Not too long ago I received a FaceTime call from my brother, he was in Cancun on the beach.
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Apple Airs New 'iCloud Harmony' Commercial
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Not too long ago I received a FaceTime call from my brother, he was in Cancun on the beach.
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What a terrible, horrible ad. It doesn't explain one single thing to the casual viewer, and there's no narrator explaining what's going on. This sort of crap would never have been approved if Steve was still alive.
What a terrible, horrible ad. It doesn't explain one single thing to the casual viewer, and there's no narrator explaining what's going on. This sort of crap would never have been approved if Steve was still alive.
In general, I love the idea and it is good to know that all my music is backed up in the cloud.
Most annoying for me is the fact that since activating itunes match, I cant see most of my cover art on my iphone.
All my music has cover art and now I can perhaps see 50% of it on my phone.
Also, it is annoying that you first have to set it up correctly before it will work.
I usually skip randomly through my music and you basically have to deactivate iMatch for that otherwise skipping takes forever through my bluetooth stereo headset.
I now have "show all music" and "use cellular data" deactivated. Even if you only deactivate use cellular data but have show all music activated, it takes a few seconds for me to skip from track to track.
1) The ad highlights one feature... iCloud.
2) It's targeted at people who already one one device and is trying to give them a reason to buy another.
3) It takes a complicated subject (Cloud storage) and puts it into pictures.
4) It clearly shows you, the user, with your one device using an app that you will already be familiar with (the clip with a finger in view) which then happens automatically on every other device (and iPad and iMac doing exactly the same thing with no human nearby).
5) It finishes off with its biggest selling point, which is that fact that it's automatic and like many Apple products, "just works".
They couldn't really have made it any clearer.
Its perhaps a little bit too hectic for people who do not know the concept of iCloud. Although the ad flicks through the different devices and shows what happens on each of them, it does not really point out that this happens over the internet, seamlessly and immediately. Perhaps a supporting voice over would have been a good idea. But then again, I have no experience with good marketing.
Match has been flawless for me. IPhone, AppleTV, iMac, MacPro. What's the issue? It screwed up album art? Boo hoo. Once it seemed to lose connection on the MacPro, and as recommended I turned it off and on and all was well. But I continually shuffle my whole library over 3G on AT&T and it never skips a beat.
Except it doesn't always: try making a calendar event on your Mac, wait a few minutes for iCloud to update, then put your iPhone/iPad in airplane mode and open the calendar app. A good proportion of the time the new event won't be there: it isn't really pushed when iCloud updates from the device that created the event, the app fetches it when it opens (you can see the data transfer spinner in the status bar, then the new data appears). Pretty useless if you have an iPad without 3G and want to check your calendar when you're out and about, or if you need to check your diary when you're on a plane...
This ad needs a voiceover to explain what the viewer is watching. All of Apple's previous excellent ads for iPad and iPhone used voiceovers to explain what the viewer was seeing. In this case, NO VIEWER IN THE WORLD*(outside of the hardcore Mac fans reading this website) can understand WHAT IN THE WORLD they are seeing on the screen. We need a voiceover to explain what's going on.
Terrible ad. Send it back to the drawing board, and pull it off the air immediately.
Terrible ad. Send it back to the drawing board, and pull it off the air immediately.
Except for iCloud Mail Rules on iPhone...
I notice that the ad didn't show mail items being filtered into folders on the web and on the Mac, but NOT on the iPhone/iPad. So much for truth in advertising (the lie of omission.)
Until Apple can get server-side iCloud rules working on the iPhone, iCloud is an incomplete offering and a bit of a joke in the industry.
I notice that the ad didn't show mail items being filtered into folders on the web and on the Mac, but NOT on the iPhone/iPad. So much for truth in advertising (the lie of omission.)
Until Apple can get server-side iCloud rules working on the iPhone, iCloud is an incomplete offering and a bit of a joke in the industry.
Artwork is but a small problem if you have a large library from outside of the iTunes store.
Besides the missing artwork several people have had the explicit music replaced with the clean version.
The play counts never updated between macs, let alone between iOS devices and the Macs.
iTunes Match can actually alter the music on your HDD changing the artwork, metadata, or play count randomly with no interaction from the user.
This is just a small list of the hundreds of problems that are on Apple's support site. Take a look.
For an iTunes only customer with a small library I'm sure it would work better. Like most Apple products if you stay completely in the ecosystem every just works.
You've just hit on one of Apple's key strengths right theremaking technology which even non-technical people get. And the ads back that up I think. The non-technical person might be tempted to ask why the pictures are appearing on the computer, as if by magicbut that's the whole point isn't it?
I think it's a great ad, but I'm not sure that a person who doesn't understand sync would understand this ad, but I don't think it's intended for them. In fact, the ad is intended only for those people who already own or intend to own (perhaps by virtue of the ad) more than one Apple device.
While at first I disagreed with the comments stating that the ad needed an announcer, I now think those posters might be correct. It could have been as simple as "do it on one device and it have it on all....it's just there", repeating the "it's just there" every time they show the data synching on another device.
Just like the other ads, it's on iTunes somewhere... but never with any lyrics. So shazam doesn't always pick it up.
I assume it's by the Kate artist, but I've listen to the album, no luck
Just like the other ads, it's on iTunes somewhere... but never with any lyrics. So shazam doesn't always pick it up.
I assume it's by the Kate artist, but I've listen to the album, no luck
Not working with SoundHound either.
Speaking on the behalf of the technologically clueless:
I have a MacBook Air on its way to me as a replacement for a 2008 MacBook that's still running Leopard, so I've never had a chance to see how iCloud works first hand.
This ad has me even more excited about my new computer than before; all this time, I had been assuming that iCloud was just some sort of Google Documents style service for storing files! I didn't realize that it was a way to help my iPhone and computer play (even more) nicely with each other.
And, yes, I do feel like it works by magic.
I have a MacBook Air on its way to me as a replacement for a 2008 MacBook that's still running Leopard, so I've never had a chance to see how iCloud works first hand.
This ad has me even more excited about my new computer than before; all this time, I had been assuming that iCloud was just some sort of Google Documents style service for storing files! I didn't realize that it was a way to help my iPhone and computer play (even more) nicely with each other.
And, yes, I do feel like it works by magic.
If you needs thing explained about you phone, then the iPhone is not for you. Do you need this explained?
Might have been answered already, but I didn't know about it. Photostream, which is used in iCloud for the iPhone and iPad also works with Aperture on the Mac. A nice way to select certain photos you want to sync with devices, for previewing on the iPad for example.
Hold on… don't forget that the very purpose of an ad is to generate that 'intention to own'. This ad isn't selling just one Apple product (despite the 'iPhone 4S' tag at the end)—it's selling a benefit of being part of the whole Apple ecosystem. It's selling the idea that everything 'just works' in harmony. (Although we know that isn't always true!) It's selling the Apple brand as a whole.
I disagree. The ad reflects Apple's hardware design philosophy of abandoning unnecessary clutter. Words would have been clutter, like buttons on a Blackberry.
Some people might see the ad and still have questions about what's going on and how it all works. Or they might not catch the entirety of what is going on the first time they see the ad and want to see it again. That's not a bad thing—if you have someone asking questions, or wanting to see the ad again, at least they're engaged! Others will immediately see the benefit of having their photos, calendars, etc, magically appear on all their devices. They don't have to understand how it works to appreciate the benefits.
Just like the other ads, it's on iTunes somewhere... but never with any lyrics. So shazam doesn't always pick it up.
I assume it's by the Kate artist, but I've listen to the album, no luck
That's what I thought as well, but Kate H. does not have the esprit of the song in the ad.
