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Apple Releases New 'Barbers' iPhone 7 Plus Ad Promoting Portrait Mode

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Apple today shared a new iPhone 7 Plus ad on its YouTube channel, once again promoting the Portrait Mode feature of its flagship device.

The spot takes place in a barbershop, with photos from the iPhone 7 Plus used to advertise the shop's skills. Images captured with the iPhone are added to the storefront, drawing in more and more customers until there's a long line out the door. "In Portrait mode on the iPhone 7 Plus, you don't just look good. You look fantastic," reads the ad's description.


Apple has been heavily promoting the iPhone 7 Plus Portrait Mode feature, which Tim Cook recently said is one of the reasons why the iPhone 7 Plus has been the most popular "Plus" model the company has released yet.

Interest in the iPhone 7 Plus led to constrained supplies for months, with Apple having just reached supply/demand balance early in the second quarter of 2017.

Apple has released several ads focusing on the iPhone 7 Plus and its dual lens camera, including "Take Mine" about a girl in a greek village who captures her town using Portrait Mode, and "The City," featuring two people who document a series of adventures using the iPhone 7 Plus.

Apple also recently shared a new website and a series of tutorial videos that cover how to take better photos using the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus.

Article Link: Apple Releases New 'Barbers' iPhone 7 Plus Ad Promoting Portrait Mode
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/05/15/apple-barbers-iphone-7-plus-ad/
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I guess this commercial is lost on me. I thought portrait mode primarily blurred out features in the background, but I'm not seeing the benefit here. Maybe a professional photographer can readily see the difference, but the commercial transitions from the live action to the picture so quickly I can't see where the background blur does anything and the photos are so closely cropped as to make any blur effect minimal anyway.

Don't get me wrong, the pictures are quite good, but this doesn't highlight portrait mode very well. The recent commercial with the Japanese couple's pictures in the city showed off the feature much better. Maybe it was because the city background was much brighter and busier than that in the barbershop pictures.
 
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Moorepheus said:
Release all the ads they want, Portrait mode is a gimmick at best. In a well lit room, still get the message that I need more light. The Photos are grainy and half the time it doesn't take the depth of field picture at all.
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I think when it does work properly, it takes nice photo's. However, It does need improvement with the speed with focus and the overall distance can be troublesome. I think being its a newer feature and with a few refinements, it will be a well rounded feature with camera.
 
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Great ad to go along with a great feature on the 7 Plus, i use it regularly and find it a great feature. It is in beta so it may not work perfectly all of the time but it's still a great feature that now i've got use to using i wouldn't want to be without.
 
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78Bandit said:
I guess this commercial is lost on me. I thought portrait mode primarily blurred out features in the background, but I'm not seeing the benefit here. Maybe a professional photographer can readily see the difference, but the commercial transitions from the live action to the picture so quickly I can't see where the background blur does anything and the photos are so closely cropped as to make any blur effect minimal anyway.

Don't get me wrong, the pictures are quite good, but this doesn't highlight portrait mode very well.
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Professional photographer here. The background blur effect on the iPhone 7 Plus happens in real-time, so you can't really see the effect in the advertisement, as there is nothing to compare it to. To compound the issue, they're using expensive cinema lenses that have wide apertures, blurring the background already of the person and the background around the iPhone before taking the shot. But once you consider that, the effect is quite impressive, because it gives a similar effect to more expensive cameras and lenses, just at a lower resolution and with poorer low-light performance. Also, sometimes, the algorithm messes up. Apple will continue to improve it, and future advancements such as 3D depth sensors should help improve the effect.
 
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macduke said:
Professional photographer here. The background blur effect on the iPhone 7 Plus happens in real-time, so you can't really see the effect in the advertisement, as there is nothing to compare it to. To compound the issue, they're using expensive cinema lenses that have wide apertures, blurring the background already of the person and the background around the iPhone before taking the shot. But once you consider that, the effect is quite impressive, because it gives a similar effect to more expensive cameras and lenses, just at a lower resolution and with poorer low-light performance. Also, sometimes, the algorithm messes up. Apple will continue to improve it, and future advancements such as 3D depth sensors should help improve the effect.
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I went back and watched in 1/4 time and did see where it looked like the background was already blurry in the action shots like you said. The one of the guy that looked like Napoleon Dynamite was very blurry to begin with so the picture wound up looking almost the same. In some of the others the background completely changed from the live shot so no comparison was possible.

With the commercial of the couple in the city Apple has been showing on TV lately you can see a big difference in the transition from live action to picture. The sharp features of the cityscape in the live shots are contrasted with the soft background shown in those pictures. That one is a much better commercial showcasing portrait mode.
 
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Wow! That ads does more for the transformation a good hair cut can give than the power of Portrait Mode on the iPhone. Framing and length of linger on the photo my have pushed the focus more on the picture and not on the cut. See what I did there. :D
 
iModFrenzy said:
I love MacRumors but I don't see the point in posting news articles over advertisements? Seems more like a side news article then a front page one, unless I'm missing something
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I've always been curious about this as well.

I can see it happening on a weekend, when things are slow.

But to shunt substantive news like most of today's OS updates off to the side in the blog section doesn't make sense to me.

It's like AppleInsider's occasional Pollyannaish cheerleading editorials, but at least those are marked as such, albeit just as easy to avoid.
 
Reminded me of the original iPod ad with the guy in his apartment dancing to the music. It was fun like this.
 
This is a really cool commercial on its own, but it doesn't clearly get across the benefits of the 7+ portrait mode. Maybe it's good from a general branding POV, but that's not what this ad is supposed to be. The "Take Mine" ad did a much better job of showing the feature.
 
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78Bandit said:
I guess this commercial is lost on me. I thought portrait mode primarily blurred out features in the background, but I'm not seeing the benefit here. Maybe a professional photographer can readily see the difference, but the commercial transitions from the live action to the picture so quickly I can't see where the background blur does anything and the photos are so closely cropped as to make any blur effect minimal anyway.

Don't get me wrong, the pictures are quite good, but this doesn't highlight portrait mode very well. The recent commercial with the Japanese couple's pictures in the city showed off the feature much better. Maybe it was because the city background was much brighter and busier than that in the barbershop pictures.
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I think the point was more that the iPhone 7+ takes such good portrait style shots, you can print them and frame them just like professional headshots you might find in a traditional barber shop. If they did a straight comparison of portrait to non-portrait, it would overshadow the funny haircuts so they chose to go more for laughs than product feature endorsement here.
 
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At this points,who gives a what about iPhone 7 ads?! I know who... People who don't read Apple rumor websites LOL

What this says to me is that Apple is going to continue a focus on the camera sensor and features in the upcoming anniversary iPhones. And that make me very happy since the camera is probably the most important feature for me. This implies that there is strong commitment to competing with Google Pixel for the "best smartphone camera" available. Love the competition.

Don't care about the ads one bit though :)
 
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Moorepheus said:
Release all the ads they want, Portrait mode is a gimmick at best. In a well lit room, still get the message that I need more light. The Photos are grainy and half the time it doesn't take the depth of field picture at all.
Click to expand...
If you take the shot knowing what to expect, it usually turns out well. But this is just the beginning. Soon, much less light will be required and the next step will be doing the same effect but for 30fps 4k video!
 
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While the feature is somewhat gimmicky it's worth and ad (some people will bite). But the fact that Apple uses this in many different adds indicates that that there is crisis of innovation in iPhones (perhaps in smart phones in general).
 
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