Apple's latest iPhone 6 ads focus on Continuity, gaming prowess

Posted:
in iPhone edited November 2014
Apple on Monday released a pair of commercials starring iPhone 6 spokesmen Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake, one covering iOS and OS X Continuity features and another highlighting the handsets' gaming capabilities.




Like Apple's first iPhone 6 and 6 Plus ads, the two 30-second spots published to Apple's YouTube channel today feature voice acting from "The Tonight Show" host Jimmy Fallon and pop superstar Justin Timberlake.

The first and perhaps more interesting commercial is titled "Reservations" and involves Apple's latest cross-platform Continuity features that let users perform seamless feature swapping across iOS and OS X. For example, users can make or receive calls on other devices, continue app operations and transfer files with AirDrop, among other high-level interactions.



In the ad, Fallon tells Timberlake that iPhone users can make phone calls on almost any Apple device using Continuity, and to prove it he has the singer place a call using a MacBook Air running OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

Acting as a gar?on at a posh French restaurant, Fallon denies Timberlake's request for a reservation before asking him to try again with an iPad mini. He is again rebuffed, humorously.



The second spot, aptly titled "Gamers," is all about gaming on iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Popular MOBA (mulitplayer online battle arena) title Vain Glory is used to highlight the iPhones' A8 system-on-chip silicon. Aside from a short quote about powerful "next-level" gaming, the commercial is mostly Fallon and Timberlake stringing together phrases likely foreign to the regular viewer, but familiar to avid gamers.

Apple's latest iPhone models are a huge success, with the initial launch being the company's largest ever, according to CEO Tim Cook.

In a note to investors on Sunday, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts combined iPhone shipments for quarter four 2014 will come out to 71.5 million units, with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus accounting for nearly 80 percent of all sales.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 23
    Classy, simple.
  • Reply 2 of 23
    Surely, if Apple wants to be successful, they should do ads that make fun of Galaxy owners, or ones where a MacBook Air smashes a Surface Pro, or trots out a Zune joke or two.

    Because that's what successful companies do, or something.


    At least that's what Business Insider told me. :D
  • Reply 3 of 23
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    Puh-lease. Apple needs a detachable keyboard, a stylus, and a kickstand. /s
  • Reply 4 of 23

    Continuity and Handoff need to be highlighted in particular. No other platform has anything remotely close to this.

  • Reply 5 of 23
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    Continuity and Handoff need to be highlighted in particular. No other platform has anything remotely close to this.
    Samsung will very soon, I am sure. They're probably innovating like crazy all day and all night. Differentiating like mad. I mean, if anyone can Samsung can, right?
  • Reply 6 of 23
    paxman wrote: »
    Samsung will very soon, I am sure. They're probably innovating like crazy all day and all night. Differentiating like mad. I mean, if anyone can Samsung can, right?

    Yeah, pretty soon you'll be able to adjust your Samsung Galaxy refrigerator temperature from your Galaxy phone. :lol:
  • Reply 7 of 23

    These ads were kind of terrible.  Jimmy Fallon as the voice is fine, but did they let him write the ads too?  I don't know much about Continuity, and after that first ad, I still don't.  Oh well, just my opinion.

  • Reply 8 of 23
    I like all the Fallon/Timberlake ads. Light hearted fun that still highlights features.
  • Reply 9 of 23
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member

    These two spots are very confusing.

  • Reply 10 of 23
    Who were the hand models?
  • Reply 11 of 23
    I think Continuity needs to be detailed more because it's a great feature for Mac OS X and iOS users that can't be matched, but I'm not feeling that ad. I felt it will come across as convoluted and confusing to the less intelligent. People might even think that's been around for awhile with FaceTime audio or Skype without realizing it's coming to and from your iPhone to your other devices.
  • Reply 12 of 23
    Who were the hand models?

    It's in the article: Jimmy Fallon and pop superstar Justin Timberlake.

    I think they should also show SMS from the desktop. That may be an old feature (I used it 15 years ago) but it's handy to text Android people, telling them OSX/iOS is so much better.
  • Reply 13 of 23
    relicrelic Posts: 4,735member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jungmark View Post



    Puh-lease. Apple needs a detachable keyboard, a stylus, and a kickstand. /s

     

    You kid, but that would be awesome!

  • Reply 14 of 23
    These two ads are just awful.

    The voices are annoying and the dialogue is unfunny.

    I guess this is the face of Cook's Apple in transition, or Apple 2.5.

    Looking forward to Apple 3 arriving in 2018.
  • Reply 15 of 23
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,255member
    the French accent thing is really annoying and fairly stupid.
  • Reply 16 of 23
    I actually laughed out loud at both commercials. IMO these are the only commercials from a top rated phone company out there that are actually funny. I feel like Apple ads were lacking for a long time, but now they have some sort of ad identity of late to build off of. These ads show that Apple doesn't give a flying fig about responding to Samsung's ludicrous barrage of whiny comments. I'm glad they showed off the great graphics in the iPhone, using an iOS 8 (probably swift) metal game on the iPhone 6 shows where Apple is at. I've been thinking Apple needs to show off all the new graphics in one of their ads - a huge selling point. And highlighting the calling feature shows that Apple still has majorly useful ideas that no one else has yet. Another reason I like the ads, is because they're not aimed at Apple owners. People who laugh let their guard down. As opposed to Samsung ads, who are insulting the very people there trying to win over. It is especially noticeable when compared to the latest Samsung ad that claims to have invented the big screen phone… showing quotes from tech articles saying Apple is copying Samsung's big phones. They come across silly... Like the phone geek who doesn't realize why he doesn't have friends. Apparently, the 2 billion Apple spend on advertising is more effective than the 14 billion Sam's son spends.
  • Reply 17 of 23
    These "two voices" ads seem to be Apples new technique for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus - here in the UK I've seen a couple of ads along a similar style which are voiced by Richard Ayoade and Chris O'Dowd from the IT Crowd and they are pretty good as they are recognisable voices to a lot of people and the IT Crowd link lends a bit of geek appeal to Apples devices.
  • Reply 18 of 23
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post

     

    These two spots are very confusing.




    I don't know.  I love how these iPhone 6 ads actually show the software being used, and show a single concept.

     

    I think those Surface Siri ads are confusing to people who have never seen a Surface before.  It's like they just throw some feature spam at the viewer and hear Siri.  Not going to make anyone switch.

     

    Heck, they aren't even lovable like the PC vs Mac ads:

     

    image

  • Reply 19 of 23
    pazuzupazuzu Posts: 1,728member
    Not a good ad. Nothing compelling to watch. Even less compelling to listen to.
  • Reply 20 of 23
    jungmark wrote: »
    Puh-lease. Apple needs a detachable keyboard, a stylus, and a kickstand. /s

    Don't forget about the clicking and dancing, which makes everything better. /s
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