New iPhone Ads Are Third Party App-Tacular

Apple’s advertising for the iPhone is changing in interesting ways. When the product was brand new, all of the attention was on the interface, just introducing people to the idea of multitouch. Now, the focus has shifted to what you can do with an iPhone that you either can’t do or is too much harder to do on any other phone. The one above, “Fix,” is all about the little everyday problems the iPhone can solve, like finding a taxi, calculating your tip, or checking how level a shelf is. All of the featured applications (Rocket Taxi, Tipulator and Multilevel) are third-party, and each has a nice UI and a cool hook into signature iPhone 3G features, like GPS or the accelerometer.

Another new ad fits the same pattern, this one entitled “Read,” which goes into the many things you could read on the iPhone, including restaurant reviews (Yelp), an MRI (!) (OsiriX), or, well, a book (Classics). I’ve embedded it after the jump.

It’s a really smart way for Apple to make the App Store its own…killer app. How long until Apple makes the “Fart” commercial?

Via iPhone Savior

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About the author

Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

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Posted in Advertising, Apple, iPhone |

CaryMG
Man ….
It’s stuff like this that’ll get it in folks’s heads that the iPhone
is a pockecomputer more than a quote/unquote “Phone That Does Stuff”.
Bring on the iPhone nano, Guydamnit !
8^ ]
Mark
A very true observation — the iPhone’s functionality is definitely the main attraction now. I think in particular the notion of the iPhone as a paying/ordering mechanism is gaining speed — the whole “mobile” credit card thing is covered in another post here at CoM, and there are apps like Taxi Magic — similar to the aforementioned Rocket Taxi but with the ability to call and track a cab right from the phone. There was a rumor — is there any truth to it? — that yelp may add a functionality where one can make a reservation at a participating restaurant via iPhone. Either way, the iPhone is quickly becoming a hub of gratification that needs few other tools to be used in tandem.
Hilken
You can’t compare taxi magic to rocket taxi. What if your city is not supported by taxi magic? What if you’re in Canada, France, UK, Australia? Rocket taxi has over 10000 cities + 17000 taxi companies and supports more than 1 country. To me it’s a no brainer!