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Comment by Apreche | Hacker News Reader

I was already bothered by the Apple Watch marketing. The messaging there is total fear. Buy an Apple Watch or literally die. Also, get them for your children or they will die too.

The messaging that AI is for lying is another big yikes. Apple marketing department has lost the magic.

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As someone whose watch called 911 for me when I was in an accident, and who got a call when my mother fell, fear or not there are real, tangible benefits that probably can't be overstated.

They could go the same way some insurances do it, with a very positive imagery through and through and only ever indirectly implying the "or else"

I just wish they would cut down on false positives though. As a volunteer firefighter, I don't think I've responded to an "Apple Crash Detection" that was an actual car crash or fall or something...

After a while it feels like crying wolf...

I’m not saying the feature is bad. I’m saying the advertising shouldn’t be fear-inducing, it should be inspiring.

To be fair, since the Apple Watch introduced heart rate monitoring and other "medical" features, there have been numerous reported cases of it saving a persons life, from detecting heart conditions to detecting falls.

Yeah that is true, but also not sufficient data to indicate that the Apple Watch actually net saves lives.

On the other side of the coin of more widespread and continuous monitoring is always the concerns of increasing false positives

What do you mean by "net"? Are you suggesting that the Apple Watch actually causes people's deaths, too—in numbers large enough to counterbalance the lives it's saved?

The tradeoff is always between false positives and false negatives of which the former in this scenario is preferred.

Apple's ecosystem is all about replacing other products, devices, and services with features of Apple devices. See: all those photos of "here's all the devices an iPhone replaces" from like 15 years ago.

I'm not sure how else they advertise that now your Apple devices replace OnStar and Life Alert, than advertising kinda the same way that those did (but less lame, hopefully).

>The messaging there is total fear. Buy an Apple Watch or literally die. Also, get them for your children or they will die too.

Is there a specific advertisement you're referring to here, or just all apple watch advertisements? I haven't really seen any ads for the apple watch, and I am curious if this is an exaggeration.

I'm assuming by "literally" you meant "metaphorically", but I'd like to look up which ad you are referencing to get an idea of what you mean.

Edit: I've watched the ads. They are not in great taste, in my opinion, however they also did not tell me I would literally die if I don't buy an Apple Watch.

I believe this is the ad being described by GP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRwkZWowI8o

This is the kind of ad people take issue with. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRwkZWowI8o / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k4VVgmuNvU / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD0rUo1wZds

Or a similar crash detection feature in iPhone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWBFF9R3VmU / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsAL36M8bwE

I think they are referring to the "Apple Watch Series 7 911 ad".

I think they are correct in their use of "literally".

I remember people expressing similar frustrations with the crash detection features on iPhones, and I still don't understand the issue. These new safety features are helpful and have helped save lives. Scaling back the ad copy to "maybe you'd want to use this, just in case, though it's not a guarantee of anything, so whatever," as it seems the complaints are indicating, is not how any other life-saving features on any device have ever been sold. Those old LifeAlert "I've fallen and I can't get up" commercials didn't pull their punch and say "Eh, maybe you'll want this for your grandparent."

Contrast with old OnStar commercials would be more fruitful.

I dunno, those life alert ads gave me the impression that they might not care

https://youtu.be/8C4Sb9TpfM4?si=39Os2aBHL1mpSygy

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