Gross Apple Marketing

I think this is mostly just a problem of not having good reasons to sell AI products to consumers in the first place.

I recently saw some Ray Ban Meta glasses ads.

One of them had a guy ask the glasses to describe what was in front of his face, and then he remarked “wow that’s accurate” (there are people skateboarding). The guy wasn’t blind. His use of the glasses made little sense.

Another ad has a young man asking his glasses how to dress for fall and then blindly following the suggestions like they’ve never dressed themselves before. It was embarrassing to watch.

A third ad has someone ask their glasses how to decorate for a disco theme party, and then they implement the very mediocre suggestions.

None of these things required AI, it’s just kind of “there”, and companies are like “idk maybe people will use our AI to like… dress themselves? or something?”

I work at a startup in the AI space.

We've been working with it for over a year now and I'm of the mind that AI, in it's current state, really isn't a tool meant for an end user to interact with.

It feels like it's the most useful when it's transparent and you -- as an end user -- don't know that there's an LLM in the process. The best use cases seem to be those that don't require an end consumer to directly interact with an AI, but their journey through some process is assisted by an AI instead.

The problem is that a lot of the marketing -- like these examples and Google's very misguided "Write me a letter" to an Olympian -- exists because companies keep trying to make "fetch" happen; the AI becomes the journey instead of being an assistant in that journey.

Amazon's Rufus is a prime example. It's tucked away as a button that one has to activate explicitly. But it would almost be better if it could just clean up the search results when I do a search and a bunch of junk is returned.

This article is a prime example of why tech literate people aren’t inherently strong marketers for tech.

What does the Ubuntu ad say to the user? How does it capture someone’s attention? None of the ad tells me why this is something worth paying attention to versus other distros or OSs, it doesn’t even tell me it’s about the OS at all unless I already know what Ubuntu is.

Contrast with the Apple ads that tell you exactly what they want in the same time frame. Apple ads have always been tongue in cheek, and have always had a portion of people rubbed the wrong way because they took it too literally.

But at the end of the day, barring the few missteps like the crush ad, they seem to work for the target audience.

I find a lot of technical folk seem to struggle with “I don’t like it therefore it must be bad” and would have failed basically any media analysis class in college as a result. Similarly, the author falls into the “I like Ubuntu and this ad” and hasn’t stopped to think about how it plays to anyone but himself. It’s a really self centered outlook and one that means they’d never be able to market to others.

> I’ve watched that little animation several times, and they tell a better story in a minute twenty-five than all of Apple’s AI commercials combined.

If I showed that video to someone who isn't steeped in decades of Linux, I suspect they'd ask me what an Ubuntu is. As compared to the "schlub writes an email" video, which was compelling, funny, and actually shows the product they're marketing.

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.

The blog entry suffers from congratulating the mediocre Ubuntu ad, but it's right about the vile Apple ads.

The Apple ads are dystopian and revulsive. She really pulls out her phone while talking to a person and then lies to her face. A wife and mother forgets dad's birthday and smugly "gifts" him 50 auto-playing photos, as shown on her phone screen?

The consumer use cases of "AI" right now are mostly about cheating at work that one is still really supposed to do themselves.

Maybe the ad people tried to come up with relatively palatable ones?

Note that no one is cheating on their school homework, which is a huge consumer use case category. And no creative work was detectably plagiarized (art, code). Though they still did do employment slacking/incompetence gaining advantage, by increasing deceptive and time-wasting noise for everyone else.

Or maybe that's the actual use cases of their target audience?

The really funny thing about the "lies about birthday present" one is that the wife asks the AI to make a Woodworking Memory Video, and while they're watching it, it looks like a beach vacation photo is included in the mix.

For a second I forgot where I was, and thought she'd be found out, then remembered it's an ad, and everyone is impressed.

Maybe the image is actually related to the woodworking? But I couldn't help but think, "that's about right - a random, ill-fitting photo"

If you think the Ubuntu ad is telling a story, I'd ask you what the story is.

I’m not sure if the author noticed, but the intent of the commercials is to be humorous. If the image of a middle aged man writing an email like he’s in middle school didn’t tip the author off, I’m not sure what will.

He had my attention until he posted that mind-numbingly generic Ubuntu ad. Most people would tune that out in seconds.

I’m kind of glad Apple is putting a touch more flavor in their ads.

Appple are speaking to the “Everyman”, Canonical are speaking to the tech literate.

Different audiences, Apple has power users, but its largest audience is an average person (my wife for example). The average person doesn’t care about tech, they want it to work, work well enough and be dependable.

Linux is can be a minefield, and Windows is a mess IMO.

> lie about remembering an acquaintance’s name.

That's a heck of a reach. Is it also a lie if I ask my partner what someone's name is when I forget?

The email writing one is pretty innocuous as well. Grammarly has been running basically the same ad for the last 5 years.

I agree the others are not so great.

The Ubuntu animation tells me nothing a short bullet point list couldn't. If you're going to create a video, show me something. Don't just tell Ubuntu is secure and put little boxes around a few icons – show me that Ubuntu is secure.

I don't love the Apple ads, but they are at least showing me some evidence of the features they're saying exist in Apple Intelligence.

I installed 18.1 last night and after finishing waitlist I promptly asked Siri if she could answer questions like chatGPT now, didn’t understand. I said what questions can I ask you then? She said “Ask away!” I asked the difference between watts and volts, “I don’t understand”, she understood nothing, I’m so confused!

I was upgrading for these features so now I’m thinking of selling this 16 pro and buying a drum set because my 13 mini was easier to hold and apparently Siri isn’t getting any smarter according a the WSJ article yesterday.

I think people still aren't accepting that Steve Jobs era marketing and product development left with the man. Apple is fundamentally different and is never going back.

Getting tired of being sold what may exist or will exist sometime in the future. How is this legal and now Apple is doing it? How is the fake it before you make it (make the actual product a reality for consumers to consume) strategy legal?

This video was posted a month ago even when Apple Intelligence wasnt available at all and in any form https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPe8revsg3k . Even present day after it was launched Siri can not do this.

Start-ups and other tech companies are doing the whole fake it before you make it so Apple is too. Some recent examples...Open AI demoed and sold if you sign up you might get access to their version of H.E.R. yet Many months later its nowhere to be found yet surely that juiced their revenue. Does it really exist or it was a fake it before you make it demo? Similarly with Musk bringing out those robots implying they were AI driven yet later we learn they weren't. Isnt this all something called false advertising??

It's the first time I've seen an advertisement for Ubuntu. Are they getting ready to get new users dissatisfied by Apple's AI?

FedEx should licence their model that’s meant to frustrate users into giving up trying to speak to a human.

Earlier it told me that it looked into my parcel tracking details and assured me that it was on schedule for delivery, so it wasn’t able to let me connect to an agent.

Except I hadn’t yet given it any tracking number.

Ahh. "Gross", meaning, the author thinks they should do a better job selling their products from a practical standpoint.

At a push, if we wanted to try maintain a more essential meaning of "gross", I guess we could imagine that the author is saying that not doing an optimal job of selling your products is morally repugnant to them. Maybe that's true, I suppose.

An example of Apple actually being gross in their marketing is using the word "privacy" to mislead people into thinking they have privacy when they use Apple's devices. It's security they are attempting to offer to users, not privacy.

This intentional and somewhat subtle conflation of two terms in order to give people a false impression of Apple products is, in my opinion, properly gross.

> I’ve watched that little [Canonical] animation several times, and they tell a better story in a minute twenty-five than all of Apple’s AI commercials combined.

I'm afraid I disagree here.

While I do find the Apple ads a tad obnoxious, they speak to the problems of normal people and how Apple Intelligence can directly solve these problems. How many people haven't forgotten a birthday, forgotten someone's name or felt stupid while writing an email?

The Canonical animation on the other hand, while cool, doesn't communicate to me that it understands my problems and is going to help me fix them.

Here's the full transcript of the Canonical ad: "Modern, Private, Performant, Secure, Supported, Certified, Everywhere, For Everyone, for You".

This is comparing apples to oranges.

The descriptions of the Apple Ads range from “less than charitable” to “that’s a bit of a stretch” but I’ll agree they don’t really do it for me. The “last minute video” and “sure I read your email” felt weird but the “remind me of this person’s name” was pretty cool IMHO.

That said the Ubuntu ad at the end eroded what trust I might have put in this blog author’s taste in ads. It was boring and didn’t make me feel anything. In fact if you swapped out the desktop screenshot with Mac or Windows it wouldn’t change any of the meaning. It was borderline AI-generate-able which is ironic given its context.

I’m not so sure about the Canonical ad, but the Apple ones are really bad.

I clicked on those thinking that the author may be overstating things but those ads are really really bad.

There’s basically 2 messages they’re promoting (the office worker one seems to be promoting a different message from the other 3).

The first ad: - You’re a loser and Apple Intelligence will make you look like less of a loser in an email. But also people will look at you, see you as the loser you are, and then immediately be suspicious about that email you sent.

The other 3: - Apple Intelligence will make you an even more efficient psychopath and make you great at manipulating loved ones and people who are interested in you.

WTF, Apple. The quality of Apple advertising has taken a huge hit over the past decade or so. But these ads go beyond just the anodyne nature of their previous advertising. This stuff is truly deranged.

I'm a cynical person.

The actor looks and acts a little bit weird, even their mannerisms.

The other Actors are being dup'd by the Actor and her AI.

I think this add is targeted at the people being dup'd in the ads.

People associate the younger generation as a little bit weird and head of the curve wrt technology, and this Actor being younger and visibly a bit weird re-enforces that connection.

This ad is saying, buy this new technology or you'll be getting dup'd too.

While this post is about the authors own video being better and less cringe than Apple’s videos, the Apple videos might not be for me, and trying to say Apple’s AI is for everyone, including people who aren’t perfect.

The scenarios could have been different or better to me. But maybe I’m not the target audience, and iPhone is the beginner smartphone that almost anyone can use.

What is this "Ubuntu" and how can I use it? As a consumer, what does it mean to me that it's "Certified"? Certified in what?

Apple's ads show you the product, how you can use it and how you and the people around you feel after using it (like you took a sneaky shortcut and happy, respectively).

In other words, Apple’s ads depict what people are actually going to use it for and already do (lie).

I guess this is truth in marketing.

Contrast that with the Canonical ad provided as an example in the article, which I found a waste of my time and closed it after 30 seconds, having learned nothing and not drawn to use the product.

I agree unlike other commenters here that the apple intelligence ads try too hard to be quirky and appease this weird flavour of incompetence being popular. Theres nothing inspiring or awe inducing about the ad that induces excitement about technology

I am terrible with names. If I use my phone to remind me the name of a person who I describe to my phone where and when I met a person, I wouldn’t classify that as a lie. This is a stretch. I remember the person. I remember the interaction. I remember where and when we met. I just can’t remember names, even of people who I work with but only bump into sporadically. I call bs.

Edit: the ad in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPe8revsg3k

I agree that the ads miss their mark, and I think a better ad would have instead focused on how it could have _prevented_ the awkward situation to begin with, rather than awkwardly helping you cover it up after the fact.

I dunno if the birthday video ad is really, like, gross. I guess the main character is sort of dishonest, but it isn’t a huge thing really.

It is pretty depressing though. The main character is just kind of tired and sad.

I agree those ads are pretty concerning and reinforcing bad human behaviours, but the Ubuntu one shown is boring and vague animations. Hardly a good comparison. Who cares about those?

> In another the same young woman again uses it to lie about reading an email from a college, to her face

If only he'd let Apple Intelligence proof-read his blog post.

Holy Jobs, these Ads as if straight from the Black Mirror episode or that The Circle movie, unreal and sad, to the level of Idiocracy (2006) movie cringe.

I don't think this is gross, I think it's hilarious. My phone is supposed to be a heat sink for other people's B.S.

AI is mostly about selling something no one needs to people who don't need it. I think they nailed it there.

The Ubuntu ad looks cheap.

The problem with the ad that no one is touching on is that it makes the consumer look like an idiot or a lazy, disingenuous person.

"You need AI because you are lazy and stupid and do not care about honesty and accountability."

"In one a schlub writes an email to his boss and uses AI to make it sound ‘more professional’, in another a young woman uses it to lie about remembering an acquaintance’s name. In another the same young woman again uses it to lie about reading an email from a college, to her face, while she’s sitting with her. In yet another, linked to recently by Scott McNulty, a woman uses AI to lie to her husband about getting him something for his birthday."

My dude. These ads were supposed to be funny. Can apple not joke? When did we all get so serious?

If it cannot write code, I am not very interested.

Vibing off the name of the post’s title, I think the fact that Apple sends all Siri and Dictation’s transcripts to Apple without the ability to disallow that behavior, even if all processing happens on device kind of sickening.

i'm surprised he didn't bring up the ad with the parents playing with the new iphone in bed and make comments that their kids overhear and think something sexy is going on.

i hate that ad because:

a) they're not really even doing sexual innuendo, they're just saying things in a tone of voice that makes you think they're making racy comments

b) why are the kids sitting outside the bedroom door listening? do they want to hear their parents doin' it?

Throughout Apple’s history, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of their ad campaigns be as brazen and disingenuous as this Apple Intelligence one.

when the largest company in the world is telling you that lying is the main sell of AI....i guess lying is the new honesty in 2024? smfh lmfao

Sorry, but I don’t see them as the author. I love these ads.