Let's be honest from scratch: I'm not a marketing expert nor a communication specialist (as recently heard somewhere in Milan) neverthless I'm so full of myself to think that my opinion in this field has something of interesting, a point of view that deserves to be shared.

Simply stated: I really dislike the last Apple Commercial that launches the new Apple app/service/biz called «iBooks Author» for three fundamental reasons:

  • Dramatization: hey guys don't you feel a bit ridicoulus to reuse the same pattern more and more? Ok, it's a matter of «identity» but don't take it too seriously…
    Let's look at the characters choosed: what impression about the teacher that open the ad? He really seems domesticated, brain-drained, under psychotropic effects… Everthing but a passionate teacher… I was really scared! Do you leave your guys with him: I hope no! 
    And what about the soundtrack: I can only guess that some Hitchcook's film was of inspiration!
  • Redundancy: soooooo lengthy… atypical for Apple's communication standards… 7minutes, even more than that's typically devoted to the presentation of a new release of Mac OS… to talk about what? something really easy to grasp…
  • Betrayal of its roots: who recalls the famous Rydley Scott's «1984» commercial? Well, what did you feel looking at those boys and girls playing frenetically with their iPad or Macs and what about their digital pupils? Classrooms, houses, schools invaded by a wearable BigBrother? I mean, the flow of the message is so compulsive in presenting hordes of young people interacting with a device designed in Cupertino that reaches an obsessive effect that's really hard to conciliate with any educational purpose

Steve would have approved?…

That's said about the commercial I'm also convinced that the iPad, and more in general the tablet era, will introduce a big advancement into the pedagogical discipline delivering new opportunities to involve the learner with a pervasive and interactive experience.

I can't wait for my daughters when they'll read Dante's Inferno on a multimedia edition or they'll study the electromagnetical fields with an interactive simulator. I'm so lucky to have two daughters separated by 8 years: enough to assist at another unthinkable (r)evolution.