Apple’s holiday ad--“Heartstrings,” launched ahead of International Day of Persons with Disabilities--introduces us to a father with mild-moderate hearing loss. But thanks to the clinical grade Hearing Aid feature on AirPods Pro 2, he can now hear his daughter playing the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young classic “Our House” on her new guitar, just unwrapped on Christmas morning. The breakthrough ability to hear clearly is all the more impactful in that it comes after we journey with the dad down memory lane as he recalls his daughter’s first guitar, her birthday, her first day of school--though the sound of his flashbacks is muffled. But once he activates the Hearing Aid feature, dad can properly hear his daughter in the present--and with that even the memories can be heard clearly. “Heartstrings” was directed by Henry-Alex Rubin of production house SMUGGLER for TBWAMedia Arts Lab Los Angeles, with sound design by three-time Oscar winner Paul N.J. Ottoson who helps us experience the father’s hearing loss and then its restoration. (Ottoson won two Oscars for The Hurt Locker--for best sound mixing and best sound mixing--and another for best sound editing for Zero Dark Thirty.) Read More