Conan Makes Fun of Apple’s Screen Time Tools with Mock Ad on ‘iPhone Basic’

The lower part of an iPhone on a reflective surface

The mock commercial presented during the Conan show presents an iPhone with no screen

Smartphones are an important part of our lives and it’s impossible to imagine a world without them. However, people have started spending a lot more time using them and neglecting other activities. As a result, Apple decided to develop some tools to help people reduce their screen time, which attracted some funny reactions. Comedian Conan O’Brien presented a mock commercial during his show where he poked fun at Apple’s initiatives.

Conan makes fun of Apple’s attempts to reduce screen time

By spending too much time in front of a smartphone screen, we can really issue a bad influence on our health. Therefore, Apple decided it was time to act and came up with some possible solutions. It developed some tools which should help users reduce their screen time, but others saw the funny part of it.

The show Conan presented a parody of an Apple commercial with probably the only device that could cure smartphone addiction. The mock phone displayed in the video was called iPhone Basic and presented an innovative way to reduce screen time, since it actually had no screen.

The iPhone Basic had no display, no screen, buttons, or any other hardware component that could attract users. This can be a parody on how attached we have become to our smartphones since any small distraction can get us hooked. Apart from the incredibly basic phone, the Conan mock ad also displays stock photos of active people and ends with the slogan “We release you”.

What strategies will Apple take against smartphone addiction?

On a less humorous note, here are the tools that Apple will provide to help us reduce our screen time. One of them is called Do Not Disturb and keeps notifications away during bedtime. It blocks them from appearing within this timeframe, but also lets users block them completely from the lock screen. Instead, they can find them in the notification center.

The second tool is simply called Screen Time and it puts together reports on your phone usage. These reports can highlight apps that are overly used or pinpoint potentially unhealthy behaviors. Screen Time is related to another tool called App Limits that lets you set some limitations for certain apps.