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Apple says iPhone 7 Plus can make you absurdly popular

Commentary: In an charming new ad, Cupertino wants you to use Portrait Mode on your iPhone 7 Plus. It's a sure way to make people admire you.

Chris Matyszczyk
2 min read

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.


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Enlarge Image
7plusgran.jpg

This is art.

Apple/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

People have egos. Insecurities, too.

So when you photograph someone, you have to prepared that they might instantly despise you because you've revealed a blemish that they wish didn't exist.

A fourth chin, perhaps. Or a natural sneer.

Apple is here to save you. In a very endearing ad released on Saturday, a young woman is visiting her grandmother in a Greek village.

The young woman is clearly a success. She has an iPhone 7 Plus. Because she's a millennial, she immediately whips it out. What's odd is that she doesn't take a selfie, but instead offers to photograph granny.

She surely knows that even grannies, despite everything they've lived through, can be sensitive about their self-image. Thankfully, the 7 Plus has Portrait Mode, which has a depth effect that allows you to focus on your human subject and artistically blur the background.

Granny is impressed. But this is a Greek village. When you're impressed, you let everyone else know. Especially if the person you're impressed with is your granddaughter.

So our heroine is inveigled into taking a picture of seemingly everyone in the village. The locals have heard about this expert photographer and they're not going to miss out on the chance of finally being caught at their absolute best.

Of course, some might complain that all these villagers act as if phones and cameras are entirely foreign to them. I prefer to think of that as a virtue.

Unlike too many Apple ads of late, this one is beautifully conceived. It enjoys perfect performances and a touching, winning atmosphere.

I do wish, though, that Apple had offered at least one scene in which our newly popular photographer threw a tantrum because the light was just so awful and her subject wasn't posing as she wished.

That way, we'd know that she was a true professional.