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Apple's 'What's a Computer?' Ad is Annoying People: Business Insider (businessinsider.com)
Can an iPad replace your computer? It has been the topic of debate for years, with plenty of people advising against it. Apple sure begs to differ. It has been running a commercial in which it predicts a world where a computer is extinct and a child with an iPad doesn't even know what the word "computer" means. Business Insider reports that plenty of people are finding that commercial annoying. From the report: "Does this commercial tick anybody else off?" writes one commenter on a snippet of the commercial that was posted to Facebook. "I want to smack this kid. What's a computer? You know what a computer is you disrespectful smarta--!!" Plenty of other social media posts, some with thousands of retweets, have made the same observation.
_ALL_ads are annoying!
Every ad-writing person, ever: We did our job right!
Adverts work by either appeal or by being annoying. But eventually one does learn to tune them out.. either by applying the brain filter, or by adblocking before it gets to the brain.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
I fail to see how this makes news on slashdot oh wait it's anti apple that might be how
It's not even anti-Apple, we already know Apple only makes toys for the mentally impaired.
It is so smug and self aggrandizing. The very essence of Apple. Exponential smugness.
I hate to tell you but an ipad IS a computer. Just because the packaging of the computer is different doesn't mean it isn't a computer. Just like your cell phone is a computer. It has a processor, memory, operating system, drive... sound like a computer?
The only possible explanation that I could come up with is if the commercial was supposed to be someone from the future, and they're talking to someone so old that they were from today's era.
But if you're going to do that, you need some flying cars or something to suggest that it's in the future.
As it is now, it's just a free-range child mouthing off to her neighbor.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
It's because the kid acts like an arrogant rich twit who can't look away from his screen for three seconds to have a decent conversation with someone. He looks like a poster-boy for smartphone (or tablet in this case) addiction.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Apple removed the useful headphone jack and yet other companies follow suit. The keyboard may be the next victim. It's just as easy to ignore why people need a keyboard as it is to ignore people who want a single standard headphone for everything.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
LOL, Apple just replaced the keyboard/mouse with a touchscreen. That's what an iPad is. It removed access to a filesystem also. It's still a (neutered) computer, no matter what that dumb, brainwashed kid thinks.
All those non tech geeks writing swift code on their ipads because hey, what's a computer?
An iPad can replace a computer when they can actually write all the code for iOS on an iPad. Until then, people will need real computers.
An iPad is a computer. I am at a loss to understand the outrage. Does it do everything everyone might want? No. Does any other computer do anything anyone might want? No.
Ads are generally dumb. There is no reason to get mad.
"I'm glad you asked, kid. A computer is any device that's Turing-complete".
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
A computer is a device that is user-programmable, aka you are not restricted to the apps found in the vendor's app store. The iPad is a content delivery mechanism much like a BluRay player (which has games too thanks to BD-J)
This ad even annoyed my teenage daughter. We are a very pro-Apple family, so itâ(TM)s not because we dislike Apple. But she feels that of course the kid knows what a computer is, and that the ad makes kids look stupid or oblivious to the world around them and she doesnâ(TM)t like that stereotype. Even if you donâ(TM)t use a âoecomputerâ - you certainly can know what one is. A better response would have been something witty about progress, maybe like âoeThis is more than a computerâ or âoewho uses computers anymore?â or something. This is all even before we get into the fact that from a technological standpoint, an iPad *is* a computer...
Unfortunately, people are playing directly into the hands of the "there is no such thing as bad publicity" trap because it bring awareness to their product. If they wanted to protest the commercial better then they should be posting things like, "Fuck you, Apple! #NeverBuyFromApple" which would have a better impact. The reason for this is that it sends a negative signal about a brand without leaving the ability for someone to dismiss it. It will leave people a bit bewildered but they will get the message you are trying to send instead of the one Apple is trying to send.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
...how Apple had to cancel the "I'm a Mac. I'm a PC" ads because everyone thought Mac guy was an insufferable douche and liked PC guy better.
That pisses off a lot of Mac users. See the MacRumors forums if you don't believe me. Mac mini was last updated in 2012. It was downgraded in 2014. Apple is on the verge of killing the MacBook Air even if their new butterfly keyboards are crap, they're so obsessed with USB-C that they're dropping USB-A even though a lot of people still ASK for them. Don't like the overpriced MacBook? Buy an overpriced MacBook Pro instead! It's like they think everyone is as rich as americans. Mac Pro? They released a freakin' no-future-upgrade-path of a cylinder tower instead. Would have been cool for a Mac mini, pointless for pros.
Tim Cook really does seem to think iPads can replace computers, including Macs.
But most people with a Mac need to have it, just as PC users need their PC. Whatever your choice of OS, computers are tools to work with, not toys to consume data.
If a stupid tablet was enough, we'd buy tablets!
#DeleteFacebook
Another annoying ad is the Geico ad where the gecko is hosting a meeting in a conference room, and a call-in attendee is speaking at the same time he is. It's annoying when it happens in real life - We don't need to see it in a commercial.
to keep insulting your customers.
... a child with an iPad doesn't even know what the word "computer" means.
Because that kid is dumb or uneducated. Even if we accept Apple's premise, History would still exist and that kid would certainly know that word from there and how her iPad came to be and it is actually a type of computer.
I hate marketing people -- probably more than lawyers and politicians.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
A hundred years ago, authors wrote books/manuscripts with pen/pencil and paper. Neither pen, nor pencil, nor paper requires a desk. An author can easily operate a pen, and write a book from a park bench, or lying on the floor. Police detectives can write in their paper notebook while walking the streets of any city on-foot.
And yet, with the mobility of pens and paper, authors still had writing desks, and police still did written reports from a desk.
The keyword in "desktop computer" isn't "computer", it's "desk".
A desk is a marvelous thing. It's an organizational structure. It's a focus. It's big. It's dedicated. It's productive.
If you can do anything from an ipad, then you can do six anythings concurrently on a desktop with one large screen. You can do 18 anythings concurrently on a desktop with three large screens. And if one of your "anythings" involves another something -- like an object, or another person, or a product sample, then your desk supports that kind of additional item.
And if one of your "anythings" involves real collaboration with three other humans, in one place, as most creative tasks do, then a big desk in a big room with a big screen allow three humans to function in parallel (as opposed to series).
If you can accomplish your task in a 12" screen, then enjoy your flattened 1980s original imac. 12" doesn't get much accomplished these days. It does, however, do the same thing that it always did.
Your ipad is harder to read than an old newspaper, more awkward than an old book, bigger than a walkman, has worse sound than a record player, and is more delicate anything that's ever been handheld before. It's wonderful and amazing for all sorts of other reasons, especially for varied functions, but it is absolutely worse at each individual effort.
Jack of all trades, master of none. If you don't plan on excelling at anything, the ipad is the perfect device for you.
Some advice: when you hire a contractor to build your house, don't hire one who comes with a swiss army knife. You want the guy with the big rusty hammer, and the big box of screw drivers.
I fail to see how this makes news on slashdot oh wait it's anti apple that might be how
It's not even anti-Apple, we already know Apple only makes toys for the mentally impaired.
You know what's the definition of "mentally impaired"?
Calling the most successful company of ANY type on the planet a "Toymaker for the mentally impaired".
If you try using an Apple toy with anything that isn't another Apple toy, you're going to spend at least as much time as that Linux user trying to troubleshoot it, except you're far less likely to find a way to fix it in the end other than to -surprise!- buy more Apple stuff.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Its 2018 not 2008 grandpa. Linux printing works great now. Thanks Apple for your work on cups.
Which they COULD have snatched-away from the Open Source world.
But didn't.
And in fact, just announced that they are switching it to the Apache 2.0 License.
Remember that, Apple Haters.
Millenials are why we can't have nice things. This commercial is typical of millenial thinking by ignoring reality and history. Also, I like some Apple stuff, but I'm not stupid enough to think a single Apple product is the best tool for all jobs.
ipads are good for sitting on the john taking a shit, or reading an ebook.
Nobody lays on their stomach in the grass to play with a computing device.
Nobody.
Funny that you use that example. A few months ago, a house guest tried to print to my wireless Brother printer from their iPad. They kept whining that it was just prompting them for "an AirPort device". They were never able to print.
It doesn't annoy me. It's just Apple actually TELLLING us what we've long observed: that they don't want real computing being done with their hardware. They want you to be a media consumer in their walled garden. No arbitrary programming languages, no installing your own OS on the hardware, none of the things that we associate with computers.
They want to kill computers. That's Apple's vision of the future--children never seeing an actual computer. They want it to be like my early childhood, except with a fancier TV.
Apple has its spaceship castle. Time to raise the drawbridge.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I've never had any problems using my Apple "toys" with non-Apple devices. I print stuff. I use a VPN to log into other networks that don't use Apple routers. I remote desktop into windows/linux machines all the time. I SSH into non-Apple computers. I mount NFS shares from non-Apple servers. I sometimes use them as remote controls for my Rokus. I'm confused. What problems are you describing? My home is mixed with Apple and non-Apple stuff and they can all talk to each other just fine.
I think it might have been better if the kid would have just said "Everything", then had the iPad logo. And I'm not an Apple user.
Streaming directly to a TV from your phone is easy with android stuff and requires an AppleTV for iPhone, for example.
You ask for a computer for Christmas, and mom buys you a Nintendo 3DS. Do you applaud her for being "technically correct, the best kind of correct" (Futurama)?
Just because you're successful doesn't mean you don't owe your success to exploiting idiots.
Just look at Trump...
Sure, if the only measure of "successful" is has the biggest pile of rotting money.
I would say the most successful company was AT&T/Bell Labs. But you know they actually made shit.
C. Unix. Actual Telecommunication hardware.
Depends. I can stream from my iPhone to my friend's chromecast, from the youtube app.
You know what's the definition of "mentally impaired"?
Calling the most successful company of ANY type on the planet a "Toymaker for the mentally impaired".
Actually, I'll have you know the average IQ is 100. You could cater to nothing but the mentally impaired and control half the world's wealth by definition.
I would doubt that the sub 100 IQ'ed control half the world's wealth, by definition. Trump notwithstanding, LOL!
By that argument, any computer isn't a computer, because it can only do those things that are allowed by the CPU manufacturer.
As far as I'm aware, CPU manufacturers aim to make their products LBA-complete,* such that they can do anything a linear bounded automaton can do. What significant parts of LBA completeness are not "allowed by the CPU manufacturer," other than as part of a smart card or other deliberately locked down SoC intended for security against physical access?
* Technically, it's impossible for a physical computer to be Turing complete, as a Turing machine has unbounded tape. An LBA is the same as a Turing machine except for having bounded tape.
Guess what the best selling beer in the world is? Budweiser.
Obviously, it's the best beer, then.
Some of the apathy toward fixing encoding is a legacy of vandals abusing Unicode control characters to mess with the layout and abusing foreign language characters to post obscene glyph art. If Unicode support matters to you, you could always use SoylentNews instead.
a "computer" is anything that does computations.
Humans, now and again, are considered computers; in fact a certain National Aeronautics and Space Administration is well known for its employment of human computers.
Pretty sure they made a movie about 'em.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The owners of those supercomputers can program them themselves. The owner of an iPad cannot program it without additionally purchasing a sufficiently recent Mac, whose price typically exceeds that of the iPad.
I've already provided links to two different programming languages for the iPad, neither of which breaks the bank in price.
In any case, you being too cheap to buy the required equipment to program your computer doesn't turn it into a "not computer". It just means you are not interested enough in wanting to program it yourself using xcode or swift.
As for the comment by another about how Wikipedia defines a computer, well, I yield to the perfection of technical documentation that is Wikipedia. I shall ignore every CS class I've had that provides a useful definition and carry the Wiki-flag to my grave.
Would you likewise consider a video game console to be a user-programmable computer because "people who care enough" can start a game studio and buy a multi-thousand-dollar devkit?
Yes. And now we've moved the goalposts again, with "user-programmable". The cost of the programming software is not relevant to what the hardware is.
I deal with land mobile radios all the time. The hardware to program the frequencies into them is not free, and yet the manufacturers call the radios "programmable". Are they "not programmable" because the stuff to program them isn't free? The correct answer is no, they are programmable. The fact that YOU can't do it because you won't spend the money for the hardware to do it changes nothing.