Videro is one of those silent-but-cool application suites you've probably never heard of, but you may see it being used every day. I met some of the Videro team at WWDC, and they were happy to demo a little of what the tools do: electronic signage and interactive kiosks. If you happen to need an animated in-store (or museum) display, fed from a server, easy to set up and deploy, complete with iPhone access to check on the servers (so they say), then Videro is an impressive tool.

To start, Videro has a composition tool that allows you to drag and drop your animations, complete with images, video and audio. In fact, Videro has extensive in-app tools for cropping, rotating and otherwise "fixing" your assets for display. But wait, there's more! This isn't just Keynote all gussied up. Videro is designed for business, and a server application makes sure mission-critical displays are functioning properly. There's solid asset management support both in the client and the server applications, making sure your displays never fire off with a dreaded "black box of nothing" where a product shot should be.

Videro mentioned an iPhone app in the video but I have been unable to locate it in the store and a search on their website revealed nothing. Still, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to provide some baseline stats via password-protected web app. We weren't able to get Wi-Fi at our location, so some features weren't visible and this might have been one of them.

Unfortunately Videro's site mentions nothing about price. In my experience that means we're talking about an expensive solution, and likely a custom one for the high-end customers. If you're looking for something simpler, don't miss Dave's excellent post about using Keynote and Dropbox to create an updating and easy presentation solution that would work in a pinch.

During tonight's American Idol performances, people not only got to see their top-three performers in action, but also got a chance to view a three new Get a Mac ads. In the first one, Customer Care, PC tells his story of technical support to an Apple Genius while Mac looks on. There are two other ads: Elimination, and PC Choice Chat. All are funny and worth a watch.

Last night while watching House, I saw what seemed to be a new iPhone commercial featuring some pretty interesting applications. Despite the fact that I was watching this particular episode on my DVR, I stopped fast-forwarding through the commercials so I could catch the latest Apple showcase of iPhone applications.

For many people, if you've seen one commercial for a given product, then you've seen all the commercials you need to see. Not so with iPhone. As these commercials so ably show, the iPhone isn't just one product, it's thousands of products. Thanks to the App Store, the iPhone and iPod Touch have become a tour de force of gaming, productivity, networking, and so forth. The success has become so ubiquitous that I am even willing to watch a commercial to learn of new applications that could enhance my life.

The good news is that after stopping by MacDailyNews I discovered that there are a total of three new iPhone commercials available for your viewing pleasure; all without having to interrupt any commercial-skipping. MDN has the hot scoop replete with YouTube vids to fill your stomach with all sorts of unicorn teary goodness. You can also check out the new advertisements, "Itchy," "Office," and "Student," in extremely huge resolution over at Apple.com

Via MacDailyNews

Apple has released a new iPod touch ad featuring more applications from the App Store. Some of the feature applications include: Bugdom 2, Rolando, Nanosaur, and others. They continue with their slogan of "The Funnest iPod Ever."

You can watch the ad on their iPod touch gallery site. And if you like the song, it's Franz Ferdinand's "No You Girls" (click opens iTunes) song, which can be downloaded from the iTunes Store.

Update: As pointed out by Stevan below and also reported by Jordan Satok, there is now an App Store page featuring all the games shown in the ad, for easy purchasing.

Thanks for the tip, David!

Apple released two new Get a Mac ads, just in time for the holiday season. The two ads, entitled "I Can Do Anything," and "Tree Trimming," are animated, and very amusing.

In the I Can Do Anything ad [direct video link], PC shows off what he can do because he is animated. He then talks to a rabbit that is on its way to the Apple Store.

In the Tree Trimming ad [direct video link], Mac and PC are decorating a tree. When PC plugs in the tree, Mac discovers that the lights actually say... well, we don't want to spoil it (sorry!).

You can watch both of the ads by visiting the Get a Mac ad website.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

A trio of nostalgic finds covers everything from a visual history of Apple patents to the ads and catalogs that marketed these products to consumers.

Andrew McConnell received an old mail-order computer catalog from 1980, with the first 12 pages featuring Apple products. For the low, low price of $974.95USD, you could purchase a 16K Regular Apple II that weighed less than 12 pounds! Or, if you're really crazy with your money, you could spend $1123.95USD on a 48K Plus system.

The really neat thing about browsing through this catalog is seeing all the accessories available for the system at that time. A $34.95 device called Bright Pen was touted as an alternative to the keyboard or game paddle input, and seemed to be an ancestor of the Wacom tablet. Further in, another accessory called Light Pen appears to be a more expensive Wacom predecessor. SuperTalker added voiceover capabilities to the Mac and SpeechLab allowed for dictation. There was a music synthesizer, the ability to add a real-time clock for $200, basic software, and more.

RedLightRunner has compiled a page of some of the best-known Apple ads from the past couple of decades. Its earliest offering is the infamous 1984 ad and there are several early 80's and late 90's offerings there. My favorite is the ad from 1999 for the Airport Base Station. The device sails across the screen like a UFO, complete with creepy B-movie music that is sure to give some people nightmares. It's definitely not a comprehensive collection of ads - it's missing all the current ones and others from the 80's such as this ad from 1986. But, it is a great start at building a collection.

Over on the Technologizer blog, Harry McCracken has posted a visual history spanning 31 years of Apple patent filings - featuring everything from Woz's drawings of the original Apple II in April 1977 all the way to the "multi-functional hand-held device" from December 2007 which turns out to be the iPhone. It's not all the patents filed by Apple, but it's a great summary of some of the devices Apple has come up with. You can find more articles about various Apple patents here at TUAW as well.

Many thanks to all those who submitted tips!

Another week, another Apple ad on TV -- a new entry in the series of iPhone commercials that have dropped the "This is how you enter the App Store" opening. Eagle-eyed readers have also noted that some of the new ads include a subtle "Sequence shortened" caption that reminds us things may go a bit slower in real life than they do on TV.

In this ad, Shazam was given the special treatment. Shazam [iTunes link] is an iPhone application that can tell you what song is playing on the radio (or other sound source) -- just hold your iPhone up to the speaker, and let Shazam do the rest.

Now that Apple has started centering the iPhone commercials around the applications on the App Store -- including ads featuring Urbanspoon, Loopt and MLB At Bat -- it's easier to get a sense of the range of possibilities on the device. You can view the new commercial by visiting the iPhone ad gallery page.

Which application would you like to see appear in an iPhone commercial? What's your favorite iPhone application so far? Be sure to let us know in the comments!

Thanks to everyone for the tips!

While most of us were watching the general election results last night, some were watching the new iPhone ads. Apple released a new ad yesterday called Dilemmas (and it didn't have anything to do with the election). Apple conquers the "age old dilemma" of where to grab a bite to eat -- with an iPhone app of course.

In this ad, the UrbanSpoon [iTunes link] application is demoed. In the closing of the ad, the narrator says, "That's the iPhone; solving dilemmas, one app at a time." You can watch the new ad by visiting the iPhone ads page. You can also watch it via a direct video link.

Thanks for the tip, Toren!

Continuing with their recent bashing of Vista, Apple has released yet another "Get a Mac" ad. In Bake Sale [direct video link], PC is selling bake goods to raise money in order to "fix Vista." Mac asks why, and PC goes on to explain that the marketing team decided to run an "expensive ad campaign instead of fixing Vista." Mac then offers to help out by buying a cupcake ... a 10 million dollar cupcake.

If there was any doubt about these ads being a response to the Microsoft ads, this one should definitely settle it. In our last post, we took a poll to see if anyone was tired of these Get a Mac ads -- currently 58.2% of the people that voted say they still like them.

You can watch this new ad by visiting the Apple website, or by using the link to the video file.

Thanks for the tip, Kevin!

You'd think the "Get a Mac" series of ads would be played out by now. But you'd be wrong.

They're still funny, snide and -- if sales figures are any indication -- effective. This week, Apple launched another clever web ad featuring Mac and PC. This time, PC has written an Op-Ed piece describing why people ought to stop switching to the Mac. It's cute, and the visual of PC pulling the text of the article out from "behind" the webpage is pretty cool.

While we're on the topic, what's your opinion? Are the "Get a Mac" ads yesterday's news or still good stuff?

[Via MacDailyNews]

Tonight, Apple released a new "Get a Mac" ad. "Off the Air" shows PC, Mac, and a Mac Genius. Mac tries to win people over on the fact that the Geniuses will transfer your files from your old PC to your new Mac.

A mad PC then announces that his "frustrated" customers don't need to hear about that and that "fear of switching is the foundation of customer loyalty for PCs." PC proceeds to shut off the commercial by pulling a curtain down.

This commercial isn't as funny, in my opinion, as the last set that came out earlier this week. You can watch all of the Get a Mac ads by visiting the Get a Mac website.

Tonight, Apple posted three new "Get a Mac" ads: Pizza Box, Throne and Calming Teas. In the Pizza Box ad, PC tries to lure college students into buying a PC by advertising as free pizza. PC notes that Mac is the number one selling computer on college campuses.

In Throne, PC notes that he is "still the king" of the OS world and then goes on to banish Mac. In Calming Teas, PC markets a new tea that calms Vista users instead of fixing the many problems with Windows. These Get a Mac ads seem to be geared towards back to school buyers and are amusing to watch (especially the Pizza Box ad).


Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Apple has finally posted three new iPhone 3G commercials on their website. In these ads, Apple seems to be pushing (quite literally) the features of the new iPhone 3G/2.0 firmware. Push, half the price, twice as fast, and other Jobsian quotes are in these new ads.

Just in case you were wondering, the song playing in the background of the new commercials is You, Me and the Bourgeoisie by the Submarines (iTunes link). You can watch Everyone, Unslow, and Work Friendly on the iPhone ads website.


Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

We love a good parody, and E!'s The Soup has produced a winner. For the unfamiliar, The Soup is a television show on the E! network that pokes fun at TV and pop culture in America.

Here's a parody iPhone ad that ran on the show earlier this week. It's really funny, with an emphasis on the pricing changes the iPhone has experienced in its first year of existence.

While we're on the topic, here are a few other Apple parodies you'll enjoy

• The "Fruit" ad in Grand Theft Auto
• The Thinkpad MacBook Air ad
• Futurama's parody of the 1984 commercial
• If Microsoft designed the iPod packaging
• They iScrewed Me Again from MadTV

Apple's iPhone-based AppStore is sure to debut sometime in the next month or two. My guess is that it will launch at WWDC, with select close partners at the launch and then a general opening to the rest of the third-party developers. I'd be quite surprised if AppStore launched and allowed immediate access to everyone who wanted to post an application for sale.

Follow the jump for more thoughts and questions.