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Apple's new ad shows how you can get rid of a rival for your wife's affections-on a photo

By Alan Friedman

Published: Mar 03, 2019, 12:40 PM

Apple has been releasing some new ads for the Depth Control feature on the 2018 iPhone models that allows you to control the bokeh blur on a portrait both before and after you take the picture. The previous commercial, which we told you about last month, showed a rather pissed off mom who was upset over a portrait taken of her son's friend snapped on the iPhone. Her son had been in the background when the portrait was taken and was originally blurred out. "Did you bokeh my child?," she asks, while the mother who snapped the photo said that she could un-bokeh the kid. That's modern life for you.

The newest 30 second commercial raises the stakes. A couple is lying together in bed after attending a party and the husband is looking at his iPhone. "I got a great shot of you," he says, showing his wife the photo he snapped of her. But someone in the background of the portrait catches her eye. It's Alejandro, who works in her office and apparently has a fabulous sense of humor. Feeling more than a little jealous, the husband pinches the screen to zoom in on Alejandro just as his wife starts laughing at a joke that Alejandro once told her.

Using Depth Control, the husband blurs Alejandro's image in the background of the portrait so that he is no longer recognizable. "That's better," he says. And both share some hearty laughter. We can't vouch for what happened subsequently between the wife and Alejandro, and we don't expect Apple to update us either.

Meanwhile, we can tell you that Depth Control is available on the Apple iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR.

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Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.

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