnanounced video chat feature on the iPhone 4.

Although the Web is all abuzz with links to the promo video made for FaceTime that premiered yesterday at the WWDC keynote, many of them are incorrectly attributing it to Mendes; our colleagues at Engadget pointed out that this is not the rumored commercial, but is an internally produced piece.

Nevertheless, the video is extremely well done. It features interesting use cases for the face-to-face chat feature -- specifically, a young, traveling dad and his family at home; grandparents enjoying a far away graduation; girlfriends selecting outfits for a night on the town; a soldier and his baby-to-be; and finally, a couple using sign language to converse, which sparked a round of applause during the keynote.It's heartwarming, and it clearly demonstrates what FaceTime does.

Sharp-eyed TUAW reader Christopher pointed out a minor continuity error in the clip. The "father" is shown holding his iPhone 4 in portrait mode at 00:22 and 00:26, yet when we look over his shoulder at 00:25 and 00:28 he's holding it in landscape orientation.

We'll keep our eyes out for the actual TV ad soon.
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