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The Ultimate Apple Commercial Song List… iPod, iPhone, iPad and more

What follows is a comprehensive list of the songs used in the Apple iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad television ads over the years. Much of the list comes from this page on Wikipedia, to which I’ve added links to iTunes for all of the songs1 and YouTube videos for most. If I have missed any, please drop me a note in the comments and I will be sure to track it down and post it.

I have always loved Apple’s advertising and the music they source is often a quiet character setting the tone of the whole ad while the gadget takes center stage. I wanted to create a spot where I could access them all in one place and I thought I’d share that place with you.

Which ad is your favorite? Drop me a comment… if you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.

Product Song & Artist
(click link to open in iTunes)
Video
iPod 1G “Take California”
The Propellerheads
iPod 3G “Ride” The Vines
iPod 3G “Rock Star (Jason Nevins Remix)” N.E.R.D.
iPod 3G “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” Jet
iPod 4G “Channel Surfing” Feature Cast
iPod 4G “Walkie Talkie Man” Steriogram
iPod 4G “Saturday Night” Ozomatli
iPod 4G “Technologic” Daft Punk
iPod 5G “Original of the Species” U2
iPod 5G “Sparks” Wynton Marsalis
iPod 5G “Someday Baby” Bob Dylan
iPad “There Goes My Love” The Blue Van
iPad “Gold Lion” Yeah Yeah Yeahs
iPad Never Stop (Original)” Gonzales
iPad 2 "Extraordinary Machine" – Fiona Apple
iPad 2 Unknown. Leave a comment
if you can identify this song.
iPad 2 Unknown. Leave a comment
if you can identify this song.
iPhone (Oscars) “Inside Your Head” Eberg
iPhone “Perfect Timing (This Morning)” Orba Squara
iPhone 3G “$165 Million + Interest” (into) “The Round Up” David Holmes
iPhone 3G “You, Me and the Bourgeoisie” The Submarines
iPhone 3GS “If I Had Eyes” Jack Johnson No video found
iPhone 3GS “Mr. Pitiful” Matt Costa
iPhone 3GS “Submarine Symphonika” The Submarines
iPhone 3GS “Stringing Up Conkers” The Boy Least Likely To
iPhone 4 “When You’re Smiling” Louis Armstrong
iPhone 4 "Nothing But Time" – Opus Orange – EP
iPhone 4 "Be Patient (Still)" – Single – Smidi
iPhone 4 "The Christmas Song
(Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)"
– Nat King Cole
iPhone 4 "On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Op. 314" –
The London Philharmonic Orchestra
iPhone 4 Unknown. Leave a comment
if you can identify this song.
iPhone 4 Unknown. Leave a comment
if you can identify this song.
iPhone 4 Unknown. Leave a comment
if you can identify this song.
iPhone 4 Unknown. Leave a comment
if you can identify this song.
iPod + iTunes “Hey Mama” Black Eyed Peas
iPod + iTunes “Vertigo” U2
iPod + iTunes “Feel Good Inc.” Gorillaz
iPod + iTunes “Lose Yourself” Eminem
iPod + iTunes “Love Train” Wolfmother
iPod + iTunes “Flathead” The Fratellis
iPod + iTunes “Mi Swing Es Tropical” Quantic and Nickodemus
iPod + iTunes “Dance Tonight” Paul McCartney
iPod + iTunes “Work That” Mary J. Blige
iPod + iTunes “Shut Up and Let Me Go” The Ting Tings
iPod + iTunes “Viva la Vida” Coldplay
iPod + iTunes “Pachuco” Kumbia Kings
iPod nano 1G “Gimme That” The Resource
iPod nano 1G “Cubicle” Rinôçérôse
iPod nano 2G “The Audience Is Listening Theme Song” Cut Chemist
iPod nano 3G “1234″ Feist
iPod nano 4G “Bruises” Chairlift
iPod nano 5G “Bourgeois Shangri-La” Miss Li
iPod nano 6G

Short Skirt/Long Jacket – Cake

iPod shuffle 1G “Jerk It Out” Caesars
iPod shuffle 2G “Who’s Gonna Sing?” Prototypes
iPod touch “La La La” The Bird and the Bee
iPod touch “Music Is My Hot Hot Sex” Cansei De Ser Sexy
iPod touch “What I’m Looking For” Brendan Benson
iPod touch 2G “Around the Bend” The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
iPod touch 2G “No You Girls” Franz Ferdinand
iPod touch 3G “She’s Got Me Dancing” Tommy Sparks
iPod touch 4G

"Come Home" – Plastique Universe – EP

iTunes "All You Need Is Love" – The Beatles
iTunes "I Want to Hold Your Hand" – The Beatles
iTunes "Here Comes the Sun" – The Beatles
iTunes "Let It Be" – The Beatles
iTunes "Yesterday" – The Beatles
MacBook “Run” Broadcast 2000
iMac
(also Mac OS X Leopard Welcome)
“Exodus Honey” Honey Cut
MacBook Air “New Soul” Yael Naïm
  1. affiliate link…helps pay the bills []

Some well produced ”Get a Mac” spoofs

My former co-worker, Laurie McGuinness, wrote and directed a trio (Now a quartet -Ed.) of “Get a Mac” spoofs that are by far the best I’ve seen. I know, as a “Mac Fanboy,” I’m supposed to feel insulted by these, but I can’t help conceding that they are very well done. They spoof Macs and the Mac culture without resorting to stupidity.

I also have to admit that I have always been partial to Laurie’s writing and am a bit biased in that regard. But now I’m wondering if somehow he used me as the basis for his pathetic, penniless Mac character…. hmmm…. back to feeling insulted again…

Says McGuinness ,

“It’s not an anti Mac thing, it’s those smug friggin’ ads. Yes, Mac is cool. I have an iMac I love. But in the real world, Mac works for PC. PC has money, and power. Just a different look is all. There’s a fourth spot we’re just wrapping up, and it’s on the DRM Fairplay thing.”

I’ve embedded the YouTube videos beyond the “read more.”
Money

Girl

Work

Music

Note:UPDATE: The fourth spot that McGuiness alluded to, entitled “Music,” has now been posted and can be seen after the “read more” also.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs the subject of Newsweek interview

Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs says he is unconcerned that iPod might lose its cache because its too popular. “That’s like saying you don’t want to kiss your lover’s lips because everyone has lips. It doesn’t make any sense,” he tells Newsweek’s Senior Editor Steven Levy in an interview now available exclusively online at Newsweek.com. “We don’t strive to appear cool. We just try to make the best products we can. And if they are cool, well, that’s great.” Jobs talked to Levy on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of Apple’s iPod, and cooperated with Levy’s upcoming book about the iPod, “The Perfect Thing,” excerpted in Newsweek’s October 23 issue (on newsstands Monday, October 16).

Jobs also says he is unimpressed with Zune, Microsoft’s answer to the iPod, which allows users to exchange songs. “It takes forever,” says Jobs. “By the time you’ve gone through all that, the girl’s got up and left!” Jobs adds that while the iPod and iTunes will evolve, music will always be the core. “It’s hard to imagine that music is not the epicenter of the iPod, for a long, long, long, long, long time … Music is so deep within all of us, but it’s easy to go for a day or a week or a month or a year without really listening to music. And the iPod has changed that for tens of millions of people, and that makes me really happy, because I think music is good for the soul.”

Jobs explains the decision to keep prices at the iTunes store at 99 cents a song despite pressure from the record labels to raise them. If iTunes gave into that pressure, says Jobs, “many [users] will say, ‘I knew it all along that the music companies were going to screw me, and now they’re screwing me.’ And they would never buy anything from iTunes again. We would never recover their trust.”

As stated, the entire Newsweek interview is available online.

Note: