Latest Apple Watch ads mark shift in style, focus on Apple Pay, Siri, more
Apple released six new Apple Watch spots on Monday highlighting tentpole features like Apple Pay, Siri, fitness tracking and Maps presented in a fresh, somewhat abstract visual style set apart from current TV commercials.
Each of Apple's short 15-second commercials focuses on a specific Watch capability, with most starring only one or two characters acting out scenes on a minimalist set. Backdrops are similarly spartan, showing only gradients of pastel hues that jibe nicely with poppy music beds. The entire series evokes a nostalgic feel borrowed from early color television ads aired in the 1960s.
The first ad, "Sing" shines a light on Watch's voice messaging capabilities, with a young man singing a ditty to his girlfriend via Messages. The spot ends with the tagline "text your heart out." Apple's "Date" commercial also showcases messaging, or more specifically picture and text messaging.
Both "Train" and "Cycle" tout Watch's ability to track fitness metrics, in these cases heart rate monitoring and specific exercise logging for indoor cycling. Here, too, actors are seen interacting one-on-one with their Watch with no outside distractions, suggestive of a highly personal connection with the device.
"Ride" is all about Maps. A woman is seen tooling across the colorful set on a moped when she stops to ask Siri directions to Piazza Navona in Italy. The Maps app pops up with the requested route highlighted in bold blue.
"Sprinkle" features the largest cast with a mom who has her hands full -- literally -- with her two young daughters. One daughter drops her ice cream cone, but luckily mom has Apple Watch with Apple Pay. Incidentally, the ad is one of the first to show a left-handed user wearing Watch on their right wrist.
Apple is in the midst of an advertising push for Watch after announcing new Apple Watch Sport colors and accessories last month. The company just today started sales of special Hermes Watch editions to consumers and official "Made for Watch" band lugs to third-party accessory makers.
Each of Apple's short 15-second commercials focuses on a specific Watch capability, with most starring only one or two characters acting out scenes on a minimalist set. Backdrops are similarly spartan, showing only gradients of pastel hues that jibe nicely with poppy music beds. The entire series evokes a nostalgic feel borrowed from early color television ads aired in the 1960s.
The first ad, "Sing" shines a light on Watch's voice messaging capabilities, with a young man singing a ditty to his girlfriend via Messages. The spot ends with the tagline "text your heart out." Apple's "Date" commercial also showcases messaging, or more specifically picture and text messaging.
Both "Train" and "Cycle" tout Watch's ability to track fitness metrics, in these cases heart rate monitoring and specific exercise logging for indoor cycling. Here, too, actors are seen interacting one-on-one with their Watch with no outside distractions, suggestive of a highly personal connection with the device.
"Ride" is all about Maps. A woman is seen tooling across the colorful set on a moped when she stops to ask Siri directions to Piazza Navona in Italy. The Maps app pops up with the requested route highlighted in bold blue.
"Sprinkle" features the largest cast with a mom who has her hands full -- literally -- with her two young daughters. One daughter drops her ice cream cone, but luckily mom has Apple Watch with Apple Pay. Incidentally, the ad is one of the first to show a left-handed user wearing Watch on their right wrist.
Apple is in the midst of an advertising push for Watch after announcing new Apple Watch Sport colors and accessories last month. The company just today started sales of special Hermes Watch editions to consumers and official "Made for Watch" band lugs to third-party accessory makers.
Comments
All previous ads were someone sitting on their ass using the watch where ANY other device would have been a better option. Good grief!
ApplePay, now there's a concept... Maybe one day it will become a reality for people outside of the US or UK... ah we can but hope
Sigh.. totally, when I live in a country with one of the densest roll outs of tap to pay and not a freaking thing.
Perhaps we need to lobby the banks, they it appears are the obstacle
I think the next watch will have an idea that isn't even possible on phones today.
That's probably why Apple went with the US first as well as went big on the banks in the US first. The benefits are clear, but, like with most, if not all, of the innovations Apple creates that requires their partners to do something different—to evolve—it takes some time to get things going. It's only been a year since Apple Pay launched and I use it on average over 1x per day, so I think that's pretty good at this point. My guess is that in a year it will be supported by a lot more retailers, and in 3 years it'll be strange for major companies in the US not to accept Apple Pay. By then I would expect many other countries to be at or above where it is right now in the US.
yeah, problem in Australia is that the "evolve" isn't so much - tap to pay is everywhere and everyone has cards that do it. so the banks are kinda "yeah.. we got that sorted already and are making tidy sums from it.. so what's all this Apple wants a piece of the action"
the only improvement here is fraud and I -believe- that it is quite a bit lower in Australia as well.
Apple would have a better time in Australia to say "**** you" to the banks and partner with VISA or MasterCard to create an Apple Pay Virtual Card - that extends through your iTunes account and connects to Apple Pay.
That way they can bypass the blocking moves from the banks.
I don't think it would even take much for them to do it
Is it tap to pay, chip and PIN, or chip and signature. If it's literally tap to pay (or tap and signature) then the security isn't there. If it's chip and PIN the security is pretty good, but Apple Pay does add extra security, an extra level of security/convenience of using a virtual card over the physical card, and extra, general convenience that comes along with Apple Pay. I understand that the issue is what Apple is asking for service, which I can understand from the financial institute end, if the data I've read about Australian bank fees per transactions being much lower than in the US, but I think that is solvable.
I'm very much against trying to go around the banks. This is what Google (and many others did) and it's failed. Of all the tech companies out there, I trust Apple more than most, if not all, of them, but I don't want all my transaction to go through a single point of failure for either a hack or even just a system being down. My vision for a truly successful mobile and modern payment system, from many years ago, evolved around having the representational/virtual card number assigned, verified and tied to your financial institution so that the bank had full control, and despite this push back in Australia (and surely other markets) I still feel that is the way today. I want nothing to go through Apple's servers for a transaction that does not involve a transaction from an Apple owned website or store. Anything else I feel just sets up an ultimately failed system. I say be patient... or move to the US. I can name some wonderful cities. D
it is chip and pin in Australia, tap to pay has a retailer floor limit, whatever that might be - after which you have to enter pin, otherwise you tap and walk.
Apple's solution is much much more secure, arguably more secure than even PIN, since you could tell someone your PIN.
But, as I have learnt from reading about the US roll out, there are only a handful of banks in Australia versus the 100's in the US.. and the big 4 work in lockstep to protect their pockets..
Apple can't really work on cracking one of them, they are thick as thieves and rich from it. So Apple here basically has to win over all the banks in one move while only offering security benefits..
there are a couple second tier banks - but winning them would be next to meaningless
Anything that is remembered is inherently more secure than a fingerprint. The problem with prints is that 1) we leave them everywhere, and 2) Touch ID (or any reader) doesn't look for an exact match, but rather a good enough match. Now the accuracy using similar points that we can say is, for example, a 99.99999% match, but it's still not possible for the system to make a 100% match, unless a passcode which is always a 100% match. My iCloud account password isn't going to let me type in my 40 character passcode and than think, "well, he inverted a couple characters, so I'll let him in anyway." No, it's all or nothing, which is why Touch ID isn't enabled until AFTER you set up a passcode, why it won't work after a restart until you first input your passcode, why it will require the passcode if too much time has passed between uses.
The real security with Apple Pay comes from nothing having to use your physical card or the number that's printed on it with your actual info.
1) I think the number is literally in the tens of thousands for US banks and credit unions.
2) They may be thick as thieves but remember they are also in competition with each other. If Apple can get one to see how a deal with Apple will give them the upper hand then the rest will have to follow suit. Give it time. Consider how Apple entered the cellphone business in the US by partnering with the number 2 carrier in the US and now it's on every carrier. That took many years to happen.
Great! The ads are as short and focused as the interactions with the watch.
My favourites are 'Ride' and 'Cycle'.
Goddamn US Bank is marketing it as Android Pay... I halfway wanted to switch banks on that basis alone. I'll be smug when that android shitz starts stealing from their depositors and gives the CEO a ulcer...
But but but... specifications... gigabytes... cores... galaxy gear was first... free spyware... changeable batteries... mickey mouse inside...
Like, Siri gets to know you and your girlfriend so well, she starts answering texts meant for each other... ordering flowers... setting up dinner dates...etc. You look like a Romeo to your girlfriend while your girlfriend seems to steam over your touch screen with her sexual zeal... One day you wake up and wonder how DID you propose to her...?