Amazon Prime Video Show Messes Up iPhone Product Placement

Are you such a smartphone aficionado that every time you are away you check which phone models are worn by those who walk around you? Do you pay special attention to mobile devices used in television programs and movies? Do you get angry when a script takes precedence over reality (in other words, does it bother you if you see a character with an iPhone in a show or movie that clearly takes place before 2007?

Now when you’re watching a show with others, or when you’re in a movie theater, if you catch such a blunder, do you do your best to let the people around you know that you’ve discovered a mistake? Are you loudly exclaiming that a movie about “Sully” Sullenberger’s heroic landing on the Hudson River of US Airways Flight 1549, which took place in 2009, would show a passenger taking photos with a Samsung Galaxy Note (which debuted in 2011)?

The Outer Range series didn’t bother to get the right case to go along with the iPhone X that appeared on the show

So that you don’t go crazy looking for such a movie, the above was a hypothetical example. What is not a hypothetical example is: the photo accompanying this story it comes from a Reddit member with the SmarmyPanther handle. The photo was taken from streaming service Amazon Prime Video while streaming a series called Out of range† The series, starring Josh Brolin, is a combination of western and science fiction set in modern-day Wyoming.

An iPhone X tucked into a Pixel 3 case doesn’t look good for Amazon’s Outer Range series

As you can see in the photo, the props department has put what looks like an iPhone X or an Apple iPhone XS series phone in a Pixel 3 fabric case. This barely fits and if you had watched the episode on your phone or tablet you might have seen this. The cutout for the camera on the back of the case is made for the horizontal camera array on the back of the Pixel 3 and not for the vertical camera array used on the iPhone X or iPhone XS series.

The case used by the prop department had a cutout for the fingerprint scanner on the back on the Pixel 3 that covers the top of the . revealed Apple logo on the back of the iPhone. It also has the iconic “G” Google logo embedded in the back of the Pixel’s cloth body. If you sit back and look at the picture, it looks awful and for those who care about realism, it’s a black eye to the production company that happens to include Plan B Entertainment.

Product placements are gold to companies like Apple.

For the record, the dimensions of the Pixel 3 are 5.7 x 2.7 x 0.3 inches. For the iPhone X, the dimensions are 5.65 x 2.79 x 0.3 inches.

If you watch hours of television shows and movies, you know that Apple is pretty good at making sure that when a script asks a character to use a smartphone, an iPhone gets the screen time, except under one condition. Apple doesn’t allow its phones to be used by a bad guy. You might also notice Apple’s default iPhone ringtone when a character’s phone rings in a television show or movie.

These product placements are worth gold and just as valuable as a paid ad for companies like Apple and Google. So if you’re really into smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches in the future, you’ll want to keep a closer eye on the devices your favorite characters use for your favorite shows and movies.

And when the credits play at the end of a particular show or movie using an Apple device, you’ll see some words along the lines of “promotional considerations provided by Apple.” Those five words mean that in exchange for providing free Apple devices to the production, the company is getting valuable publicity for the product used in the show or movie.