Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Apple's new ads are stupid

Compared to my previous phone (HTC Evo 4G), my new phone (HTC Evo 4G LTE) is both bigger (4.7" screen vs. 4.3" screen) and smaller (8.9mm thick vs. 12.7mm thick). In fact, the same is true of almost all new smartphones with bigger screens--They've pretty much all gotten bigger screens, became thinner in profile, as well as gotten lighter. Do they all defy the laws of physics?

In one of Apple's recent ads for the iPhone 5, the following statement was made:

"There are laws to physics, right? So, explain this--How can something get bigger, and smaller? There's more of it. And... less of it...? Well, I guess the Laws of Physics are, more like, general guidelines."


I think anyone with a basic understanding of science and physics should feel insulted by this ad. What they're talking about has absolutely nothing to do with physics. If they think anyone should truly buy into their idea that what they've done to the new iPhone, which they're implying breaks the Laws of Physics, they must be assuming these people lack the intelligence to know the difference.

Ten years ago, I had a 27" CRT TV. Today, I have a 50" LCD TV. The CRT was probably around 4' deep, and weighed a lot more than my 50" HDTV, which is less than an inch thick. There's definitely "more" of my new TV, not only does it have a larger display screen, it also has much higher resolution. And there's definitely less of it, because it is not only significantly thinner, it is loads lighter, as well.

But then, even before the advent of high definition television, you could have gotten a bigger display from something smaller and lighter. It's called a projector.

Another one of their ads posits that because "your [left] thumb" goes from the bottom right corner of the iPhone 5's new 4" screen to the top left corner, it's "either (A) an amazing coincidence, or (B) a dazzling display of common sense."

Now, my thumb does the exact same thing, except I can reach both corners on my phone's 4.7" screen. Imagine that!


Common sense tells me that, just because my hands are big enough for me to reach both corners with my thumb, doesn't mean that everyone else has hands the same size. Some people will no doubt struggle to do the same thing and have no choice but to use both hands, while others will have bigger hands than mine. At six feet tall, my hands might be slightly bigger than your average male.

Their other two ads are barely worth mentioning. The ear buds ad suffers from the same lack of common sense as the thumbs ad--It basically assumes that everyone's ears are shaped the same. If they were really trying to make sure the ear buds fit comfortably in everyone's ears, they should have included multiple ear bud options, like Jawbone does with their bluetooth headsets.

As for the panorama pictures ad, that functionality has been available elsewhere for quite some time now...

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