Apple has launched its annual holiday campaign, an animated movie to touch your heart. It has an original song written and performed by Billie Eilish. The 16-year-old singer and songwriter's original song, called "come out and play", is a tuneful, catchy song that backs the three-minute film. It features just one Apple product, a MacBook Pro, but has lots of extras that aren't so easy to spot.
Update: This post has been updated to reflect the fact that it's now available in more countries and takes a look at some of the Easter eggs buried in the film.
While last year's spot was a stunningly-realised dance piece focusing on AirPods, this year Apple has emphasized the main strand of its recent New York event: creativity.
The film, which is gloriously beautiful from the first frame to the last, is a change from recent years because it's an animation. It's lush and incredibly detailed, mixing CGI characters with real 3D-model backgrounds.
First released on YouTube and apple.com in a small number of countries, it's more widely available from November 22, including in the U.K.
The title of the film is Share your Gifts, and tells the story of Sofia, a girl who hides her talent from everyone. So, as she creates something on her laptop (a MacBook Pro, well, what did you expect, a Chromebook?), she's reluctant to let anyone, even her faithful dog, clap eyes on her creations.
We see her kneading dough in a bakery where she fashions the mixture into a cute representation of her canine friend, jamming her index fingers into the snout to make nostrils, but flattening it before anyone can see what she's doing.
When she's in a coffee shop and someone admiringly spots what she's creating through the window, she slams the lid of her MacBook Pro. And so on, until her dog takes matters into his own paws to help others see her creativity.
Now, as any dog owner knows, your pooch understands you better than anyone else, especially your moods, and has exceptional taste. So, the whole thing is absolutely realistic.
Not to mention moving. I've watched it four times so far and been teary each time. All right, I admit it, I've sobbed.
The animation itself is spectacular and has a remarkable attention to detail (well, this is Apple, after all). It's detailed not only in the richness of the backgrounds and models but in the storyline: watch closely and the characters who appear fleetingly early on are seen to return in the story's climax, such as the friend who peeps through the coffee shop window and the couple who work in the bakery. Note, for example, that the hats they wear are different from Sofia's beret. Does it indicate they're in charge? Work in a different part of the bakery? We're not told, though Sofia's reaction is indicative of something. The point is, no detail has gone unconsidered. The more you watch, the more you see.
Moreover, this ad is not a hard sell for Apple products - there's just the MacBook Pro and in one shot you get a quick glimpse that shows it's the version with the Touch Bar, but that's about it.
But there are other products, if you look closely. These are the Easter eggs that the filmmakers have inserted (though let's not dwell on whether or not it is appropriate to go looking for Easter eggs at this time of year).
Apart from logos for Supreme, the streetwear brand, which adorns Sofia's MacBook Pro lid, right next to it there are stick-on logos for DFA Records, and MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles - though that's definitely not where the movie is set. The snow that fills the first and last scenes of the animation, and indicates a year passes in the course of the movie's three minutes, is falling on a European-looking town, with a Christmas market and ferris wheel in the closing seconds looking subtly festive. It's an inviting and appealing wintry scene.
This ad is all about creativity, a theme which has been important to Apple for 40 years, so the MOCA logo, along with artsy postcards on Sofia's window and cover art on her garret's walls seem entirely appropriate.
There are more logos and brands to look out for, such as the cute Nike running shoes Sofia fleetingly wears. Some are listed in a revealing piece at AdWeek.
The commercial is above, as is last year's dance spectacular, but you can also catch it on YouTube and apple.com, plus from today, is on TV in the UK. Look out for it and maybe have a tissue, just in case.
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