There's nothing in the commercial, actually, that depicts ordinary, routine phone calls. They're intimate conversations between people with deep relationships to each other, who are separated and cannot be together – sometimes at critical, god-I-wish-I-had-a-teleporter moments.
If you've felt the kind of deep longing that sort of separation can cause, you'll immediately understand what Apple is selling here. A lifeline to the ones you love.
Believe me, at those moments there's not a chance you'd rather just be on IM.
Not really. I think most people would argue as social animals that being physically present at an event underlines the importance and respect for others. No one sane dials into someone's wedding or funeral right?
For me that's why only the opening sequence of the advert worked - keeping in visual contact with your child. The deaf conversation is thrown in as a calculated validation of the goodness of FaceTime, given this, what cold soul could not understand the importance of this technology?
I'm sure medical staff are buzzing with anticipation about their future arguments with hipsters trying to use their phones in scanning units where such devices are usually prohibited.
A video phone isn't for routine phone calls or for marriages or funerals, but there are lots of family events in the middle. It's common for relatives to sometimes be unable to show up for birthdays or Christmas. I have an aunt who bought a video phone to do that when she's in Florida.
I agree but I think the criticisms which are being made here are about the inherent mediocrity of FaceTime and whether it's either original or essential.
The advert is clever in that the only good uses bookend the less good ones. You can't blame them, because you hardly want to sell FaceTime as 'FaceTime: For when you can't be arsed to turn up'
It's perfectly fine to bring a camera phone to an ultrasound. Now, I doubt they'll let you bring it into the MRI chamber but on the other hand if you're stuck in there you probably don't want to have an iPhone 4 broadcasting your condition to your friend yet anyway.
So Apple have made a skype clone for their iPhone :/
Call me unmoved, and unexcited. Why is this important? We've been doing video conferencing for decades now.
You can also just download 'fring' for free on Android to get skype video calls. (You can even use it on 3G or whatever you feel like. Unlike Apple which restricts everything).
Only Apple can routinely release decades old technology and hail it as revolutionary, and seem to get away with it.
That's kind of what I thought too. I have been using video calls for ages. Yes really - ages. First time using my htc TyTN/Hermes. Nowadays using my Nokia N900.
It's weird your post got downvoted. Someone care to take a guess on why? I would (guess) but I honestly can't find any reason at all besides fanboyism and I don't want to acknowledge that such things happens around here...
"people" use skype all the time. I'm not sure video calling from mobiles will really take off. It's been available on other phones for quite a while now if you look for them. I really only want to video-call when I'm at home. For which skype works just fine.
I can't really imagine wanting to video-call anyone while I'm out or without laptop/netbook.
But only if you make it accessible to people with iPhone 4 on both sides of the conversation, and only while in range of an accessible WiFi access point?
Sure. I bet Apple has already sold more video chat capable phones in the US than any other company has in the past. The requirement of having an iPhone 4 at both ends is a barrier but at least it's easy to understand. Otherwise you've got to track down some model of phone with a front facing camera, ensure it can run the right software, install the software on both ends, and exchange usernames, IPs or whatever to establish the call. For most people, especially on family plans, buying the same model of phone is more realistic.
If you've felt the kind of deep longing that sort of separation can cause, you'll immediately understand what Apple is selling here. A lifeline to the ones you love.
Believe me, at those moments there's not a chance you'd rather just be on IM.