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Apple plays up FaceTime in iPhone ad

The iPhone maker is highlighting video chat, as that feature becomes a popular topic across the social-networking world.

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Don Reisinger
Former CNET contributor Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has covered everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Besides his work with CNET, Don's work has been featured in a variety of other publications including PC World and a host of Ziff-Davis publications.
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Don Reisinger
Apple's FaceTime is highlighted in a new commercial.
Apple's FaceTime is highlighted in a new commercial. Apple

One of Apple's latest iPhone commercials is capitalizing on the recent surge of interest in video calling.

One of its two new "If you don't have an iPhone" commercials focuses on the smartphone's FaceTime video-calling feature. The ad, which popped up on YouTube yesterday, shows how the feature lets people video-chat with anyone else with an iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

The timing of the ad might just be impeccable, considering video calling has been in the headlines lately.

Last week, Facebook announced a deal with Skype that brings video calling to the social network's 750 million users. That news followed the launch of Google's new social-networking project, Google+, which also features video calling. Perhaps Apple is trying to remind folks that it, too, is competing in this arena.

A new Apple AirPlay spot showed up yesterday on YouTube as well. That commercial shows how people can use their iPhones to wirelessly stream music to a speaker system, and photos or video to a television.

The AirPlay ad includes another of the company's products: Apple TV. However, the ad only shows the device in the background--connected to a television--and doesn't mention it or highlight it in any other way.

(Via ZDNet)