It seems that Apple doesn't respect Verizon's Droid phone quite as much as it does Microsoft's PCs. But two new ad spots, launching Monday evening, come as close as Apple has done thus far to directly attack the allegedly do-it-all robotphone.
The Droid, you see, went after Apple in its teaser campaign with some telling remarks and the hearty claim that Droid does what the iPhone doesn't. Then Verizon decided it would be fun to knock both the iPhone and AT&T's spotty 3G coverage with its "Misfit Toys" concept.
AT&T has already replied by hustling a hastily-dressed Luke Wilson into directing a few resentful pins at Verizon's effigy. However these new ads, while entirely in keeping with the iPhone tone and style, end with a line that expressly assaults the doings of Droid--or rather, its alleged non-doings.
Both ads focus on the iPhone's ability to allow you to use voice and data capabilities simultaneously over the AT&T network. By asking gently at the end of each spot "Can your phone and your network do that?" Apple is bursting what it sees as the inflated stealth bombing that accompanied the launch of the Droid.
Apple iPhone Ad - Did You See My Email? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.
Apple iPhone Ad - What Time's The Movie? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.
These ads don't mention the Droid or Verizon by name. But the fact that Apple has decided to address its rivals, however obliquely, suggests that one can look forward to more accusations, more bickering, and more attempted one-upmanship.
'Tis the season of goodwill, after all.
When you've lost the first round in your case against Verizon's persistent and persuasive mockery, who do you turn to?
Luke Wilson, that's who. After all, he starred in "Legally Blonde" and, well, "Jackass Number Two."
Actually, Wilson is lovable. Truly lovable. Perhaps if he'd dressed down a little and Justin Long had suffered an interminable hiatus hernia, Wilson might have got the part of Mac, the Microsoft Mocker.
Instead, he has the slightly more difficult task of persuading the folks who adored him in "Old School" that AT&T's 3G will serve them well on the 3.10 to Yuma.
The creators didn't give him much of a script, as I suspect they wrote it a couple of lattes and a shot of bourbon before this opus was filmed in what looks like the empty space above Victoria's Secret in Santa Monica, Calif.
Luke is forced to stand before a board and prove that AT&T has the fastest 3G network, lets you talk and surf at the same time, and offers you more apps that feature people making strange noises, half-clothed women, and animals that smile when you touch the screen. (Disclosure: slight exaggeration)
Sadly, it all looks a little analog. Luke looks as if he'd prefer to be surfing, as he really doesn't have the tools to make you believe what he's being paid to say.
His hair looks as if it's been hurriedly greased with Czech lard and his face offers a certain hemorrhoidal mien as it offers a little jape at the end of the spot. Yes, a jape about Verizon beginning with "V" and AT&T not beginning with "V." That rumbling you can hear is the collective guffaw from Verizon Central.
Verizon is hurting AT&T with its clinical, delighted unpleasantness. And I fear that before "Legally Blonde 2: AT&T's Revenge" can possibly be effective, the iPhone carrier needs to dramatize its argument rather better than the gospel according to Luke.
The thing about the finest of soap operas is that they must create conflict in order to inspire truly dramatic love.
This is why I was rendered temporarily cynical by a Verizon print ad in a recent edition of Sports Illustrated. The ad was for the Droid. The words were directed at the sensitive regions of the iPhone. But the sentiment seemed to refer to a slightly larger picture.
In case you have not seen this particular work of art, it is headlined "This is a world of 'Nope', Nuh-Uh' and 'Sorry, Charlie.'" The first line gives a clue that perhaps this is not just another anti-iPhone ad. "A world of smiling denial," it begins.
But the next line offers a shudder with every consonant: "Petty tyrannies have made their way into our cell phones."
Smiling denials. Petty tyrannies. Are they talking about a competing cell phone or perhaps a certain individual at the competing company?
(Credit:
Chris Matyszczyk)
This is not the rather charming exile of the iPhone to the Island of Misfit Toys. This isn't even the rather teenage assertion of the iPhone's alleged "semi-functional, giggling-brat-vanity".
This print ad strains to mask its truly adult feelings and fails in quite a spectacularly positive way with the phrase: "these arrogant little devices."
Alrighty, now. The use of the word "arrogant" makes this a deeply personal work that might have been inspired, well, by whom? By someone who might have been personally involved in Verizon's negotiations to secure Apple's iPhone, perhaps?
The hearty phraseology of the Droid campaign is admirable, in the way that the Ultimate Fighting Championship can, I am told, sometimes be admirable.
However, one wonders whether Verizon's confidence in its wireless coverage is making the company feel far more assured in its ability to soon offer the iPhone as well as BlackBerry and Droid products.
Is Verizon suggesting that Apple needs Verizon's coverage just as much as Verizon needs the iPhone's cachet? Is it suggesting that the alleged smiling denials, arrogance, and petty tyrannies cannot prevent a slightly altered world order?
The upliftingly personal nature of this ad might just portend a new, big love between Apple and Verizon in just a couple of episodes. A 4G Verizon iPhone? There won't be a dry eye in the house.
Early on Monday, we learned that the new Verizon Droid does, indeed, swap "semi-functional, giggling-brat-vanity for a bare knuckle bucket of does."
Now, we have the visual evidence. It's evidence a defense attorney would rather enjoy.
The Droid is, apparently, not a smartphone at all. It is a robotphone, according to Verizon's latest TV ad. Yes, it punches its way through steel walls and crushes rocks. Which, I believe, is known in English classes as poetry.
The lyrical content is only heightened when the giggling-brat-vanity words are uttered by an announcer who sounds like he had a previous career as an enforcer with one of the Gambino bambinos.
As the contempt drips from his lips, we see various iPhone-like devices all blinged out in pinks and purples and sequins. They look like purses.
And the subtext, which is about as covert as a right cross from an inebriated wedding crasher, is that the Droid is for boys and the iPhone is for fans of "Project Runway" and "The Real Housewives of Orange County."
Yes, your Droid is your Mixed Martial Arts-lovin', bone-crushin' robot that's going to turn you into a man. And that's what all boys want, right?
Everyone and their band seems to be leaping on some kind of wagon with an Apple logo and attempting to rob it of its jewelry and gold coins.
The latest to try to capitalize from poking a little fun at Apple's treasure chest are the Florida Keys and Key West.
In an ad that would feel like it was for the iPhone if it was executed with slightly more style, the Keys hope to persuade you that "There's no app for this."
"This" refers to the fun of wondering if a disgruntled local houseboat resident who believes tourists are venal vermin might ruin your vacation.
No, wait, I think I have read one too many Carl Hiassen novels, in which pretty much every resident of Florida is trying to cheat every other resident of Florida (or unsuspecting visitor) out of house, home, dog, wife or, well, life.
So, in fact, what I meant to say was that the Keys believe that no iPhone app can substitute for a real Florida Keys experience, in which the sun will set beautifully, the canoe will never capsize, and no shark will ever approach you as you snorkel your way to a new level of consciousness.
If you were to choose an app over a vacation, one imagines that several schools of psychiatric medicine had already given up on your ghost.
I am concerned, though, that should someone from Apple be making like Grumpy the Dwarf, they might be upset at the Keys' use of the iPhone's rather characteristic finger wipe.
It seems as if Verizon Droid's avowedly male positioning will now include finger-pointing, high-pitched taunts, and echoes of "na-na-nana-na".
After revealing that Verizon has placed the iPhone on the Island of Misfit Toys, Ad Age is reporting that in the next Droid ad, the iPhone will be the subject of another touching description.
Apparently, the ad says the Droid "swaps semi-functional, giggling-brat-vanity for a bare knuckle bucket of does."
One can never have enough buckets of does in this complex life. And it is refreshing to see someone spending $100 million in an attempt to take on the prom queen of cell phones.
However, these ads heap pressure on the Droid to perform as a phone and, indeed, as an item to be seen with.
Functionality can only take one so far. Somehow, I recall General Motors being the brand of supposed functionality. And that didn't quite, well, function for the company as things turned out.
Verizon has decided to take the spirit of Christmas and shove it into the part of iPhone users' chimneys where Santa would need a pick ax.
Some who viewed the first Droid teaser ad, just a couple of weeks ago, were stunned to see Verizon so baldly declare that the Apple uber-machine was, in some ways, deficient.
Rumor had it that this was an isolated attempt at leveraging publicity for the new Motorola device. However, this new ad shows that the iPhone is firmly on Verizon's list. And it's not Verizon's Christmas list.
The ad places the iPhone on the mythical Island of Misfit Toys. It's an island inhabited solely by those things you don't need, don't want and don't work.
At first, the strange collection of pink spotted elephants and peculiar Grandads-in-a-Box-Wearing-Some-Very-Strange-Bits-of-Chiffon are astonished that the iPhone has come to their island.
But then the Verizon version of the little AT&T 3G coverage map helpfully points out that it might be harder to download your beloved apps in some parts of the country.
"You're going to fit right in here!" squeaks a strange little blue object with wings, a propeller and a hearty dose of gallows humor.
Can one ever imagine that Apple might create a version of the "Get a Mac" structure with a new human (Joss Stone, perhaps?) representing the iPhone and a rather more vulnerable human (Kirstie Alley, perhaps?) representing Verizon?
Somehow, that wouldn't quite fit, would it?
I am not concerned about the future, only because I am told that humans will soon be in the clutch and thrall of robots and perfect harmony will be enjoyed by all. However, I must register the initial frisson of disturbia I experienced on reading a report from the Boston Globe magazine that suggests the iPhone may be a wise toy for 3-year-olds.
No, this is not some mocking suggestion that those who use an iPhone do, indeed, have the minds of children less than 4. It is, rather, a fascinating analysis of what happens when you just hand a 3-year-old an iPhone with the initial aim of keeping the little rodent in your life quiet.
It seems the iPhone's happy, colorful design is not only a great attraction for a little child's imagination, but the keyboard tends to suit tinier fingers rather better than larger ones.
Indeed, there is a considerable possibility that the iPhone might just help in children's education, something app developers have not been slow to realize. The Globe tells us that 60 percent of the apps in the education section of the iTunes store target extremely little people.
Now I know there will be those who worry that if you give a little one an iPhone they will be zapped with gamma rays and all sorts of deleterious electronic waves that will seep into their brains and be an enormous health risk.
One might heed the words of Dariusz Leszczysnki, a researcher for the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority in Finland, who told a Senate subcommittee: "In my opinion the current safety standards are not sufficiently supported because of the very limited research on human volunteers, children, and on the effects of long-term exposures in humans."
But most of the things parents give children to keep them quiet carry a certain risk to health: plastic toys that kids lick, bite, and try to swallow with the result that all sorts of paint and gunk might enter their bodies; candy that children lick, bite, and try to swallow with the result that they then put on weight; and let's not even start with the quality of teenage babysitting in the world.
... Read moreHumans are essentially post-rationalizers.
We go off into the world and do things and then work out reasons why we've done them in order to create some sense of, well, order in the mess that we continually create. We claim that the reasons we have for doing as we do are good. But how good are they really?
Which is why I wonder what will happen when people come face to face with Verizon's new Motorola Droid.
I have been staring at CNET's pictures of the smartphone. I have scoured the Web for pieces of footage. To the point at which I have even watched the only tech reporter in Indiana, yes, Indiana, to have successfully wrapped his fingers around it describe in some detail what advantages it might have over the iPhone. (I have embedded this lovely piece of film.)
The gentleman talks about power and megapixels. He talks about memory and search and operating systems. But there is one thing he fails to mention, something I fear may be vitally important. He doesn't say that it's pretty.
Perhaps it's my sense that we humans are, in the depths of our being, not merely post-rationalizers but terribly superficial. However, I'm concerned that the Droid isn't cute.
I know you'll tell me phones aren't supposed to be cute. They're supposed to be fabulously functional devices that liberate you from your daily grind.
And I will tell you that if the iPhone wasn't such a fabulously pretty little thing, they wouldn't even sell a tenth of the number they have.
I will also whisper that the Droid talked revolution in its initial ad--the one in which it tossed a little snake juice at the iPhone.
Yet it doesn't look revolutionary. Just as Che and Fidel had to have beards in order to lead revolts, shouldn't a revolutionary phone look a little less like, well, other phones?
These are merely fears. Images often lie. Perhaps, when one espies this new device and takes it into one's palms, they will sweat uncontrollably as it radiates a charm that has not yet been exposed by lenses.
Yet right now the Droid feels utilitarian rather than breakthrough. It seems to have all the sex appeal of a middle manager.
It's not necessarily right that the world should be this way. But humans are who we are--ridiculously susceptible to the surface pleasure.
And satisfying that pleasure can, ironically, often be the hardest trick of all.
Art knows no boundaries. Neither does the level of emotion inspired by an assault on the culture of Apple.
Just last week, Verizon's Droid attempted to offer a hearty dose of spittle to the iPhone, so one upset Apple aficionado has decided that the Good Empire must strike back.
He has created a YouTube rebuttal that, he believes, offers some perspective.
He says: "iDon't need scare tactics." He says: "iDon't need to imitate." And he declares that the force is with him because "iDon't need a Droid...unless it's R2D2."
Sometimes it's hard to reach the decision that one doesn't need a product whose buttons one has never pushed.
However, one is touched that this person's heart is in an honest and sensitive place. Until, that is, one reads the line that says: "iDon't buy brands that bash other brands."
Perhaps my senses have left me for a well-deserved vacation on Pluto, but I seem to recall Apple rather merrily bashing Microsoft and, indeed, PCs in general, for quite some time now. The Cupertino company does it very well, often with an exalted level of wit.
Yes, as some readers have pointed out, he does offer an "iOops" as a signal to a certain irony.
But this movie still might leave viewers, rather like those who braved "Showgirls" and "Vanilla Sky," somewhat less than fulfilled.
