Slashdot Mirror
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.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
It makes the PC look productive and serious, instead of the slacker Mac OS X.
Yeah, and I'm sure that Apple's trying to market these commercials towards those that need office applications at home as opposed to the Mom-and-Pop types who just want a computer to surf the internet, and check/send e-mail from/to their kids.
I wish my lawn was emo, so it would cut itself.
For instance, Windows runs fine out of the box, there's virtually no advanced configuration after you've installed it.
You're not being literal enough. They're talking about hardware, not software. With your typical Dell PC, after you get it out of the box, you've got to set up the tower and the monitor, then connect them, then also plug in your mouse, keyboard, and speakers. The monitor, tower, and speakers will also all require their own power. On the other hand, all of the hardware in an iMac is contained in a single unit. You plug the power into the unit, then plug in your keyboard and mouse. The keyboard and mouse will also plug into any USB port -- if you have a PC with a PS/2 keyboard and mouse, you have to be careful not to plug them in wrong, and then you also have to figure out which one of those little jacks your speakers should plug in to.
Yes, I'm sure that's not a big deal to you, but you have to realize that all of that is pretty daunting to anybody who's never owned a computer before (or never set up their own, at least).
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
I'm sorry, it's the classic marketing mistake. Apple's competitors make the same one when they market their "not-an-iPods". You don't build market share by capitalizing on the fact that you don't have market share.
In other words, you don't insult your potential market. Macintosh has a lot of image they can sell, sell simply, and sell well, and yet they focus on the PC's problems?
Just because a large portion of Mac users seem to spend every waking hour mocking Windows doesn't mean that obsession is marketable (or is even what sensible Mac Fans do).
Apple's advertisements serve a number of roles: reassuring their customers of the superiority of their platform choice (thus encouraging continued purchases), obtaining as much recognition for their brand as possible, and appealing to the vanity of potential new customers. I think they're fairly pretentious, but their success will be measured by how much brand-awareness and revenue they generate. They will turn some people off and appeal to others, but there's little doubt that they will succeed in increasing brand awareness. It's not unlike the Switch campaign.
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.
Nope, let me clear it up for you:
Apple is not a software vendor, Apple is also not a hardware vendor. Apple is an experience vendor.
To get you the "Macintosh Experience" for which you're paying the big bucks they need tight control and integration between the hardware and the software. The reason why MacOS X is able to give a better useability experience is because Apple knows exactly what hardware it'll be running on unlike Microsoft does with Windows.
With a PC there are thousands upon thousands of motherboards, CPUs, hard drives, video cards, sound cards, network cards, etc, etc, etc. The combinations are endless and people expect Windows to not only work, but work well, on every single combination.
I would be surprised if the number of macintosh computers that are currently supported in Tiger reached beyond double digits but even if it did it is still a lot smaller than infinity. Because Apple knows exactly what hardware the OS will be running on they can take full advantage of it whereas on the PC side of things you still have for example: 64bit CPUs running 32bit OS's and the latest version of Windows not even supporting SATA, a 3+ year old technology, out of the box.
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.
That is why Apple prevents OS X from running on just any beige box. It wasn't designed to, so if they allowed it people would try it, it would crash, not work right and people would say that MacOS X sucked.
A Mac is more than its software. You can install OS X on your homebrew PC 'til the fat man croaks, but where's your command key, your startup chime, your flashing disk on startup, your magnetic power connector, your backlit keyboard, your FireWire target disk mode? Oops, they didn't survive the installation. Trivial, maybe, but these are the sorts of details that fucking make the Mac what it is.
A Mac is more than hardware, either, as you pointed out. Its soul may be somewhere in the code, but that code is spread between both hardware and software. It's an integrated platform, and to force it into components like it were a beige-box PC sort of misses the point, I think.
Finally, if you find the Mac guy "bloody annoying," you need to relax. It's just a commercial, and obviously not targeted at the likes of you.
And now, a PSA from David Lynch.
The stuff the OEM vendor bundles on the desktop is really not a problem with Windows, it's a problem with OEMs who don't actually have the best interests of their consumers in mind. I'm not a big fan of Windows, but I'm also not a big fan of OSX. 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?) and waste less of my CPU on stupid and meaningless crap like Dashboard, software rendered drop shadows & transparencies, etc. Believe it or not, I value responsiveness, consistency, and day-to-day usability over polish. But then I'm not an average computer user, I'm a techie.
This is why I use XGL on Ubuntu on my iMac: responsive, pretty, hardware accelerated eye candy, and my CPU is totally quiet when I'm not specifically telling it to process something. I got used to seeing it idle at 10-15% CPU under OSX, and under Linux, it idles at 0-2%.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Yeah cause, you know, the Mac user is their target audience and all ...
Not that almost any PCs come with PS2 keyboard/mouse any more, but since most vendors color code all their cables, its really just a matter of either not being color/tone blind (and also being able to match colors), or at least being able to tell the difference between the icon that looks like a keyboard, and the icon that looks like a mouse. Even if in spite of all of this, you manage to get them mixed up, most computers will still work fine. The rest of the cables only fit into one socket, so the only way to misconnect them is either to forget to, or requires a hammer.
Honestly I am not sure why all the keyboards and mice are USB now, the plug is no smaller, and you also give up at least one USB port to something that every non-server computer has. 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.
And can we get a Mac with a USB port on the front of the box? I know that it's supposed to look like a simple design, but when I have to drag the expensive and fragile screen of the iMac I have at work around to get at the back of it so I can plug in the cable/thumb drive, so I can turn the screen around again so I can see it, so I can copy a file off of it, then turn it around and unplug it again, before turning it straight again so I can go back to work, it suddenly stops seeming like such a simple design. Whatever happened to form following function? Macs are all about being pretty, and somehow most people accept this as actually meaning "more user friendly."
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
BOO CREEPY FOOT DOCTOR.
HORRAY BEER.
I picked Red Stripe last time I was in the supermarket. I'm pretty sure some beer connoisseur can ream me for all the reasons why I shouldn't have bought it... but the commercial was funny. I can see a student debating between an Apple and a Dell pick the Mac because of a commercial.
Ads sell.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
These ads never say anything about "Windows." They talk about PC-vs-Mac. What they are talking about is not Windows per se, but the experience of running a non-Mac PC for most users. Most users don't understand the difference between Windows, PC hardware, add-ons from OEMs, and Microsoft Office. In their minds, it's all the same thing.
These ads play on that fact. Whether that's fair or unfair is another question entirely.
So what's not accurate about the new ads? Is the magnetically connected power cable a big hoax? Are spyware and viruses not a significant problem on a Windows computer? Does Windows offer a anything comparable to the iLife suite of programs with each install? Is getting the average Dell (including not just assembling the hardware but deleting the 200 trialware programs installed) up and running out of the box indeed easier than the iMac?
I'll grant you the freezing, then rebooting Windows days are behind them but really, what is Apple lying about in these ads?
Great - in a Windows vs OS X comparison, you resort to the argument that you don't use Windows or OS X because you prefer Linux; you don't think it's a problem that the out-of-box experience for Windows is poor because it's the OEM's fault (how else is a typical consumer supposed to buy one?!); you've got a smug attitude about how your set of values is more important than other users'.
Can't argue with you - you're definitely a classic early-stage techie. When I hear a end users complaining about the fact that when they leave their computer alone, it runs up a few CPU cycles, I'll start giving that kind of logic some weight.
So, interestingly, I talked to three different people - independent of each other - about these ads yesterday. All three were women with low to mid-level experience with computers. I tried to explain why people on the internet were angered by these ads being mean-spirited (although I sort of like them...). All three women argued that is was stupid people didn't like them, and that what they were depicting was true. Two of the three women have virtually no experience with Macs, and yet they still believed what the commercials were telling them.
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.
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
And that's when I stopped listen to your crazy rantings.
I know it's all the rage to use the style of argument, but it undermines your credibility. If you only read the assertion and not the support you are not addressing those arguments and thus your comments have failed before they have begun.
Apple sells hardware bundled with software. They do their damnedest to make sure their software only runs on their hardware, and vice versa.
Apple sells hardware/software bundles, but to argue they go out of their way to make sure their hardware won't work with other people's software is ridiculous. They went so far as to provide an official bootloader mechanism and Windows drivers bundled into an install package that makes running Windows on their hardware very simple. For that matter, much of the software they produce is provided either for free of for sale for the Windows platform.
They blatantly lie in their ads...
Great assertion, now provide some support or it is empty rhetoric.
Well, Apple has one potential monopoly I know of and thus only one way they can be using anti-competative methods. If you feel Apple is wielding monopoly influence on the music player market via their iPods, what evidence do you have to support that belief?
That is the market neighbor. It is very price sensitive. Apple still manages to be at the top of the list for hardware reliability according to spot checking by consumer reports and other independent companies. If you want more reliable and hence more expensive machines than their professional line, then I'm afraid you're in too small of a market for them to enter just now. Perhaps you should try a high-end Sun workstation.
Stop acting like Apple's the best just because they say so. If they're so great you can probably come up with something better than "experience vendor".
If you had bothered to read the rest of the post, you might know the previous poster was simply using the term "experience vendor" to describe a company that sells a bundled hardware and software package, subject to certain market constraints as far as third-party partnerships and interoperability are concerned.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
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
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
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?
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!
I am not trying to defend Windows (OSX is the better OS), but to be fair, if Microsoft offered anything like the iLife suite for Windows, they would be sued for uncompetitive buisness practices. If is is "uncompetitive" for Microsoft to offer a media player and a browser already installed with the OS, it is most certainly "uncompetitive" to offer software that does photo editing, video editing, music editing, DVD authoring, and web editing and blogging software all comparable to actual commercial software.
Microsoft can't offer any useful software with the OS, because of legal restrictions. If our selfless government and brave law enforcement officers weren't protecting us from the villianous offense of offering free audio editing software, I am sure that Microsoft would be offering a competing software package.
Original Ad:
My Version:
"waste less of my CPU on stupid and meaningless crap like Dashboard, software rendered drop shadows & transparencies, etc"
Apperently you havn't tried Vista Beta.. it takes wasting resources to a whole new level.
Mac is more than software, it is also a life-style choice and fashion statement.
I think one of the things that scares away some geeks from the mac, is the fact that so many people love the mac for reasons that has nothing to do with the software or hardware. People buy a mac for the same reason they buy a Mini Cooper and Dansk furniture... they think it makes them "funky" and "different". Where as people who don't see consumer items as a source of social identity have a hard time dealing with the whole mac image. I don't want to be making a statement of my consumer ethos by purchasing a mac, I just want a good computer!
"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?
I haven't found a USB keyboard that provides a built-in USB hub that is also powered yet. Maybe they exist, but they certainly aren't the $9 ones. No matter what I plug into there other than the mouse, it tells me I need to plug this device into a powered USB port (even if it doesn't actually need power, like an iPod or my digital camera, both of which come with their own power). Its funny because on my PC, these devices work fine on unpowered ports. Same is true on the same hardware running Ubuntu. It's only OSX that thinks these external devices need to be powered.
So plug it into the empty port on your keyboard.
Not powered.
Or, buy one of the macs that comes with ports on the front.
If these exist, I honestly didn't know it.
Or, buy a hub.
So the solution to a problem as simple as the placement of USB ports on a Mac is to purchase additional hardware to make up for the shortcomings in the initial design? Sounds simple, I'm sure every user knows what a USB hub is.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
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!
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?
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'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.
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"
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.
It's a sure sine that you are reading Slashdot when the offtopic tangent is geometry puns.
I don't want to be making a statement of my consumer ethos by purchasing a mac, I just want a good computer!
Frankly, I think you're a pretty sad specimen. On the one hand, you've bought the It's not a computer...It's a lifestyle (R) marketing message lock, stock, and barrel. On the other, you're so afraid of it that you have to demean it.
It is just a computer. It's not a threat to your individuality or your sexual orientation or your no-bullshit-kinda-guy image.
And or the record, as an Apple customer, I think these commercials are pretty lame. Almost as lame as the guy who submitted them to Slashdot.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
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?
When I opened up my dual core mac, I had to download 123 megabytes of updates to the OS. . . I wasn't sure if it was to be "safe" or not, as there were no real details on this issue provided.
Untrue. Software Update always describes the updates it lists, at least to the extent of "security-related" vs. other stuff.
Then when it came back up, it had me strike keys on my keyboard so it could figure out what kind of keyboard I was using.
I have never heard of this. Granted, I haven't set up a new Mac very recently, but it sounds suspiciously trollish.
Also, I noticed that my monitor and mac came in 2 different boxes. . . but the commercial indicated I could just open the box and make a webpage.
If you were so concerned with getting a computer that's easy to set up, why didn't you get an iMac? The Pro line is-- guess what-- targeted at professionals.
Then I discovered that if I wanted to do this "easily," I could pay an additional 80 dollars a year to rent the software that makes this easy to do.
Untrue. You are paying $80/yr (assuming that's the actual price) for web hosting and other online services, not "renting software."
Nice troll, but I give it only a 6 out of 10 for lack of originality.
Not only does software update give you a brief description of what the download addresses, it also gives a link to a comprehensive description from Apple's website.
If you use a non-Apple keyboard it does ask you to press a few keys to orient itself, but it happens at the very first boot, not after a system update has been installed. Also a Mac Pro comes with an Apple keyboard so he is either lying or chose to not use it.
As you elude to, these ads are targeted at consumers, not professionals, so they more or less reference iMacs.