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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!'"
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.
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?
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
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.
You might want to try VideoLAN - VLC media player. I thought QuickTime was pretty good until I tried the VLC player.
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.
Yeah cause, you know, the Mac user is their target audience and all ...
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.
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?
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).
Secret of marketing: Nobody identifies with the butt of a marketing campaign, including the "PC" character in these commercial. The bald, plumpish, corrected vision types with their carefully engineered VBA-enhanced spreadsheet applications at work cheerfully latch on to iPhoto slideshows with musical accompaniment that work out of the box and make their wives and kids smile.
Only a few bitter "mom's basement" types actually latch on to loser-types in advertising.
How many Mac users even care at this point what the PC offers?
1) After being 0wn3d. Again.
2) After having to buy a desktop full of shareware to get the functionality Mac provides out of the box. Again.
3) After having their 6 year-old sign up for MSN/AOL because "it was on the desktop."
4) After the latest Microsoft updates started up all those insecure services. Again. For the seventh year running.
5) After being asked for the millionth time by PC users, "what did you use to put together that great slideshow of the cub scout soapbox derby?"
The Mac/PC campaign uses humor to deflate the Microsoft/Dell "juggernaut", and remind that there is an alternative. A humorous nod to their daily frustrations resonates pretty well with consumers, combining that with the implicit promise that Apple does it different seems like a pretty smart campaign to me.
Free Adam Smith! (Or best offer.)
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
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
"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!
"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 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.
Mac cannot run most of the programs which most people are used to using
There are a lot of people who use their web browser for everything.
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