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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Last month a pair of actors inadvertently revealed that Sam Mendes, director of American Beauty, was holding auditions for an Apple TV ad...
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I was a video producer for over a decade. There were multiple takes of the same shot and the actor and subsequently the script supervisor/continuity supervisor dropped the ball. Really WATCH your favorite Thursday night drama on t.v. (even DVR it and re-watch just one episode) and your jaw will drop and thinks like this.
But... you have to train yourself to suspend your disbelief.
I thought the commercials were right on target, emotional, timely and highly polished. Just like Apple always does everything. How else would you create and try to sell a product like FaceTime? Good thing some of you posting here aren't in the advertising business! Ha
This glossy, politically correct video exemplifies Apple's evolution towards a dull, mainstream type of global corporation. The video looks like the ads on developing country tourism, where the inevitable couple or young family has a great time with locals, then with some water sport, finally some cool nightlife - you know the sort of crap on CNN or BBC. I like Apple products a lot, but I regret the total loss of the niche flavour the company had until recently, and I fear for the future. A lot of the company hype (eg on environmental and social responsibility) now comes across as very phony.
June 09 2010 at 8:21 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply@ursus: "The video looks like the ads on developing country tourism"
I have relatives in the US and read a lot about the comms industry over there, and to me, who has had access to video-calling for about five years now (don't use it much as it costs £0.35 ($0.50) per minute) the US sounds like a developing country (as far as cell-phones are concerned).
I think that this is partly to do with too much de-regulation, where there isn't a government-led standard for mobile comms, so you end up with competing standards -- case in point: iPhone doesn't work on Verizon.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Verizon had taken up the iPhone challenge when approached by Apple, and how this would have developed worldwide where most of us use a common standard. AT&T customers would have been importing iPhones from Europe!!
What a disappointing one more thing... Having seen video calling on UK 3G networks back in 2005 so find this is WiFi only and iPhone 4 only is underwhelming.
Do you still have to pay for the (voice) call you initially initiate?
Hopefully, FaceTime will see wider integration (like with iChat AV!!!) very soon to make it actually useful. In fact this should have just been iChat for iPhone.
In the meantime I'm sure that Skype et al will be updated to make great use of the front-facing camera.
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June 09 2010 at 6:05 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThis is my take: this ad is sad, very sad and says very little of the lifestyle the people in the ad have chosen. A dad has to be away from his child to be able to afford two iPhone 4 so that they can facetime-video-chat when he is away. He could work a bit less and avoid being away from his family. And the soldier... not much empathy from my side. He leaves his girl pregnant and gets enlisted in the army, very smart of you becoming a parent from the other side of the globe and risking to leave an orphan.
The sign language is good though, but the rest will have to be edited if they want it to air internationally...
Another ad by Apple that's really well done. I've never seen a bad advertisement by them. They are excellent and really show off the products. The fact that it's only WiFi doesn't really bother me, as I'm mostly in places where there's WiFi anyway - I don't need 3G/4G connectivity.
June 09 2010 at 3:00 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyNow, compare it with the schlock, kitsch and drivel that Microsoft routinely cranks out. That, in a nutshell, explains the different trajectories of the two companies.
June 09 2010 at 7:58 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyMy hospital offers guest wifi - many do.
June 09 2010 at 2:58 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyOur hospitals tell us to TURN OFF all mobile phones...
June 09 2010 at 10:00 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyYou're a bunch of sissies...
I love how Apple have to attack the emotional nerve to gloss up a camera on a phone which only works on WIFI... do hospitals have WIFI?
Looking forward to the 4G non the less!
When my wife was in the hospital for the birth of both of our daughters, we had wifi.
June 09 2010 at 9:36 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI've spent quite a bit of time at hospitals, for others, over the past 4 years ad I can say that all over the sf bay area the hospitals have wifi. Good speeds and free after a legal 'submit' page.
July 11 2010 at 9:53 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI don't care what this says about me, but I got pretty emotional when it got to the part with the soldier having a baby... and then almost completely lost it with the sign-language couple.
June 08 2010 at 8:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWhat ever happened to that commercial (http://bit.ly/14GNtU) filmed in Truckee for an unreleased product?
June 08 2010 at 7:17 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyDeals of the Day
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TUAW (or The Unofficial Apple Weblog) is a website devoted to tips, reviews, news, analysis and opinion on everything Apple.
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