Each ad touts a unique aspect of the iPhone mobile experience, including the App Store, iPod + iTunes, and iBooks, MacRumors reports. When we checked, the App Store video was labeled “private” on YouTube and hence inaccessible. The iPod + iTunes and iBooks spots, each 30 seconds long, were still viewable, however.
The commercials highlight what Cupertino sees as its core strengths in the mobile market. In the iPod + iTunes ad, for instance, Apple’s ever-smarmy narrator says: “If you don’t have an iPhone, you don’t have an iPod in your phone.” Which means you don’t have iTunes either. Considering that Apple sold 275 million iPods through September 1, 2010, there’s a good chance you own an iPod, or someone in your household does. You may own more than one. And you’ve no doubt purchased songs on iTunes too. The subtext: Why mess with what works? The iPhone will play your iTunes music without any hassles at all. Those other phones, well…
The iBooks ad is less persuasive. Unlike iTunes, iBooks is a fairly new storefront in the online marketplace. Relatively few iPhone (or iPad) users have had the time or inclination to stockpile a library of iBooks titles. In addition, Amazon’s Kindle e-reading app, which is available across multiple tablet and smartphone platforms, is the big kahuna in e-books, not iBooks. And, yes, Kindle runs on the iPhone as well.
Each ads ends with the tag line: “Yup, if you don’t have an iPhone, well, you don’t have an iPhone.” Well, that’s true enough. The question is, are the advantages of Apple’s safe, secure, and well-stocked content garden enough to buy iPhones rather than Android handsets?
Contact Jeff Bertolucci via Twitter (@jbertolucci ) or at jbertolucci.blogspot.com .