• Apple Rolls Out Four More iPhone 4 Ads — Each About FaceTime

    Sunday, July 11th, 2010

    MG Siegler is a general partner at CrunchFund and a columnist for TechCrunch, where he has been writing since 2009. His focus is on Apple. Prior to TechCrunch, MG covered various technology beats for VentureBeat. Originally from Ohio, MG attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. He’s previously lived in Los Angeles where he worked in Hollywood and in... → Learn More

    Yesterday, I broke down Apple’s minute-long FaceTime commercial for iPhone 4, noting how it seemed almost as if Don Draper from the hit AMC show Mad Men had created it. Now Apple has four other 30-second spots for the iPhone 4 that it has just put into rotation on national television. And yes, they’re all about FaceTime too.

    The four spots are titled, “Smile,” “Meet Her,” “Haircut,” and “Big News.” Each revolve around situations where FaceTime can dramatically improve what would normally be more traditional phone calls. They’re not quite as dramatic as the overall package of the longer original commercial (nor are they as good). But two of them still go straight for the heart strings. While the other two are more everyday conversations made better by video.

    • “Smile” finds a girl talking to her father on the iPhone 4, but she refuses to smile. He finally starts singing, which makes her smile, and it reveals her new braces.
    • “Meet Her” involves a son showing his father his new granddaughter for the first time. The grandfather gets choked up.
    • “Haircut” has a girlfriend calling a boyfriend to show off her new short haircut. Rather than having to describe it, she can actually show it. The boyfriend agrees it is short, but loves it.
    • “Big News” is the closest to the original one. In it, a wife calls a husband to give him some big news: she’s pregnant.

    It shouldn’t be too surprising that Apple is playing up FaceTime in each of its first five commercials — it is the easiest new feature to show off on the device. Apple’s new Retina display for the iPhone 4 is arguably more impressive, but it would be hard to show that off in a commercial without explaining it (and Apple seems to prefer to show rather than tell in these types of commercials).

    Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if in future iPhone 4 commercials, Apple figures out a way to show off the screen (something like, “wow, it’s like looking at a picture”), as well as show off the impressive build quality of the device, and perhaps the HD video taking capabilities.

    Find each of the new spots below.

    [thanks aaalison]

    Company: Apple
    Website: apple.com
    Launch Date: April 1, 1976
    IPO: NASDAQ:AAPL

    Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with...

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    Product: iPhone 4
    Company Apple

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