iPhone ads reveal little or maybe much.

Let me start this by saying I've been following the development of the Apple iPhone for quite some time. And finding news on new developments has become a bit of an obsession for me. I'm readily awaiting it's upcoming release on June 29th. So in the meantime I've been indulging myself with the new series of four iPhone ads. During my time watching these ad's I noticed a few funny things. Perhaps slips of the ad agency who created them, or maybe little bits of thread Steve Jobs is dangling in front of us. Only time will tell. Anyway, the evidence is below. First up is a mysterious 12th button. In all the iPhone ads and demonstrations previous to these ads and even in the ads themselves there has only ever been 11 icons on the front screen to choose from. In a few frames during a close up shot of the hand model pressing the iPod button, it is visible that there are not three, but four buttons on the bottom row. Meaning? A new button has found its way into the space above and shifted all the other down or over one space. See the modified screen cap image below.

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Second involves an interesting thing dealing with the date. I noticed that at one point you can clearly see the date on the New York Times site. It lists October 2, 2006 12:59AM as the last time it was updated. This is visible in the attached screen cap I took. This makes me wonder if these ads were created as far back as then. The date displayed on the phone is clearly June 3rd, so does this indicate a cached page/image from October 2nd, 2006? It is obvious that the phone in the commercial has a full wifi connection, but as many others have pointed out in this and previous ads, the speed of the internet seems just conveniently too quick to be realistic. And further, what significance then does October 2, 2006 hold? Was this when the ads were actually created? Or is the date significant enough for some reason that someone would have cached the page back then for use now? Screen cap below with the date blown up for clarity.

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Lastly, in a very exciting turn of events, should it pan out, an adobe flash file was visible on the page. The New York Times site features a small flash video player about midway down its page, as well as a few other flash advertisements, but since the player has been a constant for some time and is visible now as you visit the site, that's what I'm going to focus on. The inclusion of the player on the page indicates one of two things in my mind. The more skeptical of the two is that the page is fact screen simulated or some sort of image file, or the more hopeful of the two; that flash will be working on the release of the iPhone. If flash weren't enabled, the space would most likely be empty or have placeholder text mentioning it would need to install flash, or flash isn't available etc. Screen cap below blown up for clarity and including today's flash player from the NY Times site for comparison.

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