Apple takes a dig at Google and Amazon's privacy woes with an ad before CES begins

CES begins on 8 January and while it isn’t an Android or Amazon only event, Apple has always been a no-show at the annual technology expo. Folks at the Cupertino company see this as the perfect opportunity to take a dig at Google and Amazon with a witty ad plastered on the side of a hotel building in Las Vegas.

As reported first by The Verge, the hotel which sits right next to the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), the venue for CES, reads " What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone." Below the statement resides a link to apple.com/privacy, where the company writes at length about how secure Apple Pay, Face ID, and the health data collected by the Apple Watch is.

Apple never shows up at CES, so I can’t say I saw this coming. pic.twitter.com/8jjiBSEu7z

— Chris Velazco (@chrisvelazco) January 4, 2019

While the message does not name any company directly, every person attending CES this coming week will inevitably see the ad.

For those who haven’t got it yet, the statement is a wordplay on the classic Hollywood line — “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

As pointed out by The Verge, Apple here takes on precisely the opposite colour scheme, black text on a white background, when compared to Google’s “Hey Google” ads, in and around the LVCC. In fact, one corner of the LVCC parking lot is entirely taken up by Google, clearly suggesting its focus on the Google Assistant at CES 2019.

Apple is not entirely wrong in advertising is prowess when it comes to user data privacy. Apple devices rarely suffer from privacy-related hiccups. The product sold by the Cupertino giant does come with a much higher asking price, but you can at least be reasonably certain that your personal information is secure (for the most part).

Google (with Android and Google Assistant) and Amazon (with Alexa), on the other hand, have had no shortage of difficulties preserving user privacy in 2018.

Nonetheless, regardless of how snarky and witty the advert is, given Apple’s sheer size and domination in the technology space, it does come across as a little petty. But again, why not?