Apple Really Wants You to Take Some ‘Slofies’
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As thousands of new iPhone users are getting used to the iPhone 11s they found under the tree this Christmas, and 2019 prepares to draw to a close, Apple wants to make sure you’re well aware that its newest iPhones can take slow-motion videos with the front-facing camera, and it’s making yet another push to try and make its coined term, Slofies, into a cultural phenomena.
When Apple took the wraps off the iPhone 11 back in September, one of the new features it touted was the ability to record slow-motion video clips using the front TrueDepth camera. While the slow-motion video has been possible on the iPhone since the company released the iPhone 5s back in 2013, the iPhone 11 marks the first time that Apple has brought this capability to the front “selfie” camera.
While there doesn’t seem to be any reason why the front-facing camera couldn’t have supported slo-mo video recording in the past — it’s primarily a software feature, after all — it clearly wasn’t something that Apple felt users needed, at least not until somebody at Apple came up with the idea of “Slofies.”
While we haven’t heard much of the word since, Apple’s Senior Director of Product Marketing, Kaiann Drance, dropped it into her presentation when she unveiled the iPhone 11, and lest you might think it was just a candid turn of phrase, remember that Apple’s product unveilings are meticulously scripted, and there are no such things as throwaway words. Further, Apple also explicitly used the term at the close of the short video clip to demonstrate the “fun new feature,” and later reports revealed that the company has actually applied for a U.S. trademark to secure rights to the word “Slofie,” so it’s pretty serious about this one.
So Where Are All the Slofies?
Unfortunately for Apple, it seems that the term hasn’t caught on as much as the company would have liked, so it’s now taking steps to make sure that all of the new iPhone owners know that they can take slo-mo selfies, and what the proper, Apple-endorsed term is for them.
In a series of new video clips released to Apple’s YouTube channel, the company is promoting the feature, showing whimsical Slofies being taken to the beat of music, in the rain, and among a group. Each of the ads follows in a similar style, showing a really cool looking Slofie before switching to a larger view that reveals the considerably less impressive real-world situation in which it’s being taken.
Apple has also shared the original Slofie introductory video shown at the iPhone 11 launch in September, featuring a young woman with her hair slowly blowing in the wind like something out of a shampoo commercial or music video, before backing off to the real scene of her kid brother pointing a hair dryer at her in her bedroom.
To be clear, while Apple is marketing Slofies in these videos as an iPhone 11 feature, it is of course also available on the iPhone 11 Pro. However, Slofies certainly seem like a better marketing fit for the trendier and more colourful iPhone 11 models.
Apple’s attempt to revitalize the term Slofies seems to be succeeding, at least for now. We were actually wondering last week why we hadn’t heard the term, and a quick search on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram revealed relatively few references to the term, and even fewer video clips being shared — only 2,312 posts on Instagram currently use the hashtag #slofie.
Since Apple posted these new videos over the weekend, however, thousands of new references to “Slofie” have shown up as users have begun at least sharing Apple’s new videos. Whether this is going to turn into more personal Slofies being shared — and more references to the term being used — remains to be seen, but with all of the new iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro models out there, maybe it will finally catch on.