Earlier today, the French site Nowhereelse.fr posted a video of what looks to be a commercial for Apple’s new tablet device, expected to be unveiled on Wednesday during an Apple event in San Francisco. The video led VentureBeat to wonder if it wasn’t the first real commercial for the device. Unfortunately, I’m not sure VentureBeat even ran a translation of the French post about it, because if they did, they’d see that it reads “In the meantime, here’s what an advertisement might look like…” (emphasis mine). In other words, no way is this real.
And really, that should be easy to tell just by watching the video. Does it have somewhat of an Apple look and feel to it? Kind of, but several things don’t feel right. First of all, it’s predicated around the design of the invites that went out for Apple’s event this week, decorated with paint splashes. The likelihood that Apple would use that same concept in a new ad for the device is slim. Technologizer did a good overview of the history of Apple event invites last week, and as you can see, most have nothing to do with product marketing efforts. Sure, a few use the silhouetted people design that are used in iPod commercials, but those were popular before the events. Still, it’s not impossible that Apple would use this design for a tablet commercial, but several other things are still off.
The biggest problem is the image shown on the display of the device. Clearly, it’s running a full version of OS X, just as Macs run — but that’s not expected to be the case. In fact, given the rumored processor in the device, it’s unlikely that it could even run a full version of OS X (complete with GarageBand, iPhoto, iTunes and other processor-intensive apps) up to Apple’s standards. Instead, the device is expected to use a new version of the iPhone OS (which is Mac OS-based). And if you look at the image, you’ll see that the dock icons are being magnified as if a mouse is moving over them. That concept likely wouldn’t work at all on a touchscreen tablet because how and why would you run your finger over this area without clicking on any of the icons? And let’s not even get into why an (awful-looking) on-screen keyboard would appear as you were hovering over a dock item.
Also problematic: the whole “After 10 years in development…” thing. Is Apple likely to admit just how long it has been working on the tablet? If they do, it will be on stage on Wednesday, not in a commercial. Plus the whole 10 year number is hard to lock down, depending on which reports you believe.
Then there is the design of the device in the video. While its overall look does correspond with reports that it will look similar to a first generation iPhone, the likelihood that it will have all those ports on the back seems pretty small. I mean, that would be okay if the device were always docked, but that’s not the point of it, you’re supposed to be able to hold it. And while it could very well have USB ports, would it really have Firewire and ethernet cable ports? And why wouldn’t it use Apple’s newer Mini Display Port? And why is there a black stripe across the back?
There are a half dozen other little things that are off too: the typography seems a bit off, the “iPad” name is far from certain, it’s an odd song choice, etc. Oh, and then there’s the fact that on the front of the device, the left hand side of the screen has a black border, while there is no border on the right. Even if this was just a picture of a prototype Apple was using for a teaser commercial, do you think Apple would overlook something like that? No way.
So is this the Apple Tablet? No way.