Mysteries Deepen »

With the release of a fourth iPhone Ad, the over-analysis can begin anew!

The ad, entitled “Watered Down” depicts the New York Times as displayed on the iPhone — portrait, landscape, zooming in and out (but not loading, you might note).

As many have pointed out, the ad’s depiction of the NYT homepage includes what should be a Flash-based video in the bottom corner. Could iPhone have Flash playback after all?

Even more intriguing, all of the ads have been reedited — the new ad does not have the “two-year contract required” line at the end of the video. Re-watching the older three ads, however, reveals that the line is now gone from those as well! Interesting.

Many folks take that as a sure sign that a two-year contract will not be required after all. I’m not so sure — perhaps Apple just wanted a cleaner ad, since the ad makes no pricing claims, anyway.

Throwing fuel on the fires, though, the ads were not simply edited to remove the legalese.

At least in the case of the How To ad, the video content has been altered, as well. The Mysterious Twelfth Icon™ has disappeared!

In fact, the entire ‘iPod’ section of that ad was reedited, using slightly different footage. Compare old and new:

The ad syncs back up with the original footage as it moves on to email and the web.

I wonder if they reconsidered their music choices for some reason?

Manual »

Agents have escaped with photos of the AT&T sales training manual. Not very interesting, really — but it’s another dose of iPhone obsession intrigue.