It seems Apple thinks you may want to give the gift of the Beatles this holiday season as they have released a brand new iTunes Beatles ad. The new ad comes right on the heels of a free children’s eBook hitting the iTunes store. The Yellow Submarine eBook carried with it the simple “For Steve” dedication and tells the tale of the 1968 movie in the form of a children’s book, with clips from the film, animated illustrations, and a read-along from actor Dean Lennox Kelly.
The new TV ad, which was posted to YouTube by Apple yesterday, features a clip from the song Magical Mystery Tour as the video rolls seamlessly through a history of the Beatles albums with real and animated pictures. The commercial excludes U.S.-only Beatles releases like “Meet the Beatles” and focuses exclusively on the core U.K catalog, ending with Abbey Road. The ad ends with a simple “The Beatles on iTunes”.
With Beatles music still fairly new to the digital form and still just as popular as it was when it was released more than 30 years ago, it’s not really a surprise that Apple would put out this little reminder in time for holiday shoppers looking for just one more little gift. The Beatles music has now reached a whole new generation of fans, including my own children who were 13 and 10 when we took them to their first concert two years ago – Paul McCartney won them over.
I’m possibly a bit slow on the uptake here, but 
One of the problems with watching video podcasts as an alternative to conventional television is that you have typically and deliberately watch one video at a time. On longer videos it’s not as much of a problem, but with short videos that last 5 minutes or less you have to keep manually restarting the next video after the previous one has finished.
Like millions of others, I’ve been glued to news sources to get as much current information as I can about the ongoing disasters in Japan following the massive earthquake, tsunami and ongoing nuclear plant disasters. This has to be the biggest natural disaster that has occurred in my lifetime.
