Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Running New Celebrity iPhone 4S/Siri TV Ads Featuring John Malkovich

deftdrummer said:
Your comment actually made a light bulb go off. It makes total sense that Apple would be highlighting their major piece of software rather than the hardware elements...after all we all know what's just around the corner - but also what's still on the shelves.
Click to expand...


This is because they cannot compete on the hardware elements. There is no piece of tech on the iPhone 4S that competing smartphones do not do bigger and better.

Screen size
Screen resolution
Screen color gamut
Battery life (hello HTC One X)
Cell phone radio
Storage space
Build quality
Processor speed
Memory

etc.

Apple has at least one manufacturer gunning for them in their ads (Samsung poking fun at the iPhone lines and comparing iUsers to sheep), so they have to exercise a little bit more tact with how they promote their product.

If they talk about how sharp their 'retina' display is then you'd better believe that Verizon/AT&T reps will tell them why/how much better the 720p Super AMOLEDs are when they are in the store.
 
Really? Too bad for you then, I guess!

I don't find any of this "sad" at all. Rather, I find it a promising glimpse of the future predicted by all the science-fiction of decades past. Sure, Siri is just "fake A.I.", but it serves some very functional purposes, like voice dictation of SMS text messages or email.

If we hope to see A.I. really advance to the point it's something like the computer in Star Trek, people have to first get accustomed to the idea of communicating with such an A.I. Then they're going to keep asking for more functionality ... more features. That's what will ultimately drive us to a point where something like Siri can actually give sensible voice responses to queries of all sorts (not just opening a page of Google search results).

I don't think the aim or goal is anything about simulating a friend or buddy, so we can chat with our phones in place of humans! It's about creating a truly functional voice UI for a computer. It means when you want to look up the answer to a question, you can just ask it and get a verbal answer, vs. having to sit down at a computer terminal, key in the queries, and read through the results displayed to find it.


ts1973 said:
It has been said before, but all this Siri stuff is so sad... and the sadness just gets enlarged by these adds. I really don't know anyone that would like to talk to a phone. Or is it the other way around : people who talk to phones don't really know/have anybody (to talk to) ?

Imho, siri is a symptom of modern life, I really hope this technology, this new "cool" way of life stops here... I don't want to know where it leads next to be honest.
Click to expand...
 
kingtj said:
I don't think the aim or goal is anything about simulating a friend or buddy, so we can chat with our phones in place of humans! It's about creating a truly functional voice UI for a computer.
Click to expand...

Actually, that is the direction that IBM and Google are taking (and IBM has been working on such technology for decades already).

Apple on the other hand -is- trying to create an artificial personality that you can talk to. Doesn't it seem odd to you that in their ads people are always ALONE with Siri? The message in their ads has nothing to do with presenting a voice UI for computers. If they wanted to do that, they would show people in public places using Siri. You know, just like Google presents their new glasses that also have a voice assistant.

The Google glasses very obviously are NOT targeted at loners. Siri is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c6W4CCU9M4

(And no, I wouldn't want to run around with this Terminator-style technology either.)
 
swingerofbirch said:
This seems like a post-modern critique of Siri more than it does an ad. It shows a listless man, alone, talking to a robot about rather inane things. It's actually quite interesting as a piece of art. Just like the one with Zoey Daschannel, had the tone been darker, would have been a rather sad (in a good way) piece of art (a woman who can see that it's raining asks her phone if it's raining—if that's not black humor I don't know what is).

I have to mute the Sam Jackson ad because I don't know of anyone else who cools their gazpacho using ice and who would wait an hour to do so or would need a reminder to do so. It's too vexing to hear over and over.
Click to expand...

Bullseye!
 
Siri and Malkovitch are both Kant's followers... It seems from this ad. I would agree.
 
I'd much rather see the phone as the star of the commercial than some actor. I think these commercials are a big waste of Apple money.
 
MythicFrost said:
I liked the ad with Zooey in it, and the other guy too, but not this so much...
Click to expand...

Malkovich uses his faux-postmodern wistfulness, Zooey flaunts her faux-quirkiness...but "the other guy"--Sam Jackson--is so unexpectedly calm. I get so confused by that one. What happened to "I'm not mad! This is the way I talk!"?
 
thefourthpope said:
Malkovich uses his faux-postmodern wistfulness, Zooey flaunts her faux-quirkiness...but "the other guy"--Sam Jackson--is so unexpectedly calm. I get so confused by that one. What happened to "I'm not mad! This is the way I talk!"?
Click to expand...
Haha, I see. I really like anything with Zooey in it, and I don't mind Sam Jackson, I didn't mind the ad. But I still don't get the Malkovich ad, maybe it doesn't appeal to my generation.
 
MythicFrost said:
Haha, I see. I really like anything with Zooey in it, and I don't mind Sam Jackson, I didn't mind the ad. But I still don't get the Malkovich ad, maybe it doesn't appeal to my generation.
Click to expand...

That's exactly why I like the John Malkovich ad so much, because it does appeal to mine. So many of Apple's ads are youth oriented that it's nice to see something appeal to 'older' people.
 
I think that most people fail to understand who and what these ad's target. It isn't people like us who know what Siri is and what it does. It is for the millions of people out there that are fascinated by the idea you can casually talk to a computer and have it casually talk back. For 90% of this country, "Voice Recognition" has never been anything more than a computer talking, being able to say something like "Is that rain?" isn't saying that you should ask Siri that when looking out the window, it's saying that Siri understands things like that. For that 90% that is something new and exciting.

Although, that "Two iPhone's walk into a Bar" must have been for the other 10%, I had to explain it to my mom. It's good to know Apple can laugh about it now.
 
Ugg said:
That's exactly why I like the John Malkovich ad so much, because it does appeal to mine. So many of Apple's ads are youth oriented that it's nice to see something appeal to 'older' people.
Click to expand...
Eh yeah, that's true. It's definitely not a bad thing if they starting trying to appeal to a broader range of people with their ads.
 
Man these are ads are ripe for parody... Is that rain? S "why not just look out the window, bitch"

Life? S "if you're asking a phone then you obviously don't have one"

etc
 
mrxak said:
I would pay to see that ad. Thing is, Christopher Walken would totally do the ad. He'll do anything. The man will literally take any job that's offered to him as long as he's not too busy. Hopefully, somebody offers.

Anyway, these two are kind of bizarre. Not even good at showing off Siri. One word requests? Laughing at a joke before it's even said? He's a good celebrity to use, he has the right sort of level and type of fame, but these were poorly done if the goal is to sell people Siri.
Click to expand...

I believe as some have said, the reference to the iPhones walking into a bar is Apple poking fun at itself due to the snafus of the two lost prototypes in the bars.

These instances were widely reported in the media, so in my mind his laughing at the joke before it was even said reinforces this.

Not to mention there is no joke here whatsoever unless you get it's reference. No punchline save for the set-up.
 
deftdrummer said:
Your comment actually made a light bulb go off. It makes total sense that Apple would be highlighting their major piece of software rather than the hardware elements...after all we all know what's just around the corner - but also what's still on the shelves.
Click to expand...

With this in mind, if Apple aren't previewing new iPhone hardware and are focusing entirely on iOS 6 it will be interesting to see how they skirt around demonstrating the new rumoured dimensions / resolution.
 
Siri is useless for asking about things that are obvious(yeah I can see it's raining). What it's more useful for is the Wolfram Alpha answer engine and calendar integration. That's all.

But regardless only Apple can get these high profile celebs to tout the iPhone. No wonder they're so successful.
 
"Eat less fat" as life advice makes me cringe.

I know it's a minor side note in those post, but ugh. It's such bad advice. Eating more fat has changed my life. Fat intake (saturated fat included) does not cause heart disease, and this horrible myth is as prevalent in America as Fan Death is in South Korea.
 
I have to disagree ....

IBM, as far as I've been able to tell, was primarily interested/focused on speech recognition and voice synthesis as separate technologies. They've spent decades working on them in their labs, and offered a semi-decent commercial application allowing voice dictation to a computer ('ViaVoice", a version of which was bundled as part of their OS/2 Warp "Merlin" operating system, years ago). But they haven't produced a single product with mass consumer acceptance that put all of that technology together in a way that fascinated people.

Google is more directly working on something along the lines of Apple's Siri -- but they're betting on the overall concept that people would rather wear a pair of interactive glasses around than carry a "personal digital assistant" as part of a cellphone. That distinction means Google has to research a lot of completely different things than Apple does with Siri. They're going to be working with more visual things, superimposed on top of your field of vision. Siri has to focus strictly on voice, since that's the *only* way it gives feedback to the user.

I really don't think ANY of this is about a device for "loners" vs. a device to use in public when around friends? The fact you're getting that from a few Siri TV ads and Google Glasses ads seems like you're reading WAY too much into the presentations to me.


Winni said:
Actually, that is the direction that IBM and Google are taking (and IBM has been working on such technology for decades already).

Apple on the other hand -is- trying to create an artificial personality that you can talk to. Doesn't it seem odd to you that in their ads people are always ALONE with Siri? The message in their ads has nothing to do with presenting a voice UI for computers. If they wanted to do that, they would show people in public places using Siri. You know, just like Google presents their new glasses that also have a voice assistant.

The Google glasses very obviously are NOT targeted at loners. Siri is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c6W4CCU9M4

(And no, I wouldn't want to run around with this Terminator-style technology either.)
Click to expand...
 
Meta-jokes: an Irishman walks past a pub...

The phrase, "Two (or three) something walk into a bar", by itself is what's known as a "meta-joke". That means it's been used as a pattern for so many jokes, that just repeating the beginning is enough to make you laugh. It's a joke about a joke.

Other common meta-jokes that older people would immediately recognize include:

  • A priest, a rabbi and an iPhone walk into a bar...
  • Did you hear the one about the farmer's iPhone (daughter)?
  • There was a young iPhone from Nantucket... (typical dirty limerick start)
  • How many iPhones does it take to screw in a light bulb?
None of those need punch lines; the beginning itself is the joke.

For a Malkovich ad, which is geared towards metaphysical questions like "Life?", a meta-joke is the perfect type of humor.

It's doubtful that the person who wrote the ad was referencing any lost prototype, but if they were, that would've just been icing on top of the base meta-joke that even people who didn't know about those incidents should get.
 
newagemac said:
The perfect pairing would be a real human (iPhone) and a robot (Android). That pretty much sums up what makes the iPhone better in my opinion.
Click to expand...

I'm sure that was on the list. If they used a robot, it could be too like original IP. My fav would be the popular girl and emo girl. A catfight between the two would be awesome.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back