Watch every Apple iPhone ad from the first "Hello"

For many, it was a life changing event. The date was March 2nd, 2007 and during the telecast of the Academy Awards, a new ad was played. It was 30 seconds of scenes from television and the movies and all had one thing in common. A star of the screen or boob tube was answering a landline with the universal greeting, "Hello." The list of actors was impressive ranging from Lucille Ball to Robert Redford to that underrated star Barney Rubble ("Barney Rubble. What an actor!"). And there it was, for many it was their first look at the Apple iPhone, in effect, saying "Hello" to the world. AdWeek put together a few web pages consisting of every single ad for Apple's touchscreen device. Some are more historic than others, which we are more than happy to point out to you.

Some of the more famous early ads showed how intuitive the iPhone is and how useful a tool it could be. One ad from 2007 shows someone watching "Pirates of the Caribbean" when they get a hunger for Calamari. Back in 2007 it was not as commonplace as it is now, but the ad showed how quickly and easily a restaurant's number can be found and dialed using the Apple iPhone. There might have been two more important early ads that stick out. There was the one that debuted on July 2nd 2007 which showed that the mobile Safari browser on the iPhone delivered the real internet to users, not a "watered down" version of it. That image of the full New York Times rendering on the Apple iPhone screen made the Times site a benchmark test for mobile browsers for years to come. The irony here, of course, is that without supporting flash, the mobile Safari browser did not bring the full desktop version of the web to Apple's smartphone and the lack of flash did indeed water down the internet. The second important ad from the first batch is the one from Novermber 1st, 2007 that showed how YouTube works on the Apple iPhone."Maybe the biggest surprise," says the announcer, "is finding YouTube on your phone." Today, the bigger surprise is finding a smartphone without a YouTube client.

The next Apple iPhone launch brought 3G to the phone and speed was the buzzword for the Apple iPhone 3G. And thanks to an ad featuring the app, Urbanspoon became a household name to help users decide where to eat. For many, this was the first time they had seen an app in action. But Apple would soon coin a phrase that became almost as famous as "Where's the Beef?". The first half of 2009 sees the airwaves filed with the saying, "There's an app for that,'' an invention from Apple's ad agency TBWA.

The Apple iPhone 3GS is launched in the middle of 2009 and the new video capture feature allows Cupertino to play catch up with mere feature phones. Still, it became part of Apple's advertising. And then Apple launched the Apple iPhone 4 with a totally redesigned body and the native video chat app, Face Time. And as the calendar turned over to 2011, it was time for another strong tag line from TBWA. "If you don't have an iPhone..."

October 2011 sees the release of the Apple iPhone 4S and the launch of Apple's new voice-activated personal assistant Siri, who becomes the star of a few iPhone ads. And that takes us totally up-to-date. A lot has changed over the 4 1/2 years since the first Apple iPhone was launched, not only to the device, but to the industry in general. In fact, by viewing these ads in order, you can get a good idea of how the smartphone industry has evolved since the launch of the first Apple iPhone in 2007.

If you want to view all 84 ads, visit the sourcelink.

source: AdWeek via RedmondPie