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New "Get a Mac" TV ads
Klaidas writes "Apple has introduced 3 new "Get a Mac" TV ads: "Accident", "Angle/Devil" and "Trust Mac" " Normally, posting ads would be make me cry, but these are genuinely funny and well done.
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Does the 'Angle/Devil' one show how a Mac can help kids with their geometry homework?
This guy's the limit!
...where the hell is Mel Brooks when you need him?
...and, yes, the new ones are funny - keep 'em coming! :)
"Sorry about the 'up yours, PC!'"
(oh - and anyone else having the quicktime plugin for ff crash ff when trying to play these?)
Your first mistake there was installing the quicktime plugin, it's almost as bad as the Acrobat Reader plugin.
I think Slate got it right when it comes to these ads. They're kinda funny, but really mean-spirited. They're "Haha...you suck!!"-ads that don't appeal to me. That, and the fact that they kinda make me happy that I'm running windows (not right now, right now it's Fedora all the way, I double-boot) instead of apple. It makes the PC look productive and serious, instead of the slacker Mac OS X.
They also contain alot of stuff that's plain wrong. For instance, Windows runs fine out of the box, there's virtually no advanced configuration after you've installed it. Set the date and time, account password and keyboard configuration, and bobs your uncle! Same thing with my digital camera, that works fine with windows, contrary to what one of the ads say.
Don't get me wrong, I think Mac OS X is a stellar OS, far superior to windows, I just don't like these ads.
Incorrect grammar too:
"... would be make me cry"
Your first mistake there was installing the quicktime plugin, it's almost as bad as the Acrobat Reader plugin.
You're absolutely right. I booted my laptop, and it works perfectly under ubuntu.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I mean, I am a mac fan, I use a PC, but I do love me a Big Mac every now and then(and yes I know that was a lame joke) but come on... If you're an Idiot you can use either, but apple is just grooving off of them. bah, and to portrey a PC as a middle age'd balding man... I can be trendy too!
http://www.google.com/search?q=slashvertisement+s
rooooar
http://tv.truenuff.com/mac
...that Hemos was the point person for slashvertisements?
Now I'm confused. If I want to get my ad on slashdot is or is not Hemos the person I am supposed to contact? If the policy has changed, we should be notified, no?
I'm guessing like most of you, these ad's serve to turn off a lot of us current "PC" users. The young hip image is really getting played out in my mind and since a huge majority of the world is using Windows based PC's (and getting work as well as play done on it) I would think they might take offense to these ads.
I've toyed around the idea with buying a Mac as my next computer, however ads like this make me reconsider.
"(oh - and anyone else having the quicktime plugin for ff crash ff when trying to play these?)"
Yep, guess it was only designed for Safari.
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
They're kinda funny, but really mean-spirited. They're "Haha...you suck!!"-ads that don't appeal to me.
Far nicer than the political ads that are swamping televisions this election year.
It makes the PC look productive and serious, instead of the slacker Mac OS X.
Actually, it points out what people already know: Corporations and businesses use Windows PCs. Windows for many is Word and Excel. And almost everyone who has used a Windows PC at work has hated it at some point. Showing you a desktop after logging in but not being able to do anything for an additional 30-120 seconds. Programs with odd names performing illegal operations and offering them the change to debug, only to do nothing useful. And so on.
The Mac is being shown in the light of being a computer for your home life, far away from spreadsheets and Active Directory, where your photos, home movies, and music play a much stronger role, and showing ease-of-use for doing nice things with that media.
Windows runs fine out of the box, there's virtually no advanced configuration after you've installed it.
Remember that the majority of new Windows PC owners buy an OEM machine and can barely plug in all the color-coded cables. They turn it on and the Windows setup wizard starts as you said. Fine. Now your OEM machine is detecting the 3-in-one inkjet-scanner-fax printer that came bundled free with the computer. Windows is now pompting them to install three items it has detected. Each one throwing up the New hardware wizard. Not to mention the computer's system image was from 4 months ago, so they need to download 55MB of patches on their dial-up connection in order to be "safe".
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
tried the link in BOTH ff and ie... it doesn't work in either!
Hmmmm, looks like they completely missed the audience they were trying to target!
Hahahahaahha! Looks like Apple's been associated with child/slave labour
...the fact that from a hardware perspective, a Mac and a PC are now pretty much the same, except in design, OS, name and - most importantly for Apple - price. I mean what makes a Mac a Mac? The OS, plain and simple.
This seems to have forced Apple into a slightly more childish "Our Intel-powered box is better than yours" where they really have nothing else to focus on apart from the small physical design elements such as the magnetic power cord and built in camera, and a different OS. As I mentioned in a previous post a while back, by moving to Intel, Apple have less and less differentiating them from Windows PCs and it's going to make it harder and harder for them to command unique selling points from a hardware perspective.
Unfortunately for me, this only reinforces the question:
why Apple, won't you let me run your OS on other Intel hardware?
My own answer to this would be that it's because they're a gnat's pube away from becoming a software company, and they're holding on to their bespoke hardware business for dear life. Once OSX is opened up to other Intel boxes (as I think it should be), what are the compelling reasons for buying an Apple?
(incidentally, is it just me or does anyone else find the Mac guy condescending, arrogant and bloody annoying?)
Spend twenty years designing (mostly)quality computers, develop an operating system and a multitude of other software apps that are highly regarded by just about everyone, and maybe in your free time create a portable music player and an online store that gets the ball rolling on a new form of media distribution.
Then, perhaps, a website primarily for computer nerds might feel compelled to talk about your ad.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
I admit I am a big Mac fan but my reasons have nothing to do with the commercials. I have an Ipod but I really don't like the ads for Ipods, maybe I shouldn't have bought it because of that.
Algerath
You might want to try VideoLAN - VLC media player. I thought QuickTime was pretty good until I tried the VLC player.
Get a clue, or get a Mac...simple choice really. I'm surprised Apple hasn't tried suing their customers claiming that it was their idea for people to use computers to do stuff...wait - you can't really do anything with a Mac...I spoke too quickly.
Yeah, these ad's disgust me. What has Windows done to you? Besides maybe being negligent when it comes to security, installing services without your permission (WGA), forcing you and the rest of the world to use their standards for so many years, and so on. It's not Microsofts fault that they need to break antitrust laws to keep a tight hold on the marketplace with a clearly inferior OS. And I'm not speaking only in comparison to OS X, but to many of the Desktop Linux distros that are really starting to shine. Hey, Goliath has feelings too. Come on, what better way to advertise your OS than to show how much better it is than your competitor? Bonus for the fact that its funny. I suppose they could come out with some scary music and footage of the twin towers burning, with an ominous voice proclaiming, "Bill Gates eats babies for breakfast. Is this the operating system you want running your computer?"
Similes are like metaphors
Enough said. Imagine the flack if Microsoft made commericals like this... But of course its OK for Apple to do so, because they are sooooo special... like short bus special.
If I can't even view the quicktime movie format? Sounds like preaching to the converted to me.
:P
P.S. I'm running SuSe and haven't bothered installing the quicktime libraries for xine
The irony is that the PC Guy is actually the one who's interesting and funny. He's more memorable. The Mac Guy is the actual dweeb. So thanks for the ads Apple, I'd rather go with the PC Guy. The Mac Guy exemplifies everything I hate about Apple: How they market for I'm-better-than-you cool-rich-kids with bleacher jeans that go to starbucks and are a part of that race of MTV drones who somehow have a smug feeling of superiority for being ignorant.
Yeah cause, you know, the Mac user is their target audience and all ...
Seriously. They aren't funny. They aren't accurate. They aren't even good marketing. I don't know a single person swayed by those ads, and that includes a customer base of some fairly technology-challenged people. Hey Apple...how about the truth some time, not a bunch of commercials that leave us PC users asking "who has a computer like that?"
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Nope. Plays perfectly fine in Firefox 1.5 on my Mac.
;-)
Yup. Appears to be a problem with the quicktime plugin for windows. Crashes IE or FF, works fine using VLC under windows or ubuntu.
Luckily for Apple, people using the quicktime plugin under windows are not the target market for these ads
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Maybe you stumbled onto the theme for the next mac ad. . .
Crashes IE or FF, but Just works on a Mac.
Self proclaimed wannabe geek. You know how it is. Most of us who read this stuff probably fit in that category.
No kidding... and here I thought a "get a mac" campaign would be in the spirit of the old Get a Macintosh commercial.
(And, no, my QuickTime plugin worked fine in Firefox 1.5.0.6.)
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
True, the Mac is now an Intel PC wrapped in a nice design. However, these commercials rarely speak of the hardware. Apple never says our Intel box is better than yours. They say our design, our interface, our security, our innovative ideas - our end product is better than yours.
The Mac is the iPod. The difference is, the iPod was introduced before the personal music player boom and the iPod has yet to isolate itself like the original Apple Computers. Most people will agree that the iPod is popular and superior for a few reasons: 1) The physical design, 2) The almost perfect integration with iTunes and 3) The iTunes Music Store. The Mac is out of favor with the public due to it's roots. However, the same principles still apply to it's superiority: 1) The physical design, 2) The software and hardware are built and tested to near perfection and 3) OS X.
Looking at each in more depth.
1) The physical design is highly praised and often imitated. This is rarely argued.
2) Unlike Microsoft's Windows, the hardware and software can be tailored specifically for each other. At times Apple has released an OS update because a new Mac model needed a small software revision. Microsoft could never make software changes to support all PC hardware configurations. For this reason, you will never see OS X on other Intel hardware.
3) OS X defines the Mac. It is the way that Intel chip interfaces with the user. It is unique to the Mac like iTunes to the iPod. OS X is another highly praised and often imitated aspect of the Mac. This also is rarely argued.
Since the average consumer does not order a PC with *nix, the real question that remains is what makes every non-Apple Intel box different? The price, plain and simple. As many car manufacturers like to say, this leaves the Mac in a class of it's own.
I see that I am in the minority here...
;)
but damn, I love those commercials and I love Macs!!
Kris
Remember when Windows were washed, mice were trapped and UNIX guarded the harem?
What I find most galling about Mac ads is the impression that whatever feature they're highlighting (i.e. editing movies, sorting photos, etc.) was invented or pioneered by Mac. When Steve Jobs announced the iMac as "finally" bringing burning music, watching video and surfing the net together, I wondered what I had been doing with my PC the previous 5 years. Oh, right, everything he said was revolutionary.
I do hope the public isn't so easily fooled, but then again, some of them buy computers because they look like Jell-O molds.
IOW, you are wrong.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I've toyed around the idea with buying a Mac as my next computer, however ads like this make me reconsider.
...Obviously a "think outside the box" kind of fellow!
And here we have an example of why the stuffed-dicks on Madison Avenue have the influence they do: willies like the parent poster who will gladly let their own judgement be subsumed by their opinion on the style of a television commercial.
These stories are free but worth money.
Apple is selling more Macs than it has in over a decade. They're approaching record numbers in some spots like laptops where Macs have climbed to a 12% marketshare. They can't meet the demand and are sourcing a 3rd manufacturer to help build more. So how exactly has Apple's switch to Intel HURT them? Is your definition of hurt a special definition that really means "THE BEST THING THATS EVER HAPPENED TO THEM!"!?!?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
> (oh - and anyone else having the quicktime plugin for ff crash ff when trying to play these?)
Yes, using my Win2k PC at work. I upgraded to the latest quicktime, and all is good now.
jfs
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
I know a lot of technologically minded folk who like the ads and think they are funny.
To some degree, they must work as they are still being produced and laptop sales are on a dramatic rise.
Apple wouldn't keep paying for expensive advertising slots (emmys) if they didn't work for most people. Plus they are aimed mostly at someone just wanting a computer and not a system administrator job, along with kids going to college who may want a new computer.
If you can't even find the Magsafe one funny though (the most strightforward and accurate of the whole set of ads) I think you need to examine weithr or not you are simply mentally resisting liking a Mac because they are a Mac.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
IOW, you are wrong.
Wrong about what? It appears that there's a problem with an older QT plugin.
I've upgraded to VLC, so its working for me now! Thanks for your concern tho'
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Gee, I don't know Wally, maybe it's this thing I heard my teacher talk about, called "demand".
I hope you get it soon!
What Apple does is make all those things that us technical people had been doing for years and make them acccessible to everyone else - that's why you have blinders preventing you from seeing what Apple offers.
I too was doing video editing on a PC years before I got my first Mac, but frankly it really sucked compared to using a Mac to do the same kinds of projects and I really did have to be technically astute to get it to work properly with no dropped frames.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My Mac Mini at home only has 2 USB ports, and because I didn't want to drop $120 on a keyboard & mouse for a $450 computer, I have no free USB ports by default. Instead, I have an extra device sitting with my mini (USB hub) complete with associated wires.
Pardon me, but something is fishy about this part of your story - why are you not plugging the mouse into the keyboard USB extender? At most the keyboard and mouse together should take up one USB plug, which is why all macs come with at least two.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Between the two, Windows is able to be more productive, consistent (home & end keys - nuf sed), meaningful (how often do I really need to scroll to the top of my terminal window's history vs going to the front of my current line, why would Home & End be bound this way by default?)
Since OS X ships with Bash, I simply use Ctr-A and Ctrl-E for that. I have never missed home and end in terminals nor do I use them in Linux, as they are too far removed from the primary area of the keyboard.
For single lines in textareas of browsers, you can simply use Pageup/PageDown to go to the start and end of line respectivly - this is the only time when I ever used to use Home/End they way you are speaking of and really it's smarter to fold this ability into the same keys where it makes sense.
Why you think Windows is in any way more productive when it does not ship with a real shell is a mystery. I'd perhaps give Linux to you execot that Expose as an app switcher is a pretty big productivity boost.
and waste less of my CPU on stupid and meaningless crap like Dashboard, software rendered drop shadows & transparencies, etc.
GPU - all that is hardware accellerated. Kind of removes your whole point there. If your GPU is otherwise sitting idle why not make use of it?
Believe it or not, I value responsiveness, consistency, and day-to-day usability over polish.
So do I. That's why I use a Mac - polish is removed easily as it only covers the ugliness beneath. Good design goes through and through a product, which is what the Mac offers and why I switching away from Linux as my primary home computer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
People complain about the Mac ads because they omit some technical details.
But most of these TreNuff ads are just wrong. For instance, the "Upgrading" one - "When I want to run a game faster, I just get a new video card"! Well, what the hell was I doing when I wanted to run games (yes, there actually are some games that run on a Mac) and applications faster on my G5 and I got a new video card? Was that an illusion?
I mean look at the Mac Pro - it has PCIe slots. It has SATA bays (four of them). It has USB and Firewire ports out the wazoo. So what is it I'm missing from upgrading that the PC offers? Heck on the lower end products I can still upgrade the memory, hard drive (much easier on a Macbook than most other laptops) and even swap out the processor!
So most of them are even more misleading and pointless than the Mac ones, it's just something PC users like to link to for eqivilence - but someone needs to do a better job with the scripts.
The Performance one was damn funny though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
as for running mac osx on any hardware They can at lest try to make it work on comman chips sets like chips sets like nvidia, intel, and ati same thing for video cards.
Hard drives don't need divers just the controllers and those are part of the chips sets now days.
As for XP not comeing with SATA drivers out of the box it is that it is about 5 years old but you can add drivers to your windows install cd http://driverpacks.net/
Dell and others do the same type of thing.
People are using a 32bit os on 64bit hardware because of windows xp 64bit compatibility issues with some drivers mainly with printers and other externals devices and there is no home windows xp 64 bit.
In other words, they are good at creating highly marketable, hypable products, but not that good at creating usable products with reasonable prices.
Wow, what a leap of deduction - the computer equivilent of "Therefore, a witch!"
Can you think of no other products that were marketable but also functional?
It is possible to have a product with good design that then also has good marketing. You're just confused because most companies start on the marketing side.
I wouldn't quite your day job to open that detective agnecy just yet.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Where are you getting that from?
You can read one story here - 12% vs. 6% in January.
That's the whole portable computer market, and a pretty big rise. It was also discussed on Slashdot (and elsewhere) previously.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Works fine in FF on my Winblows Media box Under XP through the QT plugin.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
This is a bit like complaining that your own car stereo doesn't fit the color scheme of your car. Not really the car makers fault now is it?
I also strongly suspect you never had a customer support role. If you gave the customer 1 cable, color coded, with labels and instructions and signs and a guide dog they would still get it wrong.
Badge based internet access, hold your badge barcode underneath the scanner and the PC will give internet access. You get people that ask how to turn the thing on. Okay, so the screensaver and posters with instructions are not visible enough. You got people that don't get that the scanner of their neighbour won't work for their PC, who don't hold the barcode part of the badge in the light, who lost their badge despite the fact that this is a high security event with armed security and airport style checkins (including x-ray machines and sniffer dogs, oh and this despite the fact that I walked in with no check at all but hey, I am not a terrorist)
It don't matter how simple you make something, the user will screw it up.
Take this nutcase who uses a keyboard without a USB hub integrated so now he has to reach all the way to the back of his computer to plug new USB devices in. that is the kind of nutcases techsupport has to deal with. Amazing no?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Basically every friend I have has switched to the Mac in the past 2 years. That number is only accelerating. What's funny is that, the only hold-outs left are people who pirate everything they own.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
Yep, crashed on me. Installed the latest version of Quicktime (FF was already up-to-date), and it stopped crashing. It still did weird things with the videos when I scrolled, and everything was really, really sluggish--my mouse cursor was like a slideshow.
I'm not sure who to blame, but it's very annoying.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
What I am saying is that it has become clear to me that the ads are not back firing, and in fact, are reaching the target audience. All three of these women expressed a desire to buy a Mac for their next computer, when their current one finally breaks. This actually was surprising to me, because I assumed the ads probably were back firing because of what I had read on Slashdot.
This was pretty obvious to me because the ads are actually not mean spirited at all, unless the viewer is reading all kinds of things into the ads that simply are not there.
Think of the experience these women probably have, PC's at home that they have to get viruses and spyware cleaned off of, mysterious things that the computer tells them they do not really understand when they just want to hook up a printer. What about these ads would be untruthful to them? To someone who knows how to keep a PC clean by using firefox and firewals and so on and so forth the Apple ads appear untrue because that user has no spyware. But again, these women and most other consumers do see the spyware, and virues, and things that these ads talk about - so why would they have reason to doubt the pro Mac arguments the ads offer when the statements made about the PC are 100% true to them?
It's also pretty obvious the ads are working because Apple keeps making them and also paying a fair amount for good timeslots (like the emmys for the msot recent ones). An ad campain that was going south would have been pulled by now if it was not seeing some results.
Slashdot is a really bad filter to try and descern how Apple products are perceived, just look at the iPod when it came out. You can almost delcare Slashdot a comically bad judge of Apple products to the extent the direction of groupthink here is probably always the opposite of what the general market thinks.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Cancel the airport card and you'll get it right away. That is the component holding you up.
Are you implying this is not a slow news day?
Yeah, these ad's disgust me. What has Windows done to you?
Good god man, I've been using Windows for decades now. You'd need a war crimes tribunal to properly document the offenses suffered by me through that time period.
Win 3.1? 98 (pre-SE)? NT before SP 2? Ring any bells?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If I can't even view the quicktime movie format?
See, life really would be easier if you had a Mac. Kind of prooves the whole point.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Here you are waiting for ATI to start producing the video cards in real quantity, I guess they were kind of asleep at the switch on this one.
You could just go with the base unit with the cheaper card and upgrade later yourself, if you'd like the computer quicker.
Or, buy the really expensive video card which I believe is also avialiable right now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What superstition leads you to think that the phrase genuinely funny is "incorrect"?
Are you adequate?
the audience for these ads is probably not most slashdot readers. apple knows that their power-user section of customers own more than one machine of varying OS. they probably know that we know the commercial (like every other commercial on television) isn't entirely accurate.
but, as stated a million times before, it appeals to the casual user, is (subjectively) entertaining and is rigid in its branding.
i did agree with slate on the point of PC being more endearing than Mac in the ads.
all this aside...is this extension of a currently running ad campaign really worthy of its own slashdot entry?
For one, I have a damn hard time even shutting my machine down with OS X. One in every three restarts takes at least 10 minutes or some reason. I have to actually start the process of restarting over a couple times. Non compatibility pisses me off to, but I do not fault either system for it. The slow, often unresponsive UI is my biggest issue though. In Windows the movement and reaction of most UI functions is quick and sharp. With the OS X, I feel like the speed I am allowed to work at is capped. I really feel it in simple things like FTPing files where I want to select my files and go. The MAC makes it a pain to do this simple function.
No reason to keep going, the point is that neither of these systems are perfect and they are for different people. Each side things they other sucks generally, but as a avid user of both systems, I cannot say either system has a edge. MAC has the doodads and flare, but the Windows has the power and you can actually control it in XP.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
I'd buy a Mac if I didn't feel it was overpriced. Considering they've got such a low % of the market they're not exactly trying that hard to undercut a PC. Short of doing ads which insult the intelligence and claiming that Microsoft stole features from them (I think they word is hypocrisy as they're both guilty of it) there's bugger all they're doing.
BIYC Records
i cant wait for the parodies, though.
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
So these ads are QuickTime. I can't find a QuickTime codec plugin for Xine.
So how am I, the Linux user, supposed to see these ads? What's more important to Apple?
That I see the ads, and thus stand a chance to get motivated to buy a Macbook Pro,
or that the ads remain in a proprietary format that mainly Apple users can consume?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that PC stood for personal computer, not Windows. Apple sells PC's that run on a Mac OS. They don't use the name Windows because that would open the possibility for a libel suit, but that is definitely what they are attacking.
This is nothing more than a smear campaign using misleading information. Just because it is Apple, does that suddenly make this behavior ok?
This is the first I heard that you couldn't just get instant gratification when you decide to buy.
That would suck. Probably even be a dealbreaker, if I made that big decision to buy my Macbook Pro (the only serious choice now), and then found out I couldn't have it within an hour. I sure as hell wouldn't wait a month.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why is it that the Mac/PC debate is more likely to cause a knife fight than Harley and BMW owners meeting at a bar? C'mon people, it's a computer.
Each OS has merits; which one you use is based upon merits as individual as the user. If the ads offend you, please go get some thicker skin.
"What is a great way to promote the new Apple product to geeks? I know, we will have a story posted on Slashdot featuring the new ads, the geeks love Slashdot! And it will have real 'street-cred' as it will be coming from Slashdot so they will think it is from other geeks. Perfect."
It isn't a question if Apple is doing paid advertizing on Slashdot - They most certainly are. The question is:
1. Will Slashdotters fall for it?
2. Is someone at Slashdot really getting paid? Or are they getting a free ipod or something totally lame like that. If Commander Taco isn't getting at least $30,000 for this "article", then I lose all respect! It is one thing to sell out, it is another thing to sell out like a total buster!
Slashdot is a very good measure of what's to come, but it's:
1) only certain extremely tech savvy users that don't speak up much, and
2) two to three years ahead of the game.
I started hearing about Apples being 'geek okay' about three years ago, and then last year suddenly they were cool. This means, of course, that Ubuntu may actually hit mainstream in another year or so..... At least, that's what I'm hoping for. The only thing I haven't seen come out of Linux yet is TV ads, and that happening will be what brings them more into the mainstream...
I'm not going to hold my breath though.
My little site.
I would like to see a commercial where the PC guy plays a video game and the Mac guy gets all confused at what he's doing.
Original Ad:
My Version:
The bit about PS/2 keyboards not being hot-pluggable is mujch more important than one might think. It isn't just that you can't plug and unplug your keyboard on the fly and have it work; there aren't too many times that you'd want to do that anyway. It is that unplugging the keyboard, even by accident, can damage the hardware. That's true in theory for lots of kinds of hardware, but I've done my share of "bad" things like pugging in hot serial cables; the odds of doing permament damage are low enough to ignore. But not for PS/2 connectors. I have personally had to do motherboard replacements (which snowballed into replacing pretty much the whole computer) because of a PS/2 keyboard connector getting accidentally dislodged. Twice. That's a bitch.
I recall that one of the times, I had the system booted in Linux and could still remotely access it via telnet/ssh et al. Then I tried to reboot. Reboot hung on the infamous "no keyboard detected, hit F1 to continue". If I had planned ahead, I could have set the BIOS option to ignore keyboard errors and perhaps been able to use the box for server functions that didn't need a keyboard. But it needs a keyboard to set the option.
I am really cautious about PS/2 connectors - and I get worried whenever I see that one has come a bit loose (as happens alll too easily with some of them).
You can buy all kinds of video cards online, do a search for Mac Video in Froogle. It's true you cannot use just any PC video card but that does not take away the truth that I have an option to upgrade as I wish.
Some later model G5 PCIe owners got kind of stuck with the 6600 card because Apple was not selling the 7800 GT card. However Strangedogs actually does a firmware reflash that lets you use those cards in an older G5, and pretty soon ATI will have out a PCIe version of the x1900 card for the G5 as well as the new Mac Pro.
Right now G5 owners wanting AGP cards have a wider range of selection, but as I said that is improving for PCIe mac owners.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How old is "older"? I haven't updated QT in Months - are you saying you have chosen to skip on a couple of security updates?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Live improves inversely proportional to the amount of advertising I am exposed to.
Exactly, which is why I don't have a cable subscription or really watch TV more than an hour or two a month.
Just because you use a Mac does not mean you are forced to watch the ads. It's not like the Mac ships with them included.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What is funny is that you said "people who pirate everything they own"
If pirating is implied to be bad like stealing, then they don't own it do they...
If as you say they now own what they have pirated, you acknowledge that ownership (and right to use and access) trancends copyright, etc. Which, really isnt such a bad idea, and a lot of people share your view.
PS
Most people who I know who choose PC over Mac, choose PC for the variety and availability of software of all types: Freeware, Shareware, Pirated, and of course purchased.
Slashdot is a very good measure of what's to come, but it's:...
I think it's a great place to hear about cutting edge stuff, but a very poor place to try and judge what really will be mainstream in two years. We've been hearing stuff about this or that distro of Linux being mainstream for years now. Every year the distros get easier and easier to use but it's still not really broken out, not even in the business segment which is where I would expect the Windows hold to break first since you have more technically ept people installing stuff.
Marketing is not what Linux needs, at least not now; it needs further user refinement and documentation before it can really take on the home market.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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"Well, I can do all of those things as well, and also fun stuff like playing all of the latest games."
"Yeh, Microsoft makes great game machines. My owner's got an XBox, but he seems to like his Playstation better."
If your main reason for buying a computer is playing games, the gap between computer and console is narrower every year. Why not save the money and just get one?
Why is it that the Mac/PC debate is more likely to cause a knife fight than Harley and BMW owners meeting at a bar?
Because you don't have Harley-only and BMW-only roads and gasoline.
For anyone that would prefer to wget the who lot oh "HD" not sure when 848x496 became HD but I digress here is the complete listings pulled from the source code
d s1/viruses_848x496.movd s1/restarting_848x496.movd s1/better_848x496.movd s1/ilife_848x496.movd s1/networking_848x496.movd s1/wsj_848x496.movd s2/box_848x496.movd s2/touche_848x496.movd s2/work_848x496.movc cident_848x496.movn geldevil_848x496.movr ustmac_848x496.mov /file/location"
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac_a
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac_a
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac_a
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac_a
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac_a
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac_a
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac_a
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac_a
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac_a
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/a
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/a
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/t
for any one that hasent done it before copy the file locations to a file save it then invoke "wget -i
I'm all for this Mac bullshit about "easy to use," "good for the common home user" and stuff, but if all that is really true, why would you pay more for it? And it's ridiculously more too, not just a little. For the price of a fairly high-end PC, you can buy a piece of shit Mac, which is gonna lock up on you, give you the "?" folder on boot up, give you spinning beach balls and whatever the crap they do now.
Why pay more for simplification? It just makes no sense.
I don't think I will buy a Mac soon, if ever. I've used them, and they don't make things much easier, and there's usually things they can't do. There are also much more useful programs for PC, and many more choices. (oh whining about there's too many choices to make? That's stupid. I would still never pay MORE to get LESS.)
Oh and I've had problems on a Mac I used regularly. Granted, it was at a computer lab where everyone had access, but it still never told me what the hell was happening. It just gave me the "?" folder flashing. I ended up just having to switch computers. Oh, and these are the supposedly most easy to use ones, the iMac.
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You mentioned Apple's prices... what I found recently when purchasing an iMac for a relative is that Apple's hardware is pretty competitive, price-wise (except perhaps the mini). I built a near-equivalent dual-core Dell on their website with the teacher's discount and it was about $1130 USD. The iMac was $1299 with teacher's discount, and had a much faster/cooler dual core cpu (Core Duo vs Pentium D 805 heater) and it wasn't a collection of commodity boxes, also a big factor in this purchase (not for me, I like commodity beige boxes so I can gut/recycle the hardware). The discounts were pretty minimal on both sites, so that wasn't a big factor. The days of 2x over-priced macs appear to be over, especially considering the suite of software that comes preinstalled (no AppleWorks, though, so AbiWord will be installed on it soon).
I'd buy a Mac if I didn't feel it was overpriced.
If you don't see OS X as being worth a premium over Windows, then why would you even want to buy a Mac? If you do, then you know that premium is really the de-facto price of OS X, and you need to rephrase the question... maybe "why does Apple charge so much for OS X"?
Me, I'd still pay as much for OS X -- the real price, not the retail costs of what's effectively an upgrade (yes, I know Apple *also* sometimes sells upgrade packs for people who bought a Mac close enough to the release of a new version of OS X... but that's more like a promotional discount, they don't sell these as upgrades for the general market) -- whether it was running on a Mac or not.
In fact I'd rather do that. My main problem with Macs isn't that they're expensive, it's that they're such screwed up computers. I've got a Mac mini and a Macbook Pro, and if they weren't the only way to run OS X I'd never have considered either of them for a minute.
Bite the hand.
"Now your OEM machine is detecting the 3-in-one inkjet-scanner-fax printer that came bundled free with the computer. Windows is now pompting them to install three items it has detected. Each one throwing up the New hardware wizard."
7 98
I've seen plenty of bundles that -- gasp! -- pre-install the software you need for the hardware to work. What a concept. Maybe you just keep buying crap?
"Not to mention the computer's system image was from 4 months ago, so they need to download 55MB of patches on their dial-up connection in order to be "safe"."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I see it as a trade off. Simplicity comes at the cost of options. A great example is Sony's camcorders. They have this "Easy" button. With it off, you have a relatively large selection (complicated for some) in the menu. The common person may find this confusing and not use any of it. When you press the "Easy" button, it basically locks out and automatically controls everything in that menu except for the very basic of functions. Yes, mac may be easy to use for the general public, but when it comes to some that NEEDS to do something that is not relatively basic. The ease of use can go right out the door. My personal opinion, i like windows (also linux) because if something is not doing what i want it too, i can change it. It can be something as simple as making the desktop experience more graphical (or less graphical). I like the choices. Also to repeat from your blip, for a fraction of the cost. (bootcamp isn't a solution to OSX's lack of software choices. It's joining the other side while getting charged WAY to much)
posting ads makes you cry? hell man, you must cry a hell of a lot, then..
I feel your pain, bro. My ETD: Sept 27 ;-( ;-( ;-( ;-( ;-( ;-(
The real reason is that ATI isn't producing cards fast enough and Apple's airport supplier is also not up to par. If you wanted it sooner, you could have opted for the cheap slow nvidishit or the expensive not-as-slow quadrashit.
A magnetic power cable. Did Apple's IQ drop like 5 points or something. Who puts a magnet near a computer? I can also see so many people not knowing the magnet popped off and running their battery down since the majority of mac users I know never turn their machine, only putting it into sleep mode. Personally, I think its a stupid idea. And the Angel/Devil ad, it was just stupid too. Those ads only depict the people that use their 15 year old Packard-Bell computer that use AOL still.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
macs are more 'fun' than PCs? do they think i'm stupid? that i don't know that the majority of games out there are PC? sure, warcraft 3 was fun, but there's newer stuff out there now
I think it's pretty fair to surmise that Apple isn't even trying to market to Linux users like you. You already know the superiority of *nix operating systems, but you're probably the sort of person who won't pay for software based on principle. Moreover, it's not beyond you to simply re-write parts of the operating system that you don't like. The Core Audience of the Mac ads are people who want the O/S to both work and stay the hell out of their way. They aren't going to write their own drivers, or re-compile from source. They just want the thing to work. Period.
- are you saying you have chosen to skip on a couple of security updates?
Security updates?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Think consoles: PS2, XBox, GameCube, etc. They are severly underpowered if you compare them to a PC, yet they can push out graphics rivaling them, why? Because the developers know exactly what hardware they are coding for and can take full advantage of it.
No... they can't.
The problem with having a clearly inaccurate statement in your post is that your other points, however good, lose credibility.
I thought the idea of these ads was to prompt me to switch from Linux and get my Macbook Pro.
But I have no codec that will render these ads.
Therefore, you need a Macbook to view them, so they are providing a motivation to switch even if it's on a meta level. Not seeing the problem here. They work as designed on all levels.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Drivers
Yeah, the Mac comes with them and generally Windows requires you to install or download them. Not seeing a real plus there for the Windows side.
Seriously, how many devices today do not work with Macs? They handle USB mas storage way better than XP (which I know personally from having used a variety of devices on both platforms).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
hope that these commercials inspire spyware and hackers to mess around on macs. Sure the mac doesn't get as hammered as PC's but hell, why go for the minority.
So you have a Mac mini with no keyboard and mouse? That doesn't make sense either. As was noted elsewhere it costs $9.99 to have a keyboard with a USB extender on it for the mouse. How did you even find a USB beyboard that doesn't offer it?
Of course for my Mac mini I just use the bluetooth keyboard/mouse so I use zero ports, but you have to be the worlds biggest cheapskate to have a Mac mini with both USB ports consumed only by the mouse and keyboard.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I like the ads, I find several hilarious. I also don't use Macs, and don't really have a desire to, as I'm a techie.
There's one issue with all of this, and that is that Macs aren't quite as nice in some ways as portrayed (and it's not their fault) - that is compatibility.
Certain things work... like certain things work in Linux... like Most web sites work in Opera (my browser of choice, and I think I have a good feel for the frustration at a smaller level than a Mac user).
So, you have a Mac, no spyware. Great! But your online bank requires IE6 or newer. Bummer. Can't do my banking (you'd be suprised at the number of banks that require IE for "security". Read the Opera forums someday.).
I'm at school and I need to get hooked up to the wireless router my roommate put in, with secure easy setup(tm). But that CD doesn't work in my Mac, so now I have to get someone to do the WPA2 setup manually. I wander down to the local Geek Squad (tm). Mmm, they don't do Macs (some do, some don't).
While I'm at Best Buy, I thought I'd look at some games for my computer - but they don't sell Mac games. Sucks.
I got one of those awesome new flash drives with the cool security U3 software, and . . . it doesn't work on my Mac.(The software that is).
So, you'll be able to do out of the box what it comes with, but you'd be suprised at the frustration and time spent making sure it will work with other things. And, just like with using Opera, you'd think you could do what you HAD to do with it, but then the little gotchas start to catch up. Network effect in a big way.
I hope Macs do catch on more though, as it will make it better for the users as they get bigger, and I can hope that when website makers start to realise that they need sites that work in IE, Firefox, Safari and various mobile phones and maybe consoles, they'll just write to standards, and Opera will work too.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
Think how surprised these women will be if enough of them buy Macs for virus and spyware writers to start targetting the platform.
Well since that will be at least two years or so from now I imagine the surprise would be slight, and in the meeantime they get some period of time free of the hassle. If I had listened to argumnets like yours when I bought my first Mac years ago I would have had to be babysitting a PC, if I had listened to you when my parents were looking at computers five years ago I'd still be driving over once a month for service calls. That's a hell of a lot of weekends I've given myself.
Also, with the switch to Intel macs the clock has been reset on the arrival for viruses or spyware as virus makers would wait for the number of macs to equal at least the number of installed PPC macs before writing exploits (which generally have to target specific platform weaknesses at a binary level) - or at least if you believe the argumnet that macs not having viruses is because of the numbers of systems in the market.
The alternative is to believe Macs really are more secure, which leads to an even longer window of freedom from malware.
Regardless people like you seem oblivious to the simple plain unavoidable fact that if you buy a Mac today, you'll have no viruses or spyware - and probably tomorrow, and probably the day after. You can live life with a hundred thousand exploits seeking entry into your system every day and more on the way, or kick back for the years it takes for a handful of exploits to arrive on the Mac, fresh off the boat as it were. It's your choice but lots of people are realizing which path makes more sense for those users which are not super duper Windows admins.
Even if Macs started to have exploits appear in the wild, would it not take some time to build to the level you see in Windows today? Would not the Windows number still be increasing as well? When can you honestly say you envision the number of Mac exploits increasing beyond the number of Windows exploits, to make these womens lives worse than they already are? Therein lies the ultimate truth of the ads that so many will not accept, for whatever reasonless justification is deeply held and known only to themselves.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Would you mind if I asked you for a single example of Windows allowing you to change something that you want to, whereas you cannot for mac?
So, you have a Mac, no spyware. Great! But your online bank requires IE6 or newer. Bummer. Can't do my banking (you'd be suprised at the number of banks that require IE for "security". Read the Opera forums someday.).
I don't think any major bank today does not support the Mac as a platform, I've not had a problem with that for about four years. Plus there's always Firefox if you do encounter a problem.
While I'm at Best Buy, I thought I'd look at some games for my computer - but they don't sell Mac games. Sucks.
Bootcamp/Windows, if you really want to game. Soon Parallels is supposed to support DirectX as well which is what I'm waiting for.
However previously I lived for years relying only on consoles for gaming, and that was plenty satisfying I found. Most games are released on consoles first now anyway, and they are way more hassle free than PC gaming ever was.
I got one of those awesome new flash drives with the cool security U3 software, and . . . it doesn't work on my Mac.(The software that is).
Think to what the purpose of these devices is, to store apps and run them on multiple computers. Since most Mac apps are self-contained just put them on a normal USB device and don't pay extra for the U3 capability! You get the same functionality for less effort and with a wider range of devices. It's kind of like complaining you can't run a Windows anti-spyware program on the Mac.
So, you'll be able to do out of the box what it comes with, but you'd be suprised at the frustration and time spent making sure it will work with other things. And, just like with using Opera, you'd think you could do what you HAD to do with it, but then the little gotchas start to catch up. Network effect in a big way.
I don't mean to belittle the frustrations you have had setting up your Mac, but I do think some of them are atypical to the things the majority of Mac users will find.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think you can go further: Slashdot is a horribly bad predictor of the success of technology meant for the average computer user, because no one who posts here is an average computer user, me included. When I think of average computer users I think of my brother, who asked me if I would help him fix his Powerbook. He had dropped the thing from a good height more than once and had so bent the case that he couldn't plug in the power cord. His idea of 'fixing' the thing was to take to computer completely apart, take a hammer and bang the case back into shape. I tried to explain to him that taking apart a laptop is not a small thing and that banging the case back into shape was no easy thing. I told him to take the thing to Tekserve and have them do it, because I wasn't going to take on the responsibility of possibly ruining someone else's computer.
The difference, I think, is that the average computer user thinks of the machine as a monolithic thing: it's a magic electronic box. When something goes wrong with the machine, it's universal. It's not that the USB has fried, or that a software update has choked, but that the whole magic box is now sick. This explains a couple of things. It is why people throw out perfectly good computers after two or three years rather than upgrade; if you think of the computer like a microwave (the principle of which most people don't understand) then there's no way you'd ever think of upgrading one. It explains why Slashdot was dead wrong on the success of the iPod; Apple created the mp3 player as magic electronic box, something your average user could relate to. Attach to computer, manage in iTunes, music appears on iPod. It's monolithic and, for someone who thinks of technology that way, simple.
And it explains the success of Apple's ads, and the displeasure they cause here. Apple is selling the computer as magic monolithic box and saying, essentially, our magic box is easier to use than someone else's. Most on Slashdot know that computers aren't magic boxes. Many here take great pride in how deep that knowledge runs, and take great joy in delving deep into the guts of their machines and OSes. But your average computer user doesn't want to, and doesn't care. That is the target audience for these ads, and for devices like the iPod. Beyond that, your average computer user wants a magic electronic box, something which functions more as an information appliance than anything else.
Most Slashdot readers don't want a magic box. But Slashdot users are the minority.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
I popped in an Ubuntu CD last weekend. I'd thrown together an old Dell, a used hard drive, and a wireless card from Best Buy. It was flat out easier to both setup and use than a PC would have been; less than an hour after I had put it all together, I was done. No problems. Period.
I gave it to a friend...
There's your whole problem. I absolutly agree Linux is easy to use nowadays, which is why I expect it to take over buisness desktops at some point...
Now look at all the things YOU did before she got the computer. When is the point where YOUR FRIEND is popping in that Ubuntu CD. That is the point when Linix can take over the consumer desktop. That is the blind spot that Linux users have, because it is easy to use many distros now but they discount the effort involved to reach that point for the truly average user (and not just the average Linux user).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My response was humor as well. You don't really think I truly want a tribunal called to itemize things like my needing to use 30 floppy disks for a system install that fails near the end do you? Though now that I re-read that last sentence...
Humor! Still humor!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
See, I would disagree with most of that post.
I can enable Apache web server, PHP, Python extensions, netstumbler(esque), ftp, modify cron, upgrade, downgrade, uninstall, reinstall, add programs to startup, remove programs from startup, etc. from Apples System Preferences. It's a wonderful little thing.
Plus, the Unix underbelly means I can do anything more complicated than that by vi'ing something in /etc.
As for "price" macbook pros/macbooks are very competitively priced compared to say, Dell. The thing is, people will look at the "Lowest end" Dell, and see "Ooh! $600! but it's about 1/2 the machine of the macbook. If you look at the equivalent machine(from a hardware perspective) it generally runs $100-200+ more than the macbook.
*shrug*
I find it sorta funny when people declare the mac or pc to be innately better. Right now I have my ibook g4 12" sitting to the left of my Dell 9400. The G4 is beauty incarnate, I enjoy using it for pretty much everything, but the 9400s screen is gorgeous. For my work(programming) Screen real-estate is important, so the 1900x1200 resolution screen is my choice. Also, the fact that I can view my webpages in the browser that is still(unfortunately :() used by 50%+ of the people on the internet(read, IE) means I use them both.
Oh, and the fact that Synergy allows me to control them both from one keyboard/mouse means I am truly integrated :)
mac IS unix, so you can do almost anything you damn well please on it. Don't like the fancy GUI? enjoy all your system groking in the bash shell to your heart's content.
When was the last time the average Mac user has had the ability to do anything like that? I sure as hell dont know how to do anything like that. The advantage of Mac OS is it's simplicity and here you are advocating something complex and unintuitive which could probably end up breaking the system if done right.
The point is that in Windows I don't have to go through that sort of convoluted nonsense to customize the nonsense. And Microsoft is very good at making their applications excessively complicated and unintuitive. But basic system changes, which OSX lacks, I can perform in Windows easily enough.
Well, er, now that you mention it: very jerky performance in Safari under Tiger on my iBook. Opera = slightly better. Is Apple trying to tell me that I need new hardware to play a freaking advertisement for new hardware?
Mac: I'm a Mac and I roolz!!!
PC: I'm a peezee and I'm teh suxors!
*PC explodes*
Adventure, Romance, MAD SCIENCE!
"I Explode, You Explode" (30 seconds)
FADE IN
Mac and PC stand against the eternal white nothingness of consumer choice. PC has papier mache "flames" rising behind his head. He's fanning himself with his big white pasty hand. Mac looks over intermittently for several seconds, working up the nerve to ask. Finally...
Mac: PC, what's wrong? You look hot.
PC: Oh, it's nothing. It's just...well, my battery. The silly thing up and went kablooey!
Mac (smugly): I can do that.
Ah yes - the attitude of a company's marketing clearly impacts how useful their products. Clearly if you hate an ad you should avoid that company's products entirely, even if you were otherwise interesting. No, that's not letting advertising unduly influence you or anything.
The funny thing is I hear stuff like this from people all the time about these ads. In fact the only conversations I've ever had about them are with pissed off PC users. I've come to the conclusion that the people who like these ads the most are actually PC fan boys, not Mac fan boys. They're certainly the ones most likely to talk about them or let them affect their behavior.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I'm sorry, but I have to question this. Why is it that an operating system has to have a real shell to be productive?
Because some bath related operations are simply quicker than any GUI can be, and on top of that access to the rich set of UNIX tools (like perl) enables you to more quickly script some useful things around file moving and naming than just about anything else.
I agree GUI tools have a time and place and hitting that one check box is way better than messign with an X config (the part I always disliked most about X). But repetitive stuff where some low level of interactivit yo check on things in desirable, for that a good shell is invaluable and goes hand in hand with a lot of simple scripting work.
The first thing I do after a Windows install is a Cygwin install for the same reasons. I just find it handy I do not have to, in OS X or Linux.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When I first saw a screenshot of one of these ads, I got a completely wrong impression. I thought they were going to have both of the guys be Mac users and show how the hip guy likes to surf the internet, do graphic design, hook up his iPod, and other 'cool' stuff and the nerdy guy likes how he can do office work tasks, program, maybe do some UNIX-style hacking and the Mac is perfect for both of them.
I thought: "This is great! Apple is saying that you can own a Mac and not have to embrace the Mac Lifestyle of thinking that you are culturally and socially superior to everybody who doesn't have the latest Apple products. You can just use the tools without the baggage!"
I was dead wrong. Sure, they talk about the technical merits of the platform, but not without the inescapable statement that if you are not using a Mac you can never be cool, likable, hip, etc. You will always be a square who will never get chicks.
I really wanted to like these, too, but I simply find it hard to buy another Mac from a company that can't simply say they're technically elite without also saying they're culturally elite. This isn't to say that I won't purchase another Mac sometime, but it will make me wince to think that Apple thinks I'm buying it because I want to be the 'cool guy' on the commercial.
I'm sure everyone noticed this, but I find it stupid that the PC is totally misrepresented. Mac cannot run most of the programs which most people are used to using, and alot of games are not playable on Mac. Perhaps Apple would be better off showing how Macs are ACTUALLY better than PC's.
That's the whole point, the average mac user can use the fancy 'easy' GUI that the ggp was referencing, while a more advanced user can delve deep into the system via bash shell, or even hacking the Darwin kernel if he/she wants. It's the best of both worlds, a first class GUI over UNIX, so what is the ggp talking about anyway when they say it's like the 'easy' button on a sony camcorder?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-494216277 8167603560&q=mac+parody&hl=en
and
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2282754844 569110939&q=mac+parody&hl=en
stephen
Actually, it points out what people already know: Corporations and businesses use Windows PCs. Windows for many is Word and Excel. And almost everyone who has used a Windows PC at work has hated it at some point
It would be the same for any OS, wouldn't it? If they used a mac in corporations they would be most likelly to work and not to have a good time. Even if someone releases a "fun os" I'll probably hate it that tries to make my work 'funnier' by popping out rainbows on me while I work.
Programs with odd names performing illegal operations and offering them the change to debug, only to do nothing useful. And so on.
I dislike FUD, even if it is against windows, it would be odd that those misterious programs from nowhere appear while they are at work, and if they are at home well the user was most likelly looking for it to happen. It is not like Mac has an anti odd name policy or if it doesn't have exception handling in their programs.
The Mac is being shown in the light of being a computer for your home life, far away from spreadsheets and Active Directory, where your photos, home movies, and music play a much stronger role, and showing ease-of-use for doing nice things with that media.
All right, 2 things that Macs can't do: Play most of the newest games and Play movies in the latest formats without downloading a media player which is what you would call "evil configuration". How would they be more of a home life computer than a PC? I am using a PC for my home life computer and do not have any complaint yet ,and unlike what you seem to think windows is in no way forcing me to use Spreadsheets
Remember that the majority of new Windows PC owners buy an OEM machine and can barely plug in all the color-coded cables. They turn it on and the Windows setup wizard starts as you said. Fine. Now your OEM machine is detecting the 3-in-one inkjet-scanner-fax printer that came bundled free with the computer. Windows is now pompting them to install three items it has detected. Each one throwing up the New hardware wizard. Not to mention the computer's system image was from 4 months ago, so they need to download 55MB of patches on their dial-up connection in order to be "safe".
You see, the majority of new comp owners just pay someone to configure their stuff, and if more people used macs the dumb majority would also have problems with them and have someone paid to do that stuff.
I am happy with my PC Kubuntu - windows XP combo, it is really fast, works as an entertainment center, can do anything from playing the latest games to doing my homework, developing php web sites or c++ programs pretty well. In fact this comp is a home life computer and is very effective at that, so I have a name for this kind advertising: FUD. I 'd like to see advertisements that actually tell me why should I buy a computer instead of just trying to make me believe my PC is not fun enough for me.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
'Nuff said. Oh wait, or does you TV run LINUX too? Then you're screwed. :)
P.
"That's exactly what I said, only different."
I pretty much hate all advertisements based on the fact that they are almost always lies and they use every phallacy in the book to knowingly trick people. TiVo is my friend.
I'm ok with somebody highlighting positive qualities of their product while downplaying negative ones. It's just a fact that all products have good and bad points and you're lucky if your good points vastly outwieght the bad ones and you've got some hard marketing to do if you're faced with the opposite scenario.
My pet peeves is that advertisers don't highlight and downplay. They actually use logical fallacies to trick people into believing that a negative doesn't exist, is actually a positive or that all products share a worse negative. And they do this knowingly or negligently.
Take the "Get a Mac" commercials. First off. Why is one of the characters dressed drastically different from the other??? One is dressed in stereotypical corporate fashion while the other in stereotypical hip, loose fashion. This has nothing to do with the capabilities of the products compared. But it was clearly an intentional selection. Why?... In order to have the consumer identify the products as having all the negatives we typically associate with corporate america and the positives of youth and freedom in a favorable fashion for Macs. But I know lots of corporate people who use and love Macs for business purposes and I know lots of artists who use PC platforms for creative work. Why not swap age and wardrobe on the two actors and play the exact same commercial?? shouldn't make a difference should it?
second: Why is the Mac proponent sharp and pithy while the PC champion is rather dull witted? Again, they are trying to send the message "you'll be stupid if you buy a PC" which has absolutely nothing to do with the actual merits of the product. Yes. People come in a variety of flavors including stupid and smart. I've seen plenty of stupid people using Macs and a lot of smart people using PC platforms. Again, why not switch the intelligence/insight capabilities of the two characters?
Third: Everybody seems to be all gung-ho about the humor of these ads. Does making a funny ad make the product any better? No. But they rely on this to get you to buy a product. Hey I like commercials with hot, semi-naked women in them too, but that doesn't make the product better; neither does a funny ad.
fourth: They rely on common ignorance in order to propogate lies. Macs can do spreadsheets just fine and PCs can do graphics just as well. I have yet to see anything done on a Mac that I can't do on a Windows machine. Nothing. In fact you can usually get whatever software package you want for either platform. For software not made for both there is generally a suitably similar alternative. And for every instance where you can say: "But not this package/application!!" I can find you an example for the other platform. Basically, I can do graphics, spreadsheets and application development on both platforms equally well. But the commercials specifically imply that you cannot. relying on the ignorance of the consumer to agree. And I hate people who rely on a person's ignorance in order to manipulate them into a desired behavior. This is no different than con-artists.
So, no. I don't really find these commercials particularly insightful, helpful, ethical or even funny. But that is my opinion of almost all advertising and marketing
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
You mean the people who they are trying to target don't watch television?
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
I got sick and tired of seeing all the good games coming out for the PC, and very few of them having a Mac port. Even then, it would cost more then an arm & a leg to afford something that could run the Mac version...
Of course that was back in the Mac OS Classic, SNES - Playstation era when consoles could barely hold up to PC games. While I already had game consoles and did enjoy playing console games, I still wanted to play games like Duke 3D, Quake, etc. When I did get a PC gaming rig, I was able to enjoy titles and series like Thief, System Shock 2, Half-life, etc.
Even though PCs & consoles are now about equal in power and games are being released for both platforms, I still prefer to do my gaming on the PC. As long as console games like FPSs don't have a "mandatory" keyboard & mouse option(last I checked with the Xbox360 it is up to the developers to decide whether or not to implement this feature), consoles have a long way to go before they replace the PC.
I know 17 artists, writers, educators, and architects.
The architects use Windows, everyone else uses OSX.
How many have an iPod?
5.
How many bought their Macs before the commercials?
More than half.
Is it possible that your lame-ass attempt at using anecdotal evidence (at best), followed by your scurrilous proclamation that Mac users are sheep, is FUD? Furthermore, it is possible that your ridiculous diatribe about Mac users showed your obvious distaste for anything different from your own, and that you are not only prejudiced and fearful, but you don't know what the hell you're talking about?
Make sure to point out to the one guy that uses a Mac that he's part of the iPod crowd, who can't think for himself and knows nothing about his machine. I hope he kicks your ass.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
They don't blow up.
Oh wait..
cute advertisements When it comes to a P.C., just follow this one rule and you won't go wrong! 1. Use the machine that's right for you
Where's the 0xBEEF
These commercials are funny, but unfortunate that they're misleading. They make it seem like no pc owner has every made movie on their machines, never uploaded a picture, or ever created a webpage. The commercials talk down to their consumers and make them look like they aren't even smart enough to question the lies they (mac) are filling their customers with. Case in point: two mouse buttons (pc) vs one (mac). I guess left and right were too complex an idea for mac users. I'm not saying that...Mac is by the mere fact that they are dumbing down the market and keeping themselves in a box whereas PC users/producers are always innovating.
Affordable Health Coverage
I'm a professional software developer with 20 years of experience, and I do want an electric magic box. I want it to magically do all the crap that I've spent the last 20 years doing, so that I don't have to ever do it again. (Okay, that's not quite magic, in your definition, since I know what the box is really doing, but sometimes it's even more magical when somebody does it well, because you know how badly the rest of the industry has failed at it despite years of effort.)
On the other hand, I don't want it to be a magic box for all the things I'm currently doing. In that case I want it to be transparent and eminently hackable. The nice thing about OS X it that it does a good job on both fronts.
Hey, I don't view my ease of life by access to corperate propaganda either. You were the one desperate to access it, don't blame me for your fickle state of mind!
Sheesh.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
With most of the shared memory systems the integrated memry is going to be consuming most of that memory no matter what you do with it - making it even worse to let it sit idle.
My original point stands.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's great if you have a Mac Pro. But generally, the Mac Mini and iMac are less upgradable than their Mac counterparts.
So are intel laptops, that doesn't change the fact that I can expand some macs. There are also similar Dell systems that are really not meant to be expanded or upgraded either.
I thought they were damn funny myself, though really it seems that they are making fun of Linux more than anything else.
Oh they are funny, just wrong, and end up kind of misfiring as a result for those that know better - kind of like the Mac ads for some people.
Like I said the performance one was awesome though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Even if you aren't using the GPU for more advanced features, it's still polling the memory anyway. It may do so slightly more when the 3D graphics aspects of the chip are enganged, but it's not really very much of a drain over what it has to do anyway just to keep the screen up.
I believe that system performance on the Mini is helped when ram chips are installed in pairs though which help giving smooth access to memory by the whole system.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... and firefox (which is running on OS X) crashed 25% through the first video. Great work Mr Jobs, you put a smile on my face! :-D
"develop an operating system and a multitude of other software apps that are highly regarded by just about everyone"
just about everyone" really? I guess your source for that is Apple.
Except that not all macs have such a connector.
All current Mac laptops do; why would teh ads be touting features only in older laptops? Desktops do not require this as they do not have this problem, because as you say you can easily route cables so as to minimize tripping. Only laptops, where cables end up in more precarious places can really benefit.
Sometimes the distance to a plug dictates that my power cord be routed non-optimally in such a way that things can run into it. Heck, even a cord neatly placed along the floor with no height can still be tripped over, as I have seen for myself once.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
This guy is obviously being sarcastic: no one is THAT ignorant.
The ads are condescending and insulting to their potential customers, who, wholly agreeing with the ads, will happily purchase a Mac thinking that they really are incapable of reading and following instructions. Sigh. The real laugh was that you had to install quicktime to view the ads from Apple's website. As if. I did that once. But only once. --Slithy
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060823/ap_on_hi_te/te ch_test_mac_pro_3
"A low-end Mac Pro will cost you $2,124 compared with $3,071 for a nearly identically configured Dell Precision Workstation 490. The Mac is about $947 cheaper..."
Hey, I think your brother is right. This is exactly what you should do, Laptops are very easy to take apary these days. There are all sorts of guides on the net, and maybe not using a hammer but bending it back into shape would be a good solution.
The real laugh was that you had to install quicktime to view the ads from Apple's website.
And the problem with this is what, precisely?
Are you concerned that Apple will install a backdoor in your system through Quicktime, or that having Quicktime installed will otherwise reduce the security, reliability, or performance of your system?
I assume that you have some other streaming media program you prefer.
Would that be Windows Media, by any chance? If so, Windows Media comes with the system backdoor pre-installed by Microsoft, and since it uses the HTML control to render content using Windows Media Player or the WMP plugin is just as dangerous as using Internet Explorer or Outlook on Windows.
Which of course you, not being stupid, don't do... right?
I was actually counting a Mac mini and a $300 console. If it's $250 that's $850, not $900. :)
/Applications and /Library... the equivalent of going into %systemroot%\system32 and deleting things she didn't use (which she'd done on the PC at one point, with obvious dire consequences). I only noticed because Terminal.app wasn't there and I had to ssh in to clean things up...
But to pay for a mac and a windows install if you're bootcamping can get expensive.
Indeed. I think that Bootcamp is not really a practical tool for every day use. What it mostly gives you is a reassurance that if you need to use Windows for something you've got that option. I don't expect most people will really use that option long term, and I wouldn't count it in the price of the Mac.
When I got my daughter a Mac after going in and cleaning out her Windows machine for the Nth time that year, she begged me to leave her PC just in case. Two weeks later when I checked it, it hadn't been booted in two weeks. A couple months later it hadn't been booted more than twice except when I was checking for viruses and spyware...
Unless it does amazing things over the competition (like make me PB&J sandwiches), i can't justify $600.
It can survive two years of steady abuse from a teenager who managed to render a Windows PC unbootable on the average of 2-3 times a year. I think that's pretty amazing.
What kind of abuse?
Well, when I was checking my daughter's PCs one day I found she'd had run out of disk space on the Mac and gone in removing stuff in
I missed the context of this comment, didn't understand what you were getting at until I popped up a level.
Video editing. If you really want to get technical.
How much difference do the 3d functions missing from the GMA950 make to video editing? The GMA950 is quite a bit faster with 2d than the Radeon 9200 it replaced, and even if Apple had gone with ATI I don't believe they'd have used anything faster than an X200.
But, OK, you have a point there. You've got significantly higher requirements than the average user. Still, my boss had been using Final Cut on his Powerbook as long as I've been working here (he's just splurged on a Mac Pro), and the Mac mini is unlikely to be any slower than a Powerbook...
"As for "price" macbook pros/macbooks are very competitively priced compared to say, Dell. The thing is, people will look at the "Lowest end" Dell, and see "Ooh! $600! but it's about 1/2 the machine of the macbook. If you look at the equivalent machine(from a hardware perspective) it generally runs $100-200+ more than the macbook."
2 corrections: Lowest end dell is a little under $500 and i agree, it's at least 1/2 the machine of a macbook (if not less). Equivelent though, i couldn't equally spec (just got back from apple.com and dell.com).
Macbook (base model): $1099 1.83 Core Duo, 512 ram, 60Gb HD, Combo drive
Dell E1505(configured to match as best as possible)
$934 1.83 Core Duo, 512 ram, 60Gb HD, dvdburner (no combo drive option)
I fail to see the $100-200 more.
What i meant with the "change anything graphically" i meant along the lines of making the OS not look anything like it should. I've seen windows look like OSX, KDE, or something completely different. Although i am going to give you (and all the other people that replied) the benefit of the doubt and take back my claim of "change anything yada yada". Apparently i haven't goofed with OSX as much as i should have.
The price difference is probably the biggest factor though. Although, i'm been going with windows lately, i try to keep as much of an open mind to the two (not a fan boy of either). I go with what as i see as the best for the money. I've had AMD for quite some time now but about to upgrade to a Core Duo 2. Been an AMD fan, but Intel seems to be doing better right now. So if you do find that $100-200 difference, show me please. With good timing, my next pc may just as well be a mac. I believe i remember seeing the MacBook Pros (when first released) were cheaper than the comparable dell. That has changed now though.
I've always liked the Shell changes you do with Astonshell or similiar. I have seen several friends make their complete desktop (not just change themes or colors) look different. I haven't seen anyone's Mac look like anything other than OSX (excluding bootcamp). I mean completely rearranged so it doesn't even look like windows, ie: OSX, KDE, or my personal favorite is none of the above.
What i have seen from OSX is just themes. You can easily change the color and shape of the bars but not completely do away with it or put something else in it's place.
Now i'm not saying you can't do that. I haven't seen an easy to use program to do that for OSX. I am open minded so if i'm wrong, let me know (screenshots would be sweet).
I don't believe that changing the shell is a "basic task", by any stretch of the imagination.
That said: I know that it's possible to install X.org and your choice of WM on the Mac, but havn't done so myself. I suppose you could install a customizable WM via Fink or Darwin Ports. The default WM is not very customizable. Even so, I have found that it doesn't require much. (I resisted it at first, but it's so simple to use that I didn't mind after the first week).
The inconsistent terminal does drive me batshit, though.
I don't believe that changing the shell is a "basic task", by any stretch of the imagination.
Check out www.astonshell.com It is actually quite easy to use. Although it isn't free, $30.
I agree though most user aren't concerned with it and if they are, they stick with one. As for creating a "best fit", it is cheaper for the intial company, but making it relatively easy to change isn't a bad option.
_ s:eilfrqlskjfhmklsdfmlkqs
By the way, to help out your brother, head on over to ifixit.com . They've got step-by-step guides to take apart every apple laptop in history. Plus, they've got printable 'screw guide' pages that you can tape the screws down to, that way you know exactly how it goes back together.
As long as its not a 12" powerbook, its not a huge deal to take them apart (considering the problem with the bent case around the power jack, i know its an aluminum model already). I've actually done exactly what your brother was talking about, only a hammer isn't needed. you can bend it back with your fingers.
Han shot first.
"Regarding spyware and viruses, they fail to mention that the most common cause of infection is user stupidity. "
Mac guy: Well, there aren't any spyware or viruses that run on me. I'm pretty safe to use.
PC guy: Most of my viral infections are caused by the stupidity of people who buy me. They're lazy, ignorant and they keep visiting dodgy porn sites. It's not my fault.
Now *that* would be a mean-spirited ad.
Unfortunately, it is a 12-incher. And I wasn't quite clear: what I mean to highlight wasn't that taking apart a laptop is impossible, but that my brother, because of his lack of clue, thinks that you can take apart the magic box like you could take apart something far simpler. He thought it might take half an hour and be no big deal.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
The Mac has the video camera integrated, with no drivers to install.
I'd rather save the money and complexity and buy my own video camera... one that isn't pointing at me all the time, but is rather pointing at whatever I want it to... like, for example, the view outside my window.
Video chat? As bad an idea as "videophones". You'll note, but the way, that cameras on cellphones are aimed AWAY from the user, towards whatever they are filming.
I wonder if anyone makes a "periscope" for the Macbooks to let people actually USE those cameras?
..I was hoping that this discussion would finally resolve the Windows v. Mac debate here.
Yes, well people have been saying that literally for decades. You'll excuse me if I'm not too worried.