I also want to point out that advertising is not about selling a product, it's about selling a lifestyle.
Apple's current line of ads sell a fantasy land where everything just works instantly and perfectly and you're surrounded by happy family members. Like the one for the panoramic photo feature where the guy takes a photo of a line of kids. The message in all these ads is, you buy this phone, and you will have a seamlessly happy life. This of course reflects Apple's "everything just works" rhetoric.
Notice how there's an underlying tone even in Apple's ads? They are not about the features themselves at all. Who cares about the panorama feature really? We all know every other phone on the market has had it for years. But the demonstration of it in the ad is about the lifestyle of the person using it. And notice how we never see who's using the phone either. That's because you're meant to fill it in with yourself.
The bottom line is, Apple's ads are not meant to make you go "I have to buy this phone because it has a panoramic photo feature" or "I need this noise cancelling mic." It's meant to appeal to your emotions and make you buy the iPhone because at some subconscious level you believe it will make you happier and make your life better. That is how advertising works.
Now look at Samsung's ads here. They're going for a different approach but they're aiming for a similar result. You see these famous actors talk up Samsung and use these phones and you're laughing along. It makes you feel good about Samsung as a company and you think, hey, "these guys are cool, if I get one of those phones I'll be cool as well."
That's why attack ads work so well too. They play to emotions. Ads like
this work because they take advantage of the us vs. them mentality of phone geeks and, again, they create comic value.
If anything Samsung's ads are a lot less patronising to their potential customers. They're not saying "we need to sit you down and show you how to use a camera", they're saying "we have the latest features right here, right now, let other people wait a few years and get it yourself today."
If you are going to criticise advertisements you have to keep all this in mind. The golden rule of advertisements is that they do not sell a product, they sell a lifestyle. Whether or not they show what the product does isn't even important. What matters is that they make the viewer associate the right positive emotions towards the company trying to sell whatever it is they're selling.