Apple’s latest ad wants you to buy a $500+ tablet computer that runs App Store apps. Apple wants to sell you shiny things to make money.

Google’s latest ad wants you to store personal details about your child’s life, from birth, on their servers. Google wants your data so they can sell it (aggregated and anonymized, of course) to others to make money.

Taken in that context, Apple’s ad might be obnoxious and highly commercial, but Google’s is downright creepy.

That’s not an Apple fanboy perspective, that’s a privacy fanboy perspective. And it’s not iPhone vs. Android either. iPhone users use tons of Google services, including Gmail, Maps, and Search, and YouTube built in, and Voice, Latitude, etc. available via apps. Given over a 100 million iOS devices, we’re a huge part of Google’s user base, and a valuable part. And for the record, I haven’t liked some of Apple’s recent ads either.

But I do think about how each company makes money and what they have to sell to make that money. Apple makes almost all their money selling hardware products — selling to you. Google makes almost all their money selling advertising — selling you. (Or in this case, your child. Seriously.)

I’m not telling anyone to stop using Google, far from it. I’m a huge Google user myself. What I’m saying is this is not really a good ad.

(Note: As Apple ramps up iAds, this’ll be a concern for iOS users as well.)

Both videos after the break.

UPDATE: Again, I’m a huge user of Google services — this is not intended to scare anyone but simply to inform users, so users can make better informed decisions. Convenience and security are always at odds, and choosing the convenience of free cloud services like Google’s sacrifices the security of your personal information. I currently find that an acceptable compromise. If you don’t have a problem with it either, than good for you. Enjoy. As long as we all know the deal.

I wasn’t sure we’d see another iPad commercial after the holidays and before iPad 2 but Apple has gone and made their revolutionary and magical tablet… iconic!

This one starts off Fresh (old school scratching on a new fangled virtual turn-table), and dives into Tickets (an American Airlines app being scanned), News (the Wall Street Journal, ‘natch), Stories (showcasing iBooks new picture books), 60,000+ apps (App Store), Students (writing in Pages), Teachers (marking up the paper with an A), Hollywood (using a virtual scene marker), and Iconic (Marilyn Monroe in the Vanity Fair app).

Interesting if curious mix, who is Apple trying to appeal to with this one? Official video after the break!

Apple has released new commercials for their updated iPod touch 4 and iPod nano 6. iPod touch – All kinds of fun holds true to its roots — lots of hands doing lots of awesome things, but iPod nano – Travel seems more like a hybrid, including elements previously seen in iPod shuffle commercials — less nano chromatic, more wearable.

Check out both commercials after the break and let us know what you think. Do they convince you to buy?

Apple has begun airing 4 new iPhone 4 commercials and once again, it’s all about FaceTime, and heavy on the emotion and sentimentality. Titled Smile, Meet Her, Big News, and Haircut, each focuses on a moment of shared intimacy, of insecurity and anticipation, of surprise and joy. And they do it in a way that makes the visual integral to he communication.

Again, incredibly smart advertising on Apple’s part, and another step towards mainstreaming video calling and the way they’re doing it…

It’s no longer about their being an app for that. Now it’s about there being a phone — specifically iPhone 4 — for that.

Videos after the break.

[YouTube.com/apple via 9to5Mac]

Apple began airing their first iPhone 4 commercial last night, an extract of the FaceTime feature video they debuted at WWDC 2010. The original iPhone 2G focused on features, the internet in your pocket, music on your phone. After the launch of the App Store, iPhone 3G focused on disparate apps for (this and) that for a while, until later on in the iPhone 3GS cycle they shifted slightly into apps for specific use cases. iPhone 4 brings it back around to the beginning but with less blatant techno-wow and more sentimentality. It isn’t about the cool feature, its about real people — a new father, a graduate and her grandparents, a couple using sign-language — making a real, visible, emotional connections.

Apple’s already sold 1.7 million iPhone 4s. Ads like this might move a few more.

Video after the break.

Apple is keeping up the transition from “app for that” to showing how the iPhone makes its users lives better with three new TV commercials — Family Man, Dog Lover, and Backpacker

• Family man showcases the built-in Photo app with a video of a child’s birthday, the App Store and purchasing Jamie Oliver’s 20 minute meals [$7.99 - iTunes link] for cooking, and Elmo’s Monster Maker [$3.99 - iTunes link] for the kids on a car trip, and Viper SmartStart [free - iTunes link] for opening the car trunk.

• Dog lover highlight PetFinder.com [free- iTunes link] to help find that perfect dog, Facebook [free - iTunes link] to share the picture with friends, Hey Walkies [free - iTunes link] to find a place to run, and iCam [$4.99 - iTunes link] to stream the whole thing.

• Backpacker kicks off a trip to spain by finding a place to stay HostelWorld.com [free - iTunes link], sending back pictures with the built-in Photo and Email apps, and using the App Store to download Jibbigo speech translator English to Spanish [$24.99 - iTunes link] for automagic communication.

(Unfortunately, we don’t think there’s an app for the bill that would come from all that roaming data…)

AT&T has just revealed two new commercials that again, take aim at Verizon. Did you really expect anything different? Both of these new ads star Luke Wilson just like the “Side by Side” commercial that debuted last week. As you can see above, “Two Phones” concentrates on the fact that you need two phones to talk and surf the Web at the same time unlike on the AT&T network. To be fair, AT&T left out the fact Verizon customers could actually use WiFi if the phone supported it. We’re just saying…

The other commercial, “Postcards”, highlights the fact that AT&T’s network covers 97% of Americans. As much as I enjoy my AT&T service they failed to mention a decent amount of that coverage is EDGE only.

[Thanks for the tip Gregg!]

View the other commercial after the break!

TechCrunch is reporting that sales of the iPhone app iFog [$0.99 - iTunes link] have shot up following a T-Mobile commercial for the myTouch (their rebranded Google Android Magic, which in no way is meant to glom any mind share from i(Pod) touch), where Saturday Night Live alum, Dana Carvey demonstrates a similar Android app.

Given Apple’s much vaunted 85,000+ apps, it’s interesting to see that iPhone owners will look to the App Store, rather than competing platforms, even when competitors show off apps. Congrats to the developers for the boom-by-proxy.

Maybe Carvey should have shown off Google Voice?

After a brief respite showing off iPhone 3GS features, Apple has returned to their now familiar “App for That” playbook with two new TV spots, one focusing on Share and the other on Travel.

Share shows off photo transfer with Mover [Free - iTunes link], contact transfer with Billionth App Downloaded Bump [Free - iTunes link], and multi-player gaming with Scrabble [$4.99 - iTunes link]

Travel promenades with Rick Steves’ Historic Paris Walk [$4.99 - iTunes link], goes underground with Paris Metro 09 [$4.99 - iTunes link], and sends back the fun with Postman [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Looks like Apple wasn’t quite done unveiling new iPhone 3GS commercials, as a a third one began airing last night focused on video recording, editing, and sharing.

Like the previous two, which highlighted copy and paste and Voice Control, Apple’s keeping them all about the new features — and the ease of use of the new features.

So that means compass and landscape keyboard are next, right?

[Apple.com]

Two new iPhone 3GS commercials are now being aired by Apple, the first one focusing on cut, copy, and paste and the second on Voice Control.

While it’s interesting that the original iPhone 2G commercials were targeted at “the internet in your pocket” and the iPhone 3G commercials at “there’s an app for that”, new features aside, we’re not sure what overarching theme Apple’s going for this time — if any.

Some internet coverage has been less than kind about the new direction, however, welcoming Apple to cut, copy, and paste about a decade too late. That’s a little “inside baseball”, however. While many tech-savvy users — and bloggers — upgraded to the iPhone from Treos, BlackBerrys, or other smartphones, arguably most of the iPhone’s growth has come from consumer adaption — people who upgraded from Motorola RAZRs.

For them, and many of the close to 20 million iPhone users (2G, 3G, and 3GS alike) now able to run iPhone 3.0, copy, cut, and paste will be a decidedly new experience and one whose ease-of-use they’ll likely enjoy.

[Via Apple.com]

Turned on my TV last night and what did I see? A new iPhone commercial showing off apps to me!

Still on the “There’s an App for That” theme, these new commercials are titled Itchy, Office, and Student. Here’s the list and the iTunes App Store links:

• Itchy features Compass Go ($1.99), iBird Explorer Plus ($19.99), and Howcast (FREE)
• Office features Credit Card Terminal ($49.99), Print & Share ($6.99), and FedEx (FREE)
• Student features Apartments (FREE), SnapTel (FREE), and Photogene ($2.99)

Interesting mix of premium and FREE price points there Apple! (And thanks for keeping things on the low end for the students). Check them out on Apple.com, and if you like what you see, get yourself to the App Store.

Already seen Dark Knight like 5 times and itching for some new content to fill your Saturday night? Well, if you’re into short form, Apple has your fix of three all new, all App Store-focused new iPhone ads.

Featuring Lonely Planet phrases, the Cro-Mag rally game, and the location aware Vicinity app, the ads highlight how quickly and elegantly App Store downloads and installs work (insert your own crash joke here), and how the Phone App is still king — interrupting your conversation, gaming, and sightseeing whenever a call comes in.

Continuing to showcase function — almost the polar opposite of the Mac “Switcher” ads — these make for a pretty smart next step in iPhone marketing, especially when it comes to the new tag line:

This changes everything.

Apple has posted two more iPhone ads on their site, “Cars” and “Facebook.” Both, again, feature the internet features of the iPhone. In “Cars,” you not only get to imagine what it’s like to stick it to a car salesman with your iPhone, you also get to imagine purchasing an Audi having not even bothered to do any research ahead of time.

“Facebook” shows off what is still the best online “app” for the iPhone around, though the friends of the commercial’s hand model aren’t nearly as cool as mine.

In any case, the commercials are a return to the classic iPhone commercial format, namely just showing what the sucker is capable of. I applaud the decision, the “On the street” stuff always felt too forced to me.