You may have noticed a few new Apple advertisements promoting Siri -- no big news -- but the fact that these ads include some of the biggest names and faces in showbiz is. Though Apple products have always been for the "cool" kids, it has never needed celebrity endorsements to market its products. So what's changed?
Outside the obvious, the passing of Apple's own celebrity CEO Steve Jobs, the company has also recently posted record quarterly earnings. With new leadership, and more cash than Scrooge McDuck, the formula has most definitely changed, but the expectations for results have not. And Siri hasn't exactly been the game-changer everyone expected. For many iPhone 4S owners Siri is a gimmick to show off at a party, and though a useful concept on paper, its a novelty that's rarely used. But if Apple hopes to revolutionize another product set like it did for phones (iPhone) and tablets (iPad), it is depending on Siri. And unless she becomes the next big household "name" from Cupertino, it won't.
If Apple doesn't have widespread Siri adoption by the time it unveils its television set (not to be confused with its set-top box, the AppleTV), it will have to fallback on other "innovative" features yet-to-be-named. And who knows if those will pan out?
We've already seen a few un-Jobs-like decisions seep through the cracks (i.e. the new AppleTV interface). That same day we learned that the iPad 3 was actually just the "new" iPad -- departing from the numerical product release system used in the Jobs era. And these new Siri commercials starring Samuel L. Jackson and Zooey Deschanel are no different. Apple needs Sam and Zooey to sell Siri. And they'll probably need a bigger celebrity army than that. The only question now is, who do you think we'll see in the next Siri ad?
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