Samsung goes after Apple and iPhone X again with two more 'Ingenious' ads

Samsung on Friday released a pair of new 30-second videos as part of its "Ingenious" series. The ads are set within a faux Apple store and as always, feature shots at the iPhone X, in comparison with Samsung's own Galaxy phones.

In the first spot, titled Pen," a woman approaches "Pat," the fictional Apple store employee, and asks the difference between the Apple Pencil and the pen that comes with the Galaxy Note 9. Pat's answer? "The Apple Pencil only works on the iPad." When she asks what she can use on her phone, Pat answers, after a beat, "your finger?"

In the second spot, "Power," a male customer tells Pat that "the Galaxy Note 9 is really powerful." Pat answers, "you know what I think is really powerful? Being able to unlock your phone with your face!" The customer then tells him that the Galaxy phone does that as well. Then Pat points out that "on OS 12, you can FaceTime up to 32 people at the same time." The commercial cuts him off after the customer answers, "why would I ever want to do that though?"

The ads bring the total of "Ingenious" commercials to nine, at least according to Samsung's YouTube channel. It's unclear if the new spots will run on television.

The actual effectiveness of the new spots is up for debate. Apple may have released the Apple Pencil, despite Steve Jobs' own long-held aversions to styluses, but it doesn't appear that there's any great groundswell of customers clamoring for the ability use the Apple Pencil with the iPhone.

As for the second ad, it doesn't do much to make the case for the Galaxy Note's power, which is demonstrably less than that of the iPhone X and iPhone 8. All it is likely to do is remind customers that Apple is adding the ability to FaceTime large amounts of people when iOS 12 arrives.