Samsung takes a swipe at iPhone "Batterygate" and notch in new ad

Samsung has released a new ad that once again picks a fight with its biggest rival, Apple. The video ad, dubbed “Moving On,” follows on from last year’s “Growing Up” campaign, and sees Samsung using recent controversies surrounding the Cupertino giant as ammunition in the ongoing fight for supremacy at the top of the mobile industry.

The cheeky ad (above) follows a woman making a long distance trip where her travel plans are repeatedly scuppered by the slow performance of her phone. What phone is that, you ask? An iPhone, obviously.

More specifically, the woman’s frustration is directed at an iPhone 6 — one of the older iOS phones that Apple admitted late last year is in fact slowed down on purpose to prolong battery life long-term and avoid random shutdowns.

The ad starts off with a few less obvious jabs, as we see the iPhone owner struggle to load a boarding pass QR code and then fail to open the iBooks app while on a plane. Meanwhile, a Galaxy S9 Plus owner in the seat next door is seen happily watching Justice League on the phone’s larger 6.2-inch display.

For the record, there are a number of points in the ad that stretch believability, but the worst offender by far is showing someone watching Justice League with a huge smile on their face. That would never happen, it’s awful. Anyway…

After missing out on a taxi, once again due to her chugging phone, our heroine eventually heads into an Apple Store for an answer to her woes. Unfortunately, a comically unhelpful employee explains that her device is being performance managed and that her only real option is to upgrade.

Burned by “Batterygate,” she opts to instead ditch the cult of Apple and, to her Galaxy-loving mum’s delight, buys a Galaxy S9, but not before we see the triumphant return of notch guy walking by the Apple Store — only this time he has his notch son with him too!

While it’s perhaps a little wearying to see yet another advert from a top OEM that resorts to bashing Apple rather than blazing its own trail, Samsung does have some hard stats to back up its bluster.

Mobile data speed experts Ookla recently suggested that the Galaxy S9 range offers download speeds that are up to 42 percent faster than the iPhone X and the iPhone 8 range. The S9 family is also capable of downloading a full-length movie in roughly five minutes, while the iPhone X takes longer at around seven minutes. You can read more about the results over on Samsung’s official blog.

Personally, I think the advert misses the point a little by comparing a 2018 flagship with an iOS device that’s almost four years old now.

It’s fine to throw shade at Apple over CPU throttling — it certainly deserves it — but surely no one out there thinks an iPhone 6 will be faster than a Galaxy S9. Likewise, if you happened to pit Samsung’s 2014 flagship, the Galaxy S5, against an iPhone X then the latter is obviously going to wipe the floor with its Android rival.

Do you like that advert? Are you happy to see notch guy make a return? Where’s the rest of the notch family? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.