Apple Debuts New iPhone 4 Commercial Featuring Retina Display

Smug.

This display is "magical" and amazing.

That little girl was adorable.

Nice Pixar plug w/ the toy story clip! Steve hears the sound of a cash register ringing throughout the commercial!

Well if they are going to make a commercial about having the highest resolution, then they shouldn't change it (in other words, no iPhone with 3.5"+ display)

Competitors

I wonder why no one else has come up with a smartphone screen to match the Retina Display's resolution? ...or has it been done and I'm just not aware of it?

"If you don't have this, you don't have this."

DERP

ThomasJL said:

Smug.

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This. The voiceover guy sounds like a smug little douchebag. Apple has got to stop that. The Mac vs. PC ads were bad enough, and overstayed their welcome by many years, and now we have these. Someone at TBWA/Chiat/Day needs to wake up and realize that tone matters.

the commercial is kind of meh. while i agree the retina display is amazing and deserving of all its hype, it isn't something that can be demonstrated on someone's television or computer screen. it really is one of those things that has to be seen in person to be wowed.

Shunnabunich said:

This. The voiceover guy sounds like a smug little douchebag. Apple has got to stop that. The Mac vs. PC ads were bad enough, and overstayed their welcome by many years, and now we have these. Someone at TBWA/Chiat/Day needs to wake up and realize that tone matters.

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But the PC Mac ads were a huge success and spawned a number of copycats.

illegalfrogs said:

I wonder why no one else has come up with a smartphone screen to match the Retina Display's resolution? ...or has it been done and I'm just not aware of it?

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No one else has had the bizarre need to exactly double an old resolution to get around the lack of app resolution independence, such as Apple did.

However, the Sharp IS03 Android phone does also have a 960x640 screen (see comparison here).

As for denser, LG designs and makes the iPhone4 screen. Their first high res IPS phone display was in a 2008 LG TV phone called the LU1400. It had 333PPI, more than the later iPhone's 326PPI. This likely helped LG get Apple's business.

As for "retina" (aka "print" ~300PPI at a foot away) quality... back in 2007,
both the Toshiba Portege G900 and Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 had 311PPI. They were advertised as the first "print quality" phone displays. Which is probably why Apple felt they had to come up with another catch phrase.

The HTC Diamond2, from early 2009, was 298PPI, which is almost 300PPI.

If you don't have an iPad 3, you don't have the Retina display, the highest resolution screen on any tablet. So movies aren't this dramatic, maps aren't this clear, emails aren't this detailed, and memories aren't this memorable. Yup, if you don't have an iPad 3, well, you don't have an iPad 3.

Damn you APPLE!!!!!!

"Memories aren't that memorable"

You seriously had to go there? "Look at the picture of our first born.... taken with the 2 megapixel camera we had back then. Meh. Whatever."

Indeed…

Indeed, if you haven't an iPhone - or if you even have one - you probably have an iPad 2 with a poor resolution screen and a ridiculously inadequate 16 GB of storage.
Or a Mac (any computer for that matter) with a non-IPS, even lower-than-the-iPad's-resolution screen.
Or, perhaps, you have an iPhone with its beautiful (high resolution), but far too small, screen that appears to resemble a midget in comparison to any 4.3" (or larger) screen smartphone. An iPhone with a non-upgradeable storage that fills by about a hundred MBs a day by itself, a battery life that dictates two full charges a day (3 if it's used for navigation). An iPhone that begs iTunes to report certain errors when being "synchronised", instead of actually synchronising.

I love how they can get away with the "If you don't have an iPhone, well, you don't have an iPhone" line. Only Apple.

cys920622 said:

"If you don't have this, you don't have this."

DERP

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Guess they forgot iPod Touches have one as well.

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Wait I have an iPhone but it's a 3Gs, therefore it doesn't have a Retina Display so does that mean I do or don't have an iPhone?

A bit late, no? I mean this ad would be perfect right after the iPhone 4 was shipped, but now? There will be other phones with other OSes that have similar or close to retina resolution shipping soon. I guess Apple is just trying to get people to buy iPhone 4s, considering many will be sitting on a bench waiting for the iPhone 5.

I wish i had the iphone 4, but it's very expensive

elppa said:

But the PC Mac ads were a huge success and spawned a number of copycats.

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By most measures you're right, but in my opinion, mud-slinging is best left to sleazy politicians.

LeoNobilis said:

An iPhone with a non-upgradeable storage that fills by about a hundred MBs a day by itself.

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Really? My iphone's available storage stays the same unless I install an app or something of that nature. I have seen it stay the exact same for weeks at a time.

user error??

illegalfrogs said:

I wonder why no one else has come up with a smartphone screen to match the Retina Display's resolution? ...or has it been done and I'm just not aware of it?

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There are devices that match the resolution and ppi (from what I remember) but none that exceed it, therefore "highest"..

illegalfrogs said:

I wonder why no one else has come up with a smartphone screen to match the Retina Display's resolution? ...or has it been done and I'm just not aware of it?

Click to expand...

Well the Atrix 4G has a 960 by 540 resolution which is similar. They are calling it qHD. I think the new EVO 3D will have that resolution as well.

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Smug? Pretentious?

SO WHAT. Both of these descriptions actually tap into the desire sector of consumers' brains. Get a clue, people.

It sells. Apple is declaring they're the one to beat. It makes perfect sense for Apple to blow their own horn.

It's ballsy and makes a bold declaration. It gets attention. Plus it's Apple. People make associations with Apple gear - things they *want* to be associated with, i.e., having the best and being the best. It's all about LIFESTYLE. Apple is doing lifestyle marketing here, like they often do. And it translates into: $$$

A lot of you tech geeks are perfectly prepared to label Apple as marketing geniuses at every turn, and ready to dismiss the popularity of Apple products as pure marketing influence. Then, when Apple flexes their marketing muscle, you dismiss them as somehow obtuse or insulting.

This industry is cutthroat and very, very competitive. Some marketing is going to take the form of attack ads. Some of it will go in a different direction. It's all under the same umbrella, though. It's just marketing. The real key here is how you pull it off and what you've got to back it up based on the power of your current mindshare. Apple is pretty aware of their position and their reputation. They're simply capitalizing on it here.

If you're going to criticize Apple, at least understand marketing basics first. Hint: it's a helluva lot more than just showing a product's features visually and flashing a bullet list of specs on screen.

Thing is, in order to understand basic marketing, you need to understand PEOPLE. That's something tech heads and IT folk have historically had a hard time doing. Get out of the basement, guys.