The power of Apple's FaceTime commercial | Hacker News Reader

The power of Apple's FaceTime commercial

techcrunch.com

54 pointsgvb64 comments

I'm not sure what it is about this commercial, but when I see it, I start thinking about mortality and the ephemeral nature of life. According to the article, the Greek roots of "nostaligia" mean "an old wound." I think that's very appropriate. I get the same background feeling from this commercial that I get from watching the first part of Pixar's "Up." I'd love to see a cinematographer's analysis of both of those pieces.

EDIT: Fixed recursion

Up! Director Peter Docter's interview on the "Married Life" scene:

"From a "feel" standpoint, it was the sense of a life lived, and not only the highs, but the lows. That's why we put in a couple of dark moments... It actually feels more real, and I think that's how you remember life being like."

"Strangely, we got a couple of home movies from the Internet -- Michael Giacchino has a collection that I think he ordered from EBay. And we had no idea who the people in them were, but we'd watch their lives progress and piece them together -- we'd note, "Oh, now there's a new kid in the picture. And what happened to that person? I guess they must've moved away." It was strangely compelling."

http://theenvelope.latimes.com/news/la-etw-pete-docter25-201...

Interesting and weird academic view on Sam Mendes' FaceTime ad:

"Distance, work, and duty separate these individuals from their primary relationships, but, the film implies, the phone can mediate these contingencies and keep users connected to life's truly important moments."

"But the phone, in turn, obscures these flows and systems to the extent that it mediates between them and the relationships of its users as an object allowing for immediate emotional interconnectivity."

http://mwnau.posterous.com/absence-mediation-and-emotional-o...

that last link you gave is the OP ;)

Got so caught up in Googling and reading pre-game World Cup analysis. Duh!

those who are looking at these comments but haven't seen the ad yet, please do so. Irrespective of its marketing merit, its amazingly well done.

I've seen it on at bars and heard it openly mocked--the scenarios in the commercial are so narrow that it can easily make it look useless (or unrealistic like the soldier overseas who not only has an iPhone 4 but access to high-speed WiFi without a firewall).

Save for deaf people and gadget reviewers, few people want to see each other during phone calls on a regular basis. At the same time millions of people want to IM each other, but they haven't built that in yet.

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.

"critical" moments?

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...

Describe the steps for video call using iPhone 4 and whatever you used before.

I've never used the n900, but on the Nokia n800, slide out the camera and the video chat app opens up. Click on a contact to call.

The technology isn't revolutionary but making it accessible to people is.

"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.

I've always used Skype for that.

I disagree.

As an international student in the US, I personally would enormously benefit from a cell phone that can do video conversations well. My family lives thousands of miles away, and seeing their faces is actually something I really value. We communicate via Skype constantly for the video functions, but this really limits the flexibility of where I can take the calls.

I am going to be working far away from my university, and I will be using video conference to talk to my girlfriend while I'm away. I am considering getting a pair of iPhones for the ease of use and convenience (she's not very tech savvy).

As to IMs, I personally am a heavy IM user, and there's a number of iPhone applications for IMing (Palringo, Beejive, Windows Live Messenger come to mind). I don't use it because it is just too bothersome to have extended conversations when typing with any small keyboard.

Of course, I'm not implying that just because I feel like this would anybody else do, but I don't think it's as crystal clear as the OP describes.

Obviously there are markets for the technology, but they aren't huge and with the existing limitations it's not nearly as easy as the commercial makes it seem. The soldier doesn't have WiFi (or money for two iPhones). The hospital doesn't either for that matter. Grandma and grandpa would have to setup a wireless network before being able to see the granddaughter graduate. At least with my grandparents that means you have to set it up and then fix it every time you visit. The deaf demo is the most realistic, but it can be hard to sign with one hand so a laptop with a webcam will work better in many situations (or frankly just SMS/IM).

Even with the Face Time technical limitations, the lack of video calling isn't a technical problem but a social one. I've had a laptop with a webcam for 5 years and used video calling a handful of times with at least two of them being just to get screenshots for a book on OS X. It makes a great demo, but at the end of the day I almost always prefer text to audio and audio to video.

You're right, the market for people who want to see and talk to their loved ones from far away isn't that big. And WiFi is hardly anywhere. And you have to hold this device in your hand and lug it around in your pocket...

Just as a counter, I’ve got a handful of friends who actively use iChat’s video functionality. Most just used it to talk to their girlfriends, but one friend in New Zealand virtually attended her best friend’s gallery opening in Minneapolis.

I’d say Facetime’s for the visual masses.

Actually, almost every military base has wifi, and almost all hospitals do. Please try again.

Girlfreind you say... How many calls until FaceTime becomes crotch time. I put the over/under at 3.

As a hacker, I'm much more excited by FaceTime as (finally!) a standard for video calling than on iPhones specifically.

But, FaceTime could also work for the general public because up until now, video calling took effort and planning.

Even with Skype, both parties have to sign up for accounts, exchange screen names, make sure they have computers with a camera, speakers, and microphone. If you're really lucky, the computer will be a laptop. And both users have to be at their computers and signed into Skype to make the call, which means that in a lot of cases a video call ends up being coordinated over the phone beforehand.

FaceTime just requires that you know each other's phone numbers, (when the spec is released, I'm sure big, bright "FaceTime Compatible!" stickers will show up on lots of phones) and, for now, be on WiFi. "Upgrading" from a phone call to a video call is as simple as pressing a button. The "cost" to make a call is so much lower.

I think to be fair, in order to use FaceTime: both parties have to sign up to certain provider, buy iPhone4 (we're talking as per current. What will happen in future, who knows?)

By the way, as I don't have iPhone4, I curious about this scenario, what will happen if I'm on FaceTime chat with someone, and another people call my number? Will the call go through and the FaceTime chat dropped?

Almost no one watching the commercial knows that you need wifi without a firewall.

You don't need wifi without a firewall.

It's supposed to "just work". In an iPhone review (at Ars? One of the big sites.) they tested this, and it worked fine for home use (home users usually do have a firewall...), it only choked, sometimes, on corporate firewalls.

You do need a network without a firewall or at least one you can open ports on:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4245

"To use FaceTime on a restricted Wi-Fi network, port forwarding must be enabled for ports 53, 80, 443, 4080, 5223, and 16393-16472 (UDP)"

Regardless, my point was that it would almost certainly not work on a military base. They have gone so far as to ban all camera phones in Iraq, real time video conferencing outside of the military's view is not going to be allowed in combat areas. It also wouldn't look to great over satellite.

At KAF in Afghanistan, a friend of mine was able to sign up for non-firewalled, civilian run, wireless internet access for ~$150/month. It was slow, and used a satellite for uplink. But it was good enough that he could use Skype to have video conversations with his wife.

You do not have to manually forward any ports. Your quote from the Apple KB is taken out of context. Specifically, that article addresses networks with robust firewalls that support policies where automatic port configuration isn't allowed. In these cases, the firewall administrator would have to explicitly allow FaceTime... but this doesn't apply your your average retail purchase router.

FaceTime uses uPnP, which is supported on just about any router you'd buy for under $200 at your local retailer. If you're able to play XBox or PS3 online, your iPhone should connect a FaceTime call without trouble.

You definitely don't need those ports forwarded. If you remember the introduction, Steve listed a lot of protocols. If I remember correctly from looking into some of them, a few were for making connections around firewalls.

Regardless of what Steve said, Apple's official support document notes that you need to have those ports open (or forwarded). I'll go with the documentation, you can go with what Steve said.

That's just stupid. You really think you need to setup a static IP on your phone and then forward ports to it? How would it work if you had multiple phones on the network? It wouldn't. Furthermore, I have several friends that have gotten the phone already, and they were able to FaceTime out of the box in the store and when they got home without any configuration.

Regardless, you can't really argue with the Apple tech note that jonknee linked to - those ports really do need to have port-forwarding enabled for it to work. I'm a big Apple fan, but they still have gotten the firewall-piercing trick down as well as Skype has.

The firewall punching (STUN) works as well as firewall punching works for anyone else. Peer-to-peer between phones won't work if the firewall is setup to block phones, but Skype won't work if the firewall blocks Skype.

A home network and a corporate or military network are much different. Your friends' home network probably has no firewall running on it so all ports are allowed. It's fairly common for corporate networks to whitelist ports and in that case you will need to explicitly open them up or set up forwarding (per Apple's advice).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Traversal_Utilities_for...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traversal_Using_Relay_NAT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_Connectivity_Establ...

I'm willing to bet that places like Starbucks and airports who are offering free wifi will start blocking/throttling bandwidth-intensive apps like Facetime as popularity grows. You'll start to see network issues at these hotspots just like you see with AT&T.

But you do need a wifi connection? Even that is hard for a mac user to set up. Try explaining how to connect to a wifi hotspot to your grandma.

You must not have kids yet.

There is an interesting and applicable point made in "The American Gustation Crisis of 1985" http://www.damninteresting.com/the-american-gustation-crisis... (aka. How Coca-Cola won the war).

In retrospect, some marketers believe that the failure of New Coke may have had something to do with sensation transference, a human oddity first described by Louis Cheskin in the 1940s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Cheskin#Sensation_transfe... Cheskin demonstrated that people will unconsciously associate imagery, sounds, tastes, aromas, and textures into their general impression of a product, even if such associations are unintended or inaccurate.

What Apple is doing with the commercial, as pointed out by MG Siegler, is using our emotions, specifically our love of our family and friends, to the iPhone, associating that emotion and love to the iPhone. Powerful. Scary.

Powerful? Scary? Great advertising you mean! The shared history between ad men & propaganda men is a very fascinating one. Effective advertising is like hacking the human psyche.

No, he actually means powerful and scary, in this kind of realization that we, our feelings, our inclinations, our rationality, our subconscious can be accessed and manipulated at will by 60 seconds of video.

Ever since I watched "the century of the self" I can't help but feeling utterly repulsed and violated by marketing in general. And watching the recent apple marketing, is like watching the master puppeteer at work

I've had video chat on my laptop for years, yet hardly ever use it. Further, if I'm near free WiFi, I'm usually near my laptop too. I suspect most people are the same way.

What is the reason they're restricting this to wifi? Would the quality be to low on a 3g network? The only mobile video call I used probably over 5 years ago used a 3g(I assume, definitely not wifi) connection, sure the quality wasn't amazing, but would this still be an issue in built up areas?

AT&T is the reason.

I guess it's a software limitation at the moment. I doubt carriers in Australia would go down the same path given the choice.

The commercial is well done (It pulls lots of heart strings for some people), but it's ridiculous to assume those are the main use cases. 90% use will be for remote sex. But knowing Apple they'll probably detect nude flesh and censor it ;)

The only Apple ad that affected me on an emotional level is Think Different. In fact, it's the best commercial I've ever seen.

A suggestion to solve the bandwidth and privacy issues for video chat: why not have an avatar whose facial expressions are determined from your facial expressions in real-time?

There’s a bit of Dave Foster Wallace’s ''Infinite Jest'' that talks about precisely this, in considerably more detail, and quite amusingly.

Link: http://www.martin-brown.net/downloads/DavidFosterWallace-Inf...

What's the reach of this ad? I've never seen it. Are they getting tech writers to review the ad itself in an attempt to make people that don't watch TV commercials see it?

Actually pretty wide, I barely see any TV and I have seen it a several times. It has been about for about a week as far as I can tell.

It is pretty broad. I've seen past it several times on my DVR, in everything from motorcycle races through the Daily Show.

Dunno, I don't watch much TV. But I do catch a few shows on my DVR. Haven't seen it at all.

Well, I'm sure Don Draper - the sociopathic lead from Mad Men - _could_ have created this advert. It bypasses the mundane nature of the technology, and shows the human benefit. It's sugar coated, and perhaps too schmaltzy for a UK audience, but I can see why it works.

Unfortunately - in keeping with the work of all sociopathic ad-men - reality has been distorted. This isn't real life, it's fantasy. For a start, a lot of the actors are 'holding it wrong'.

Spoliers

Draper isn't really sociopathic, you'd notice he's a lot more relaxed when he is with the original mrs.draper, and pretty much any sort of flashback sequence before his current job and marital situation. He is constantly living a lie and must put up a conscious pretense. He feels very guilty about what he done, and as a result he is constantly tense and always having few words and choosing them carefully.

(... in your opinion.)

spoilers

Don Draper chooses to lie, he chooses to monopolize on his ability to deceive and he steadfastly places to his own whims above all others. He's manipulative and cunning. He believes he has the right to pay people off to get his own way. He's incredibly secretive - leading double (in some cases, triple lives). He has no true friendships and while he occasionally wrestles with morality, actually cares very little about the majority of those around him. The one person who is closest to a friend (Peggy) has been treated ridiculously badly at times. He fears virtually no situation and has a tendancy to act rashly. He enjoys and seeks out dangerous / risky situations.

Black and white can't be used to paint a full picture, and occasionally his character shows traits which describe another side to his personality. Even so, his character would certainly fit the standard definition of a sociopath / narcissist.

It just happens that the attributes Don Draper has been ascribed, also align with western society's view of 'the perfect man'; which is quite telling itself.

Down-voting based on a difference in opinion would be a little bit Draper-like ;)

nit-pick: you are right that he is a narcissist, but due to his apparent capacity for empathy, he is not a sociopath in the clinical sense. That he chooses to disregard this and place himself first above all else in order to preserve his own sense of inner comfort makes him a narcissist.

If the advertising industry could be personified, I'm sure the resulting person would lack real empathy - within the industry, empathy is only used as a device to provide people with what they require.

I think the fact Don Draper's character has been written in this way is the crowning glory of Man Men; showing how the modern world has been defined by people who are built a certain way - and showing how the dawn of the advertising industry was pivotal in shaping the world as it is now.

+1 yep, he's a narcissist .. but I'd say he definitely has anti-social tendencies. Even people who are classed as sociopathic display what looks like empathy, it's their actions which prove otherwise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com