Skip to main content

This whole Modern Family episode was shot with an iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2

Modern Family Connection Lost
20th Century Fox Television
It isn’t every day major TV shows film entire episodes with only iPhones and iPads, but the makers of Modern Family decided to do just that for an upcoming episode of the popular comedy. The episode, called “Connection Lost,” is all about parents trying to get in contact with their disinterested kids via technology.

Claire Dunphy, the mother of three kids on the show, who’s played by Julie Bowen, is stuck in an airport during the entire episode and all she wants to do is contact her daughter, Haley, who’s upset with her after a fight. Her daughter steadfastly ignores Claire, who attempts to reach her in every way she can think of via her MacBook. She tries email, FaceTime, Facebook and just about everything else to no avail. Naturally, her husband Phil — and just about everyone else — has to get involved, too.

Recommended Videos

The footage of the conversations were shot entirely with iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2 devices that were provided by Apple. During the show, the screen often resembles Claire’s desktop, which is really a painstakingly crafted mockup of Apple’s OS X Yosemite, created by the Modern Family team while the OS was still in beta.

Modern Family co-creator and executive producer Steven Levitan, said that although many Apple products are featured in the episode, the company didn’t pay for product placement.

“We called them and informed them what we were doing,” he said, according to Recode. “They loved the idea. They provided the iPhones for us.”

Levitan says he simply wanted to show how families communicate during the modern age, now that we have instant access to communication at all times. He even faced similar challenges with his own daughters when they went off to college.

“We all had that reference in our heads — this is how families are communicating today,” Levitan said. ” How do we use this to tell a story?”

Levitan added that he knew he had to do the episode after he saw 17-minute short film Noah at the Toronto International Film Festival student showcase in 2013, do something similar.

The episode of Modern Family will air at 9 p.m. Wednesday, February 25, on ABC.

Malarie Gokey
Former Digital Trends Contributor
As DT's Mobile Editor, Malarie runs the Mobile and Wearables sections, which cover smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and…
The iPhone 17 Pro Max may slim down this particular feature
The Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 Pro Max.

The iPhone's Dynamic Island is expected to get even smaller on the iPhone 17 series, according to technology analyst Jeff Pu (via MacRumors).

According to Pu, in a research note with investment bank Haitong International, the iPhone 17 Pro Max will offer a “metalens” for Face ID. Because of this, the Dynamic Island will be “much narrowed.”

Read more
The next iPad mini will get the display upgrade it sorely needs
2024 iPad mini in the hands of a person.

The iPad mini (2024) has only just arrived on the market, but news about the next version is already starting to leak. The latest nugget is good news for everyone except perhaps those who just bought the newest model. According to display expert Ross Young, Apple’s next iPad mini will feature an OLED display. Like previous versions, the current iPad mini has an 8.3-inch LCD.

An OLED display, which is tech that is already available on the iPad Pro (2024) and newer iPhones, offers increased brightness, deeper blacks, and better power efficiency than LCD.

Read more
Does the iPad mini 7 have Face ID?
2024 iPad mini in the hands of a person.

The diminutive iPad mini 7 (2024) is the newest addition to Apple's expansive tablet lineup. It's perfectly portable and pocket-sized, which makes it a fun-sized option that you can pop in your bag and take everywhere you go. And it's also sporting a series of great future-proofing upgrades that make it a good investment for an Apple Intelligence-ready future.

The latest iteration of the iPad mini comes packed with double the storage, with 128 GB to play with, at its previous $499 price. It may look virtually identical to the iPad mini 6 (2021), without the home button or thick bezels, giving it a bit of a Kindle-like silhouette. It also boasts a 2K-resolution display with a 60Hz refresh rate, which Apple has optimized alongside the previous model's LCD panel in an attempt to avoid the "jelly scrolling" seen with the iPad mini 6.

Read more