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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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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)
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.
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!
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.
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.
It's a sure sine that you are reading Slashdot when the offtopic tangent is geometry puns.