Comparing the T-mobil/myTouch4G combination against the att/iPhone.

With a cute brunette in sun dress vs an iphone guy with an attguy on his back weighing him down.



It didn't embed, Don't know what I did wrong but at least the link works.
If I just choose the right option...

The guy looks a little like Ballmer. I wonder if that was intentional...

Good old marketing lies. "Americas largest 4G network". Except that no network in existence is really 4G.

Seems 4G is the new marketing term to slap on everything, just as HD was all the rage, including "HD radio" that has nothing to do with High Definition.

It's also a complete abuse of Apple's copyrights. This is a commercial vehicle and isn't protected under laws allowing for parody or satire.

Even without the new ITU statements, HSPA+ has never, by any stretch of the imagination, been 4G. 3.5G *MAYBE*

The important thing to note from the commercial however is that they're being sympathetic to Apple and the iPhone and really they're ripping on ATT. Of course they could go a long way to helping to put the iPhone onto their network, like adopting a bloody standard frequency instead of the one they're using now.

In the good ol US. Isn't the revision/exchange of spectrum usage a pretty expensive proposition?

Jeez, what is your problem? She is farkin CUTE!

I didn't say she wasn't.

Hard to draw a line between what's parodistic and satirical and what not, when making comparative advertising. I don't know what law you're referring to, Bruno, but it seems to me that would be non-applicable to say the least.

The whole PC industry could have sued Apple for implicating that PC products are all boring and sad compared to Apple's. Apple's commercials, in the first place, where obviously parodistic and satirical, and did not really contain any objective or measurable technical info.

I actually remember Apple built an entire commercial on the unpleasant Windows Vista feature of asking users for confirmation way too often. And yes, that was a feature: it could be disabled in few clicks for good since day one, or somewhat tuned to be less invasive - albeit not as in detail as today; again the commercial was, essentially, a "joke": satirical and parodistic.


Personally, I love comparative advertising, maybe because here in Italy they are at the boudary of legality and so few take the risk of making one.
But these (Apple's, T-Mobile's) type of commercials in particular, while perfectly legal, are often not really comparing anithing comparable, and are inherently smug. They make me tend to dislike companies that use them, rather than see their point; I find it unwise and unpleasant to make fun of those who disagree with your view of the world and make them look stupid or silly. Pointing out at objective, technical features without adding the "I'm cool as a person, your're not" message would be way more elegant, intelligent, and respectful.
I mean, when I saw Apple's commercials I had the same reaction I had when I heard personnel at Apple Store being called "geniuses". I laughed at them! They lost many points with me (maybe I am smuger than Apple... ).

But again, it is not illegal to be smug.

I find t-mobile is actually making fun of Apple. Not its products maybe, bu its commercials.

And yes, she's hot.

It's not the comparison, but the outright artistic reproduction of Apple's trade-dress. The commercial itself. White background, characters representing products, background music, etc.

They'd have a copyright case with regards to the production of the commercial, not the comparative claims made in it.

Parodies and satire are protected in the US as part of free speech, to among other things, be able to make political commentary. This commercial wouldn't, as far as I'm aware, fall under any such protections.

To me, it's just another "me too" commercial and IMO, looks extremely unprofessional and un-competetive for T-Mobile to have to rip off one of the most recognized and best performing ad series of the past decade. T-Mobile is a nobody in US telecom, somewhere between last place and completely off the map. It's great that they love the iPhone and want to stick it to ATT, but they could have come up with an original concept to do so.

I'm surprised they didn't rip off the Old Spice "Look and me, now look at your man" series.

My interpretation is that it is being done on purpose to openly mock Apple.

If that's how you say, I'd agree it would be pathetic
And, provided Apple could patent the look and feel and style of their commercials, it would also be illigal.

But I looked at it again. It really seems to me they're mocking Apple, also implicating that the iPhone 4 is only 3G and needs a WiFi for the video call (they mention it openly), while theirs is "4G". Also, isn't ATT one of the carriers used by the iPhone in the US? I mean, I read the whole commercial as directed to iPhone 4 overall.

What it does is hack away at the favorability of iPhones.

... I mean, like this famous one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hnOCUkbix0

No, the commercial very clearly mocks ATT as being the monkey on the back of the iPhone 4. ATT is the iPhone's weakness in the US - that's the major point they're driving home about the iPhone.

Then they're also promoting the new handset they're gong to sell and claiming it's 4G, but it's of course only 3G - which the population won't realize of course. The US's FTC can be brought in on the 4G claim and I'm sure TMo would have to stop airing the commercial. I would be surprised if Sprint and Verizon didn't push for FTC intervention, except that TMo is a pathetic little company and both those other guys aren't 4G either by ITC's definition.

With regards to video chat, no other current smart phone even offers this feature with built-in (first party) software, so this point is completely moot. The iPhone supports it on WiFi built-in and over 3G with third party software - some of the same third party software you have to use on the other phones in fact (like Fring).