Apple has been running ads galore for its iPhone, but one ad in particular bugs me. It’s the one with the pilot, who talks about the weather.
The pilot in the ad, who tells us that he was working a flight from Chicago to Newark, says he’s notified by the tower of a three hour weather delay. Skeptically, he whips out the iPhone and browses over to weather.com to see that there is no weather en route. He calls his dispatcher, and within minutes, they’re cleared for takeoff. iPhone to the rescue.
(If you prefer multimedia to pithy summaries, click the image below to view the ad on the Apple site.)
Really?
No, seriously: Really?
The pilot is identified simply as “Bryce,” and for all I know, he may be a real pilot. (Chicago to Newark… if he’s a commercial pilot that makes him a pilot for American, Continental, or United. Anyone recognize him?)
Either that story is 100% unadulterated bunk, or we’ve got even bigger problems than reported (or not reported, as the case may be).
How was this discussion supposed to go? “Uh, there’s no weather on radar. Why am I delayed?” “Oh, you’re right, I guess you can go now. Get outta here!” Unlikely. One expects (and hopes) that the Chicago tower has access to weather reports. And radar.
(Amusingly, the phone image shows two lines of storms on that flight route, one across Indiana, and one across Ohio. Maybe they should have picked a clear day.)
The ad could have repurcussions for travel: If you’re working in an airport tower, prepare to be harangued by pilots, passengers, and weather nerds across the land.
So either Apple is pulling a fast one, or we’re all screwed.
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November 1st, 2007 at 9:20 pm
That commercial irks me to no end, as well. There’s been some talk on flyertalk about whether it’s legit or not. Seems they used a real pilot in the commercial, but the specifics of the story still seem a bit fuzzy.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=747909
November 2nd, 2007 at 5:23 am
I can smell the BS from here and I’m in the UK.
November 2nd, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Not to mention that weather.com is not an approved WX source for most airline operations. Instead of the weather.com page, why not look at the fly.faa.gov page? (I see that the ground stop to EWR is in effect until 03Z… guess we will have to wait it out…)
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:42 pm
I posted this on my Blog as well! My thoughts were the same as you mention in this article and of the ones listed in the comments section of this blog.
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:32 pm
I’ve been a dispatcher for 27 of my 30 years in the biz (still am), and this commercial is a crock.
The commercial is designed to sell iPhones, and that’s about the only reality depicted here. Someone at Apple’s marketing department put together a script that was designed to demonstrate how handy their iPhone was (like in getting out of a 3-hour ATC delay), and they cast a real 767 co-pilot costumed in a generic and insignia-less uniform to infer some credibility.
Operationally, the weather discussed doesn’t match the weather depicted on the iPhone, and in any event, the commercial is overly simplistic as to how the jobs of pilots, dispatchers and ATC all work in real life. The real 767 co-pilot playing the role certainly knows all this, but I reckon it was easier to take the $$$ than it was not to contribute to the public’s ignorance of complicated aviation issues, or otherwise “empower” some folks to second-guess the real professionals that are responsible for their flight.
On a board elsewhere:
**Oh joy! I can’t wait for the next ground delay or long taxi due to weather somewhere to get a smarta** with a freakin i-phone shoving it in my face saying “It’s NOT raining there… SEE!”**
*Too late…already happened to me. We push back, get advised of a ground stop for MEM due to storms in the area. Go to the penalty box and wait. My Captain does the lecture over the PA… not one minute later, we get dinged from the F/A
“Some guy with an IPhone says the weather is good, and wants to know what the real reason is for the delay. Is something wrong with the plane?”
I want to tell this ******* what he can do with his IdiotPhone – but the Captain does it even better. He gets on the PA and makes the following announcement :
“If the passenger with the IPhone would be kind enough to use it to check the weather at our alternate, calculate our fuel burn due to being rerouted around the storms, call the dispatcher to arrange our release, and then make a phone call to the nearest Air Traffic Control center to arrange our timely departure amongst the other aircraft carrying passengers with IPhones, then we will be more than happy to depart. Please ring your call button to advise the Flight Attendant and your fellow passengers when you deem it ready and responsible for this multi-million dollar aircraft and its 84 passengers to safely leave.”
Needless to say, the passenger was pretty embarrassed. The F/A later told us the rest of the plane was outright laughing at this dude. What a clown…*
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:05 am
Glad I’m not the only one annoyed by this.
So, based on the FlyerTalk thread that Smail posted above, the pilot in the ads is a United first officer. (Or so someone on the thread claims.)
If we’re being generous, the story as presented could maybe have happened. But there is no way that there was a causal relationship between surfing over to weather.com and flying to Newark faster. If the pilot called the dispatcher, then they might have found a reroute, which allowed them to take off. All that, independent of what was on the iPhone. The ad might as well have said that the pilot browsed over to allrecipes.com and that suddenly they were cleared for takeoff. Correlation ain’t causation. The call to the dispatcher may have mattered. The browsing on a cellphone didn’t.
OPNLguy, I’m sorry to hear that this ad is already affecting operations. But I’m glad to hear that there was a verbal smackdown.
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:43 am
horseshit.
November 6th, 2007 at 2:00 am
Someone has cut a video… Perfect!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EAQb2Fodbs
November 6th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Haha, perfect indeed!
November 8th, 2007 at 2:38 am
Some of you might be familiar with my stuff — I’m a 767 first officer, and I write Salon.com’s weekly Ask the Pilot air travel column, and my book of the same name was published in 2004. I plan to take on this iPhone ad in an upcoming article, but for now I’ll say this much:
That f$#&*#* commercial bothers me so much that I have to leave the room each time it comes on. It’s utter crap, and I can’t believe they found a real pilot so willing to stand up and talk like an idiot.
It’s especially irritating because I’ve worked hard to write several articles giving passengers an inside look at the real nuts and bolts of weather delays, and in one 30-second spot Apple is able to “reeducate” millions of people.
Best regards.
Patrick Smith
November 9th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Thanks for stopping by, Patrick. Looking forward to the column!
November 20th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
[...] and is continuing to spread rampantly, even to the extent that pilots need to trust the iPhone instead of relying on the millions of dollars worth of equipment and personnel native to their own damn [...]
February 5th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Hahahah good read. I’ll have to check out the commercial. Weather nerds. Do those even exist?!
by the way, I’m on my iPhone as I’m posting this.
February 16th, 2008 at 6:16 am
Ok, you mean to tell me that the i phone is more accurate than the instruments used by airports to track weather conditions. Like c mon. This guy is a real clown. Nice one to your profession. Not to mention the guy has a thing for 19 year old girls that works for hooters in Canada. Not only dumb but a perv. How are you a pilot again???
February 18th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Hmmm, sounds like you’re a real hater. I’ve actually met this guy and the real story is that he asked his dispatcher for a re-route based off of what he saw on his phone, which they were able to do and then passed it along to the tower so his flight could get out sooner when the traffic started moving again……….sounds like a smart pilot to me, and I’ve read some of the stories he’s posted in the remote control jet forums………I believe the girlfriend you are talking about of his was 26…..life sucks when you’re a hater huh?
February 18th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
IN RESPONCE TO CHITALA-
I am that hooters girl you speak of, and for your information I wasn’t 19, I am 26 and the last time you have seen me with Bryce I was 24. Now, in Canada 18 is legal. Maybe you should get some of your facts straight before you hate on others, besides what are you doing that’s so great??….still living in your mothers basement jerkin’ off to child porn, and getting all messed up over bloody commercials. Good God, get a life would ya!
TG1 aka hooters girl.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
What the HELL is going on here?
Get civil, or go home. I’ll shut this thread down in an instant if this idiocy doesn’t stop.
July 15th, 2008 at 11:15 am
I just came across this thread and thought it would be a good idea to clarify the commercial and put some proper perspective to it.
First of all, the ad is completely true and it happens like this every day. We as pilots know our exact route and where we will fly our aircraft from point A to point B. Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) are dealing with literally thousands of flights all at the same time. When a weather system is moving through, ATC has a tendency to shut down more flights than are necessary.
We as pilots are ultimately responsible for determining the safety of the flights we make. In the commercial (and I have used my iPhone for this same purpose MANY MANY times), the pilot checks the weather for his route and determines that the storm will not affect his path and clears it with the dispatchers, which make the final call for the safety of the company’s planes. He then informs ATC that they have checked the weather for their route and would like to launch – ATC concurs and away they go!
Just because you don’t understand how the air traffic system works doesn’t mean that Apple is lying to you – I have used my iPhone so many times to determine the safety of a flight, to file flight plans, to get weather briefings in advance of a flight, etc. that it isn’t even funny!
All of my pilot friends are getting iPhones now once I show them how much power it has for the aviation community. Over 20 pilots that I know of have directly gone out and purchased an iPhone after a 5 minute demonstration of what it can do for them.
The commercial is true and it is only getting better for us pilots! Check out the application “ForeFlight for iPhone” from the AppStore for $69.95. Worth every penny!
March 12th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
[...] and is continuing to spread rampantly, even to the extent that pilots need to trust the iPhone instead of relying on the millions of dollars worth of equipment and personnel native to their own damn [...]
June 7th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I am also a pilot. The idea of even opening my mouth based on checking weather.com is patently absurd. Getting to the cockpit without access to good comprehensive weather data is just plain wrong and in fact I can’t think of any instance in which it’s even legal: the pilot in command must be familar with relevant information about the flight. Not to mention cell phones must be in airplane mode.