New Apple holiday ad aims to prove you can share AirPods
Nothing brings two people together like a pair of Apple AirPods.
In Apple's latest holiday ad, entitled "Sway," the company shows, perhaps for the first time, how two people might share one pair of wireless Apple AirPods.
Unlike 2015's award-winning "Misunderstood," there really isn't much of a story to Sway, which will air for the first time on Thanksgiving during NFL football, but dropped a day early on YouTube. Instead, a young woman puts in her AirPods, pulls out her iPhone X (naturally), opens Apple Music, pulls up Sam Smith's Palace, and starts dancing on the snowy streets. Of course, all that leaping and twirling on the busy byways of a city like New York (we don't know if it's New York City), leads to her bumping into a guy. Instead of a New Jersey Salute, the guy just stares at her as she casually pulls one AirPods from her ear and puts it in his ear.
This would work IRL.
AirPods automatically pause the music when you remove one from your ear and start up again when you put one back in your ear. They sense the touch of skin, but don't have to be in the same person's ear to start playing again.
Of course, this leads to them both dancing in the streets, which they do especially well because the pair, Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Grant, are, in fact, married in real life.
It's interesting that Apple uses AirPods sharing in this ad since some have complained that these untethered audio devices kill the intimacy couples always got from sharing the wired Apple EarPods.
Oddly, the dancing spell breaks and the couple part ways. It's not even clear if the guy returned his half of the AirPods to the woman. Now I can only imagine her walking around the city with one AirPod
It's not Apple most moving or memorable ad, but it's a decent showcase for features in some of its leading products.
Lance Ulanoff was Chief Correspondent and Editor-at-Large of Mashable. Lance acted as a senior member of the editing team, with a focus on defining internal and curated opinion content. He also helped develop staff-wide alternative story-telling skills and implementation of social media tools during live events. Prior to joining Mashable in September 2011 Lance Ulanoff served as Editor in Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for the Ziff Davis, Inc. While there, he guided the brand to a 100% digital existence and oversaw content strategy for all of Ziff Davis’ Web sites. His long-running column on PCMag.com earned him a Bronze award from the ASBPE. Winmag.com, HomePC.com and PCMag.com were all been honored under Lance’s guidance.He makes frequent appearances on national, international, and local news programs including Fox News, the Today Show, Good Morning America, Kelly and Michael, CNBC, CNN and the BBC.He has also offered commentary on National Public Radio and been interviewed by newspapers and radio stations around the country. Lance has been an invited guest speaker at numerous technology conferences including SXSW, Think Mobile, CEA Line Shows, Digital Life, RoboBusiness, RoboNexus, Business Foresight and Digital Media Wire’s Games and Mobile Forum.
