Apple’s latest Shot on iPhone flex does not open on a product table. It opens on ROSÉ mid-rehearsal energy — gymnasium light, band chaos, empty-pool hangouts — and only later admits the camera in the cage is an iPhone 18 Pro. “new trick” is a music-video flex disguised as a camera demo, and the demo is almost too good at hiding the homework.
WHAT HAPPENS ON SCREEN
The :35 Apple cut is a compressed tour of ROSÉ’s “new trick” production. We get performance fragments in a sunlit gym — argyle cardigan, striped shorts, full band, basketball hoop still hanging like a leftover set joke — then jump to the drained-pool hangout that has become the video’s social postcard: ROSÉ centered on a sofa against the pool wall while the crew treats the empty basin like a living room.
The product truth arrives as craft, not caption. A POV shot puts an iPhone 18 Pro in a serious cage rig with handles, cable, and lens attachment, recording the pool set under a “Filmed under controlled conditions” disclaimer. Apple is not pretending this was a pocket-only selfie. It is arguing the phone can sit inside a real music-video machine and still be the camera that matters.
The spot closes on motion, sparks, and the white lockup: “Shot on iPhone 18 Pro.” The claim is specific — variable aperture on the 48MP Fusion Main camera, low-light confidence, depth of field — but the ad mostly lets the frames do the selling.
CREDITS
Brand: Apple. Campaign: Shot on iPhone / iPhone 18 Pro. Talent: ROSÉ (BLACKPINK). Music video: “new trick.” Director: Dave Meyers. Agency: TBWA\Media Arts Lab. Production: RadicalMedia. DP: Scott Cunningham. Editorial: Cabin Editorial. Finishing & color: Company 3. Sound: Racket Club. Music editorial: Model Citizen. Official YouTube: Apple channel upload “Shot on iPhone 18 Pro: ‘new trick’ by ROSÉ,” video ID 1WLqGs7c_yA, uploaded September 18, 2026, runtime 0:35. Full music video premiered September 17, 2026 on ROSÉ’s channel. Campaign Brief Asia and Apple-facing coverage confirm the credit stack above; photographer Kenneth Cappello also shot stills on iPhone 18 Pro during production.
THE EXECUTION
This is Apple’s familiar artist partnership template — Olivia Rodrigo, The Weeknd, Dua Lipa — refreshed for iPhone 18 Pro’s headline hardware story: aperture control on the main camera. TBWA\Media Arts Lab and Dave Meyers understand the assignment. Do not lecture about f-stops. Put the audience inside a music video that feels looser because the camera could be mounted on drumsticks, guitars, and bodies traditional cinema kits fight.
That is the smartest idea in the package. Meyers has said the iPhone freed the shoot from heavy, slow traditional camera culture. The Apple cut sells that liberation by contrasting polished performance frames with the frank B-roll of the phone in a cage. You see both the fantasy and the tool. Most phone ads only show the fantasy.
RadicalMedia’s production vocabulary helps. The gym and pool locations read as youth-culture stages, not Apple Store clean rooms. ROSÉ’s styling — pop-punk edges rather than luxury gloss — keeps the film from becoming another celebrity endorsement collage. She is working, not posing next to a phone.
Where the Apple :35 gets thinner is exactly where Shot on iPhone spots always get thinner. Feature proof is implied. Variable aperture, subject tracking, and Pro Controls are marketing nouns more than dramatized moments. If you already believe Apple cameras, the montage confirms the religion. If you came for a hard A/B against a mirrorless body, you leave with vibes and a lockup.
WHY IT WORKS AND WHERE IT FAILS
It works because ROSÉ is not a rented cameo — she is the production. The music video is the product demo, which is a cleaner contract with the audience than a scripted kitchen vignette. It works because Apple finally shows the phone in a professional rig instead of pretending every Shot on iPhone frame was casual. Honesty about process can be more persuasive than purity myths. And it works as launch theater: iPhone 18 Pro retail timing, OOH expansion, and a global artist with actual chart gravity.
It fails when the cut becomes a trailer for a trailer. Thirty-five seconds is enough for mood and not enough for craft education. The disclaimer about controlled conditions is legally smart and creatively awkward — it undercuts the “anyone can” fantasy even as the cage shot celebrates pro use. Apple wants both the creator myth and the cinema flex. This spot chooses cinema, then whispers the myth in the legal line.
There is also category fatigue risk. Shot on iPhone artist films are now a seasonal ritual. The bar is no longer “can a phone shoot a music video?” The bar is “does this phone change how the video feels?” Meyers’ drumstick-mount logic answers that better in interviews than the Apple cut does on screen.
WATCH IT HERE
DailyCommercials Score: 8.0/10. A sharp Shot on iPhone launch cut that treats ROSÉ’s “new trick” as proof of aperture-era iPhone filmmaking — stylish, credible, slightly light on hard camera education.
Would you trust an iPhone 18 Pro on a music-video set — or do you still want glass you can change with your hands? Tell us in the comments.
