Apple on Friday released a pair of new Siri mini-ads featuring Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock.
The Rock shows off Siri’s HomeKit and language support in new Apple videos
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Apple airs three Siri mini-ads starring The Rock
Apple's partnership with Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock that gave us perhaps the best television commercial for Siri ever is continuing with a trio of amusing mini-ads that the Cupertino firm published on its official YouTube channel yesterday evening.
Apple airs its best Siri commercial ever, featuring The Rock
Apple last evening uploaded on its YouTube channel arguably the best advertisement for Siri yet.
Facebook rolling out Messenger ads globally
Ads on Facebook's popular mobile chatting app, Messenger, are now available to advertisers globally, the company said today. Advertisers and brands will be able to add Messenger to their campaigns using existing tools and targeting options.
“A small percentage of people will begin to see ads in their Messenger Home tab towards the end of this month as we build ads inventory,” said Facebook. The social network will gradually extend Messenger ads to more people over the coming months.
Facebook company began injecting ads into people’s conversations on Messenger in the second quarter of 2016. Messenger lets brands send ads as messages to those who previously interacted with that company using the Messenger app.
Only folks who have voluntarily chatted with a business can be sent ads, for now.
https://messenger.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/video-1499474456-1.mp4
When you tap an ad in Messenger's Home tab, you'll be sent to the destination the advertiser chose during the ad's creation, which can be either their official website or a Messenger chat.
The suite of Messenger ads also include sponsored messages and click-to-Messenger ads.
Sponsored messages let business re-engage with people who have started a conversation with them while click-to-Messenger ads drive users to a conversation after they interact with the ad in Facebook, Instagram or Messenger.
Apple News may soon let you access paywalled articles “for cents at a time”
A new AdAge report Wednesday asserts Apple could soon enable a brand new micropayment option inside its News app to let readers access articles locked behind a paywall, like those from The Wall Street Journal, “for cents at a time”.
Citing people familiar with the plans, the publication has learned that the Cupertino giant is also coming up with new ways for major publisher partners to sell advertising on their articles encoded in the native Apple News format.
Apple may permit publishers to inject ads in the News app directly from third-party ad networks such as Google's DoubleClick for Publishers. It should help Apple News become more of an extension of the publishers' own websites than the walled-off island it is now.
“There's a ton of scale there but no dollars,” a publishing partner told the publication. “So Apple has to do something soon or publishers will pull out.” The iPhone maker should open new money-making avenues for publishers when iOS 11 launches for public consumption this fall.
Publishers aren't making much money on Apple News because Apple maintains tight control over ad delivery in the News app, which claims a comScore-estimated 47 million monthly users.
iOS 11's News app brings personalized top stories and suggestions from Siri, daily curated stories via a new Spotlight tab and the best videos of the day in your Today view.
Does it make more sense for Apple to allow standard ad serving on Apple News?
Tell is in comments!
Watch new iPhone 7 ad: “A Portrait of Canada”
Apple's YouTube channel was updated Wednesday with a new commercial in the company's “Shot on iPhone” series. Titled “A Portrait of Canada”, it features words by Humble the Poet plus videos and depth-of-field photographs made possible by iPhone 7 Plus's dual-lens camera.
The photos and videos featured in the ad were snapped by photographer Caitlin Cronenberg and Canadians in locations across the country, ranging from Toronto to the Canadian Rockies.
The ad, according to the description on Apple's Canadian website, was meant to serve as “a portrait of Canada's inclusive spirit shot on iPhone, brought to life by three Canadian artists as well as Canadians across the country.”
And here it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpREAlYHiMU
Song: “Suplex (feat. Northern Voice)” by A Tribe Called Red
Canada turns 150 years old next week and Apple is joining the celebrations with a new “Unapologetically Canadian” page on the Canadian App Store.
“Canadians may be famous for saying we’re sorry, but when it comes to building great apps, there’s no need to apologize,” reads the page's description.
“Canada is home to some of the world’s greatest talent, and we’re thrilled to celebrate these inspiring creators as part of Canada’s 150th birthday. Scroll down to explore the list of Canadians’ 150 most-downloaded apps and games of all time.”
How do you like Apple's new ad that celebrates Canada's cultural diversity?
Let us know by posting a comment below.
Gmail will stop scanning your emails for ads personalization
Google's pledged to stop scanning users' emails in Gmail for personalized ads. The important change, coming later this year, will bring personal Gmail accounts in line with Google's business-focused G Suite Gmail service which does not scan emails for ads personalization.
“Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads personalization after this change,” Diane Green, Senior Vice President of Google Cloud, announced Friday in a post on the search giant's official blog.
Ads you see across Google properties and on websites that use Google ads are still going to be personalized based on other factors, including users' settings at myaccount.google.com.
“Users can change those settings at any time and disable ads personalization,” Green said.
Gmail is the world’s preeminent email provider with more than a whopping 1.2 billion users.
“G Suite customers and free consumer Gmail users can remain confident that Google will keep privacy and security paramount as we continue to innovate,” reads Green's post.
Google's ad-driven business model is notoriously reliant upon the company's ability to personalize ads to your interests. The company uses many signals and various tracking techniques to collect anonymized data, which is then fed to its machine learning and artificial intelligence systems to derive useful intelligence for ads personalization.
On the flip side, Gmail scanning has been a common point of contention among privacy-minded users who dislike having their Gmail scanned for advertising purposes. Given that more than three million paying companies currently use the paid G Suite service, Google can certainly afford to stop scanning personal Gmail inboxes for ads personalization.
Apple's iCloud Mail service has never scanned the contents of users' inboxes because the entire iCloud suite of apps and services is 100 percent free of advertising, in line with Apple's commitment to protecting the privacy of its users.
New video tutorials from Apple explain how to customize and share Moments
Apple yesterday published a pair of new videos through its official YouTube channel, covering the Moments feature in Photos which uses machine learning to automatically create themed albums and animated slideshows from your best images and videos.
Running sixteen seconds long each, the two new clips show how to customize and share Memories in the stock Photos app on iPhone. Using iOS's multipurpose Share sheet, users can publish their currently playing Memory Movie to Facebook, Twitter and other services.
And with the ability to choose from many built-in templates and songs, everyone can customize every Memory to their liking, all from within the stock Photos app.
How to customize Memories on iPhone 7“Customize your Memories movies by choosing from tons of preselected moods and music, right from the Photos app,” reads the video's description.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dzv3LCvlJY
How to share Memories on iPhone 7“Share your favorite Memories movies with friends, family or all of Facebook, right from the Photos app.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-VxQYw8hLk
To watch other tutorials in the series, visit apple.com/iphone/photography-how-to.
Apple’s new videos aim to lure Android users into switching to iPhone
Apple on Monday shared five short switcher videos through its official channel on YouTube. Titled “Photos”, “Jump”, “Fast”, “Privacy” and “Music”, each runs sixteen seconds long.
The latest ad campaign uses the new tagline “Life's easier on iPhone”.
The new clips promote some of the benefits of being an iPhone user, ranging from the official “Move to iOS” Android app (available free on Play Store) to the company's in-house designed chips that make iPhone the fastest smartphone in the world in terms of single-core CPU benchmarks to Apple's commitment to privacy and more.
Here are the videos.
Photoshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-kbqiLxZwM
“Switch to iPhone. The Move to iOS app makes it simple to move your photos, music and more to iPhone,” reads the video's description.
Jumphttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmdC2eEeQAI
Musichttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99w8cdTcliA
Fasthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IKxOIbRVxs
“iPhone is designed to run fast. Life’s easier when you switch to iPhone.”
Privacyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poxjtpArMGc
“We build iPhone with your privacy in mind. Life's easier when you switch to iPhone.”
Apple also updated its “Switch to iPhone” webpage with a new design and additional information aimed at encouraging Android customers to consider switching to Apple's phone.
The mini-site offers additional information on switching from Android to an iPhone with FAQ-style answers to questions like “Is the camera as good as they say?”, “Why is iPhone so fast?”, “What makes Messages so great?” and “Will I love my iPhone”, among other topics.
How do you like Apple's new switcher videos?
How to surf lighter and declutter Safari by disabling images on Mac
In this tutorial, we'll show you the quick steps to disable all images on websites you visit in Safari on your Mac.
Watch new Shot on iPhone ads celebrating Children’s Day in Turkey
Apple on Friday posted three new commercials as part of its ongoing Shot on iPhone advertising campaign. In line with Apple's focus on regional media campaigns, the videos celebrate Children’s Day in Turkey and are now available for streaming through the company's Turkish channel on YouTube.
Snapchat’s new tools let brands see how well geofilter ads are performing among users
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Snapchat has rolled out new tools for marketers, called Snap to Store, allowing brands to see how well geofilter ads are performing among users. They've been testing it with a handful of brands since last year, including Paramount Pictures and 7-Eleven. The firm is now looking to expand Snap to Store to a wider range of brands from the retail, fast food, movie and automobile sectors.