With all the Olympic-themed ads that have been running during the London Summer Games, some might see the "Apple Genius" ads that debuted the first weekend of the games as a breath of fresh air. They featured a youthful employee who's been let loose from an Apple store's genius bar — still wearing his blue t-shirt and, whether it be on a plane, above, a street corner, or an apartment building, heroically ready to solve consumers' computer problems in the name of touting the brand's Mac line.

More often than not (under the watchful eye of an intensely involved Steve Jobs), Apple ads have always been considered a cut above the ordinary if not positively in a league of their own. Apple has always found a way to advertise a product with a good dose of humanity and a touch of humor. Witness the lauded "I'm a Mac" series from several years ago that brilliantly personified the differences between a Mac and a PC, and the current Siri campaign for the iPhone that feature celebrities including Zooey Deschanel, Samuel L. Jackson, John Malkovich and Martin Scorsese having intensely personal conversations with their iPhones.Continue reading...

Apple's latest TV commercial pairing iPhone's Siri with a celeb stars John Malkovich, above. He's the third celeb to test Siri's voice recognition chops (and sense of humor) following Zooey Deschanel and Samuel L. Jackson. Malkovich is the first celeb, however, to get two spots: "Joke," above, and "Life," below. On a more serious note, the security of Siri's voice data is also raising concerns in some quarters.Continue reading...