[NewsPoster]

Apple has debuted a 90-second holiday TV ad for its iPhone 5s, called "Misunderstood," that is based on a family holiday home video shot on an iPhone 5s. While the company didn't say if the original home video was actually created within the family, the commercial version introduces a backstory of a teenage member of the "Harris family" who makes a thoughtful Christmas present by creating a movie on his iPhone.

Both the commercial and the original Harris family video have been posted to YouTube by Apple. The original video shows many shots of a typical American family gathering for the holidays and engaging in typical winter and Christmas activities, including decorating a tree, playing in the snow and cooking together.

The commercial version remixes the originally two-minute home movie and adds new footage showing the teenager, who is thought to be completely engaged in his iPhone and not participating in the family fun until he reveals that he was actually working on the home movie. At the end of the ad, the teen debuts the movie using AirPlay on the family's HDTV.

The ad uses a mixture of natural sound and a slow version of the song "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" to create a touching message that emphasizes the family and their celebrations rather than the iPhone until the end, when the family realizes the young man has been making his own gift for them all along. The commercial and the original home video are embedded below.

[jpellino]

This ad is brilliant.

[davoud]

Uh-oh. They wrote "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" at the end. That may earn Apple the wrath of the war-on-Christmas sociopaths on Faux News.

[aristotles]

Happy holidays are what I take during the summer. Merry Christmas everyone. If you are not a christian, why do you bother celebrating Christmas? St. Nicholas was a real person. He helped the poor by giving gold to poor families with daughters who could not afford a dowery. Those girls were saved from being sold in to a life of prostitution by their families. You see, it was expected that the family of the bride should pay a dowery to the groom back in the day. If a family could not afford to pay a dowery, they could not marry off their daughters.

[jdonahoe]

Even Jews can enjoy Christmas. It's a holiday, regardless of origin, whether fiction or not. It's a FREE country. Happy Holidays!!

[xomniron]

@davoud, you can deny it's happening but the secularist movement is in full attack mode again this year. Faux News? Your bigotry is showing. Fox News is more real than your apparent favorite, MSNBC. How many of their on-screen people left in disgrace this year? How low are their ratings of late? Stereotyping goes both ways. Time to stop.

xomniron, calm down dude, it was a joke.
aristotles, since Christmas was co-opped from the Roman holiday Saturnalia, and incorporates Druid traditions, who the h*ll are you to say that non-Christians shouldn't celebrate Christmas.

Everyone, Happy Holidays is a phrase that was first meant to incorporate Merry Christmas and Happy New Year into one phrase. The phrase Happy Holidays goes back long before there was the so-called war on Christmas. And besides, what the h*ll is wrong with "Happy Holidays." It's inclusive.

[Charles Martin]

There are, in fact, at least 15 holidays celebrated in December -- in the *Christian* faith (depending on denomination, obviously).

So, in point of fact, "happy holidays" is the correct, most accurate AND most inclusive term -- you know, the kind of thing a polite and civilised society would adopt.

Whiners who claim a "war" on Christmas have laughably little knowledge about their own so-called "faith" and history -- and of course demonstrate their arrogance and contempt for others (including, ironically, Jesus' own faith of Judaism) when they insist that December 25 is the only (made-up, stolen from other religions, orgy of selfish greed) day that matters ... doesn't seem very Christ-like to me ...

[xomniron]

Hey, you can say "Happy Holidays" or "Festivus for the Rest of Us" for all I care. Free country. Your choice. My main point was @Davoud's derision of conservatives stereotypically watching Fox News. Which, by the way, is more "fair and balanced" than MSNBC and for 2013 had more viewers than the combined averages of CNN, MSNBC and HLN. Conservative bashing is an on-going theme here whenever an unenlightened liberal wants to take a cheap shot.

As for what is Christ-like, it is about giving, not receiving; serving, not taking. I work to do that all year. That's the spirit of Christmas, not Festivus.

[Charles Martin]

Xomniron: I have no way of knowing which of the two channels you mention is more "accurate," having given up on TV years ago -- but Fox was not very accurate about much of anything, and if I recall correctly there ARE other options apart from just those two channels you mention. The fact that its popular doesn't mean anything -- the reason I gave up on TV altogether is because most popular shows are aimed at simpletons who lack even the most basic critical-thinking skills. The fact that Fox News is that popular tells me plenty, and nothing good. I get my non-tech news mostly from foreign sources that have a strong track record of matching reality. America is a wonderful place, but its in a little bubble of reactionary nonsense compared to the rest of the world.

As for Christmas -- Jesus himself, from my readings of his life and work, would be mortified at any celebration of his birth, particularly a spectacular consumer orgy of materialism no matter how well-intended. You might say he was an "enlightened" liberal, and quite the conservative-basher of his day ... if you've actually read of his actions and philosophy, of course ...

[jdonahoe]

@Xomniron: You need to watch this Daily Show take on Fox's holiday ire. It shows how poorly Fox News is at balanced coverage.

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/83732534/

I wonder sometimes if all conservatives have only one channel on their televisions. It's like a cult, what injustice (gay marriage, war on christmas, war on christians, etc.) will Fox rail about today.