Ahhh sucker! There you were living out your very own iPad fantasy and it’s not true!

This post was mostly written way back in January and after a conversation about Weight Watchers at work I thought it was about time I finished it off and published it once and for all. Enjoy…

Every now and then I go through a phase of eating like shit and drinking a lot of booze. Along with my severe lack of exercise (apart from walking up a couple of escalators each day) this tends to lead to a rather unsightly mound of belly that rolls into an even more unsightly flab show when I sit down. Don’t wince, it happens to you too and you know it!

At these times I turn to Weight Watchers and I’m not ashamed to say it. When I tell my mates that I sometimes follow a Weight Watchers diet I tend to fuel about an hour or so of mockery and bullying and they find it terribly amusing. Luckily for me they have larger bellies than me so I am always the last one laughing.

For those of you too busy laughing at me I shall explain how Weight Watchers works in a sentence or three… You are allocated a set amount of points per day based on your age, gender, height and weight. All foods are made up of a set amount of points based on the ratio of calories to saturated fat, for example the average slice of bread is 1.5 points. You eat whatever shit you want, just as long as you don’t eat more than your set amount of points.

The problem with the whole points thing is that you can never remember what each food is worth in terms of points. You can buy special calculators that work it out for you and you can get these chart things to work it out but they’re awkward and you’ll never remember to keep them with you all of the time.

So, why the fuck isn’t there a Weight Watchers iPhone app? It would be so easy for everyone and all it would need to consist of is the silly Weight Watchers calculator but just built into the application.

Then if Weight Watchers wanted to make it really fancy (and useful) they could build in a diary/log type thing so that you can record how many points you’ve used each day.

THEN, if they wanted to go REALLY fancy they could build in a barcode scanner (already existing technology in other iPhone apps) so that you could just scan the food in the supermarket or sandwich shop and it works out the points value for you while you’re stood there.

Although I’ve never seen it, I believe there’s a Weight Watchers magazine. This could easily be integrated into the application for an additional charge or even for free if the app is charged high enough in the first place.

The app could offer so much more than this too. These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg because the app could offer hints, tips, advice, recipe’s, reminders of your meetings and more.

So, Weight Watchers, if you’re reading this here’s a could of really really simple ideas that could get you started off with a half decent iPhone application that would be useful to much of your target audience. And before you say “oh but then people won’t pay for membership anymore” you can easily make it available only to existing members by having to enter in your unique membership number when you download it. You could also encourage more memberships by offering the app to buy and download with only half the functionality if you aren’t a member, thus driving users to upgrade their app by joining Weight Watchers.

I don’t even know why I’ve rambled on about this, I don’t even have a fucking iPhone.

Whilst watching the X-Factor last night I was most entertained by this TV ad for the Sun Newspaper. It’s a great parody of an iPhone advert that I can imagine appealing to the target audience massively. Spot on, and hilarious too.

I will find out who did it, but not now. It’s Monday morning and I need my second cup of tea urgently.

[UPDATE: Credits go to Glue London for this awesome ad]

I’m not an iPhone user. I’m not against using them either. But I do really hate it when people bring the bloody thing into conversation, like when we’re down the pub and someone shows me that fucking beer drinking app AGAIN!

If you’re one of those iPhone obsessed people I urge you to save this picture as the background on your beloved piece of technology and refer to it every time you pull the bastard thing our of your pocket.

Thanks. And yes, I know I’m a wanker.

Another great Mac Vs PC ad. I know I’m completely biased towards mac but I bet a loyal PC user sees these ads and thinks “I wonder what the grass is like on the other side” whilst a mac user sees it and thinks “man this grass is too green to be true”.

With great ads like this you wonder why the Windows 7 ads are so god damn awful. It’s almost like they forgot that Apple is cooler, funnier, more intelligent and better than them!

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Via creativeinspiration:

Apple Switcher

New York Times Online Ad

Advertising Agency: TBWA\Media Arts Lab, USA
Chief Creative Officer: Duncan Milner
Executive Creative Director: Eric Grunbaum
Creative Director: Jason Sperling
Associate Creative Director: Chuck Monn , Kevin Tenglin
Senior Art Director: Jamie Reilly
Senior Copy Writer: Pete Figel
Agency Producers: Anne Oburgh, R.J. Pomeroy
Interactive Producers: David Simpson, Kathryn Berthume
Interactive Designers: Ryan Conlan, Danny Duran
Production Co: Epoch Films
Director: Phil Morrison
DP: Peter Donahue
Editorial Co: Beast Editing Company, Inc
Editor: Andrew Cahn
Post Co: Company 3
Artist: Brian Robinson

I saw this as a tweet from @adsoftheworld, looks pretty cool but difficult to use for doing proper photoshop work. I can’t imagine that my fat fingers on the touchscreen can use it as well as my fat fingers using a mouse or tablet.

What a load of crap!? In a vote of the coolest brands the iPhone has got the top spot, over considerably cooler brands such as Aston Martin!

Finally the iPhone will soon be available on networks other than O2! The near future will see iPhones on Vodaphone and Orange which will inevitably lead to a price war. Good for us lot. Shame I’m loyal to T-Mobile!