Touched by an iPhone Ad

By now you have probably seen this iPhone 4 ad. If you haven't, you need to.



Apple just never ceases to amaze me. They recently became the number one tech company in the world (as I was politely informed by my buddy Josh Fraser when I stated otherwise), and they continue to defy everything everyone in the tech world claims is crucial. Openness with your customers? Apple has no blog and no twitter account. Openness to multiple platforms? Apple doesn't allow flash to run on any of their mobile devices. Openness to developers? Apple arbitrarily kicks apps out of the iTunes store which it doesn't like. Wealth of features? Apple cuts features in favor of design and simplicity. Low prices and adapting your product to widen your customer base? Apple keeps its prices high and uses branding to market itself to a cult of selective buyers.

But that just scratches the surface, really. There's the epic personal story of the maniacal visionary Steve Jobs, the Microsoft/Apple rivalry (which has now been reborn as the Apple/Google rivalry), the music revolution brought on by the iPod and iTunes, the cell phone revolution brought on by the iPhone and App Store, and of course, their masterful marketing and PR. Motorola is putting out ads for geeky robot phones which are "racehorse duck-taped to a scud missle fast" (which would never in a million years appeal to the average female), while Palm Pre creeps us the hell out with their ballerina in need of an exorcism. Then along comes Apple and says, hey, why not just show how to use the phone? In fact, why not show how our product can enable incredibly touching connections to happen, like a soldier getting to experience his wife's ultrasound from overseas? The first time I saw the ad above, I could not believe how emotionally involved I had just become with a television commercial. Like everyone in the television age, I am trained to ignore advertising. Breaking past this and actually affecting me was no small feat. I may have never owned a Mac, but I was impressed.

I don't doubt that Google will win Apple's new rivalry in the way Microsoft won their old one—one day soon Android phones will far outnumber iPhones. But the great thing about Apple is that won't matter.