Apple vs. The Postal Service

First, Intel and Apple get into bed together, an idea once thought as likely to happen as George Bush joining Greenpeace. Then a new Apple TV ad featuring Intel fab footage airs, and music aficionados cry foul throughout the blogosphere and beyond. Why? The ad bears an uncanny resemblance to a popular music video.

Seems that the “Such Great Heights” video by The Postal Service (the electronic-pop group, not the mail carriers) was also shot in a chip fab a few years ago. By the same directorial team that filmed the Apple ad. With many of the same camera angles, lighting schemes, and framing techniques. A video production company named Elite Productions has even posted a side-by-side comparison of the ad and the video. To the untrained eye, many images are similar, if not almost identical.

But to the trained eye, the discrepancies start to pile up. The video was shot in Skyworks’ 100-mm GaAs house, while the ad was filmed in Intel’s 300-mm facility in Arizona. The fab aisles and process tools are quite different, given the disparate technology and automation levels. Any fab rat worth his or her salt can see many glaring inconsistencies.

And any fab rat who sees the faux Intel operator taking a 300-mm wafer in her hands in the Apple ad will cry foul too.