Apple responds to "I'm a PC"

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple_getamac_beancounter_20081019_480x272.mov

by andygeers • 18 years ago

72 162 18 years ago

movies.apple.com

ace• 18 years ago

low&lame

raganwald5• 18 years ago

I'm reminded of what Charlton Heston said to Bill Maher. Charlton had taken out full page personal attack ads blasting Barbara Streisand for her anti-gun activism, and Bill Maher asked him if this was really appropriate.

Charlton considered for a moment, and then responded. I was unkind, he admitted, Not unfair, but unkind.

Now as to lame, is it there some factual error? Is Microsoft actually spending more on fixing Vista than advertising it? My feeling is that if the ad is correctly representing Microsoft's strategy, there is nothing lame about depicting it. The un-lame thing about the ad is that it never says Microsoft is wrong, it shows you the facts through a skit and lets you decide what to do.

I wonder if people would react differently if these ads were SNL skits. I have a feeling that some people are so emotional about one company or the other--which is odd, these are companies, after all, not religious edifices--that they simply cannot sit back and enjoy a good laugh.

whatusername• 18 years ago

If you look at Win7 as "Fixing Vista" --> which in some/lots of ways it is - then I'd guess that MS are spending more on "fixing" than on advertising.. Certainly nothing near that ratio though..

The reasonably insightful comment on reddit was that this isn't just a pissing contest between MS and Apple - it's a pissing contest between Crispin Porter and TBWA (the ad agencies)...

jyothi2• 18 years ago

> low&lame

high end flame. :)

LPTS4• 18 years ago

Brilliant. I love the look on Macs face when he swoops the ad money towards fixing vista and PC swoops it toward advertising.

This is like boxing. Mac ads have had pc's reputation on the ropes in the collective unconscious. All the sudden, after getting beat on barely throwing a punch, PC comes out swinging. Even lands a blow on macs chin, shakes him up a bit. But before PC can land another punch, this uppercut takes out 3 of his teeth and drives the cartilage in his nose into his brain.

Now, everyone who sees both ads will think "Why is microsoft spending $$$ on this without fixing vista?" This ad, and it's partner on censoring vista, just short circuited Microsofts 300 million dollar campaign. This is microsoft being completely outclassed by people who just get it.

motoko• 18 years ago

Actually, I'm thinking: wow, I voluntarily watched an advertisement for a geek sports rivalry. Go gray! No, go blue! Let's talk about this at the watercooler and pretend we share something to care about in our vapid, disposable lives!

Xichekolas2• 18 years ago

Yeah, at some point I'd like to see Linus walk through one of those ads and just slap them both on the back of head and call them morons...

LPTS4• 18 years ago

Sports is the wrong metaphor.

It's more like being in a science class and watching an argument between a creationist and a real scientist.

"Evolution is good. Things should evolve and get better and we shouldn't be afraid of it."

"I did not come from a monkey. God made the Supermall 6,000 years ago, and it's always bad when things change, which means I'm afraid of anything ever getting better. Can I have that banana?"

Motoko: "Yawn. It's like watching sports."

cbrinker3• 18 years ago

"Mac ads have had pc's reputation on the ropes in the collective unconscious."

Do you mean Microsoft? If so, it sure as hell hasn't scratched the business world. It's only knicked the consumer world a couple percentage points. I'd reconsider your position.

Further, this is kind of old and becoming a nonissue in today's world. With the migration towards non-platform-specific consumer usage of systems (ie. internet) I don't see as heavy of a need for some bloated consumer operating system.

I'm no huge Windows fan. I've used countless operating systems; C64, Cisco IOS, HP-UX, AS/400, Solaris, Mac OS, Windows 3.x-Vista, Server NT-Server 2k8, Linux derivatives galore, BSD. While developing/working on them and I can say I'm not really impressed with what Apple offers.

Apple is just a gimmick in the world of computing systems. You can claim that consumers aren't nerds that love command lines, but what do you think drives the media infrastructure that panders to all the fun-filled music and video that Apple users love to waste time on? It sure as hell isn't Mac OS.

Computers primarily run the world's business. Steve Jobs' goal is not to get Apple tangled up with "boring" business stuff. Hell, look at the stupid hipster getup the "Mac Guy" wears in the comercials. Jobs put the noose around Apple's neck when he set the goal of being consumer-orientated instead of business-orientated if his plan is digital world domination.

gaius• 18 years ago

You've forgotten the third market, technical computing, which Apple does have an interest in.

turtle_2• 18 years ago

Put a noose around its neck, huh? Jobs returned to Apple and changed its direction about 10 years ago. - Go to: http://finance.google.com/finance?q=AAPL - Click the 10 yr time frame. - Click the check box to add MSFT to the same graph. - Tell me again how bad of a job Steve has been doing, and how it hasn't meant anything to MSFT.

Now some more ycombinator specific points. When you get together with a bunch of web startup owners or attend a conference, do you see more or less macs than the overall market would indicate? Would you say there are more than 1 mac per 10 startups? Would you say that what startups are using, they are quite likely to support as they grow?

ratsbane3• 18 years ago

There's a lot more to it than just "Apple is just a gimmick..." OS X is unix and unix is the real rising star here. Apple just had the good sense to catch a ride on the bandwagon of that rising star and the competence to do a very good job of it. Apple's market share is still small but it's been growing steadily for years. Today's rate-of-change is tomorrow's level.

unalone28• 18 years ago

Right now, Apple's pushing for the businessplace. Snow Leopard is supposed to have out-of-the-box Exchange support, which is a step Apple needs to take. Beyond that, Apple's been winning over plenty of small businesses: not the big guys yet, but large corporations can't change on a dime. If Apple stays as consistently reliable for another handful of years, I'd predict us seeing the Mac starting to gain entry to the workplace.

LPTS4• 18 years ago

Go to a college and look at all the kids. They're using macs. That means, in the future, the people who make decisions will lean more towards mac.

I don't at all think that mac's polish is a gimmick. We know that using 2 monitors increases productivity. This is a general case of the fact that how you connect to your computer directly alters how your brain has to work in order to use the computer. It seems to me that a better user interface and a more clean design are important ways to decrease the cognitive friction with the computer. You know those little logos they put on pc laptops palmrests? Each of those, just by being in your visual field, causes a cascade of preconscious neurological activity as your brain triggers all the things it associates with the logos. Thus, just by sitting down to work in that environment, your are decreasing the brain power you can spend working. The superior mac UI generates much less cognitive friction, allowing me to focus more of my cognitive processes to thinking about what I'm working on. You may think this is a gimmick, I think it's essential to being maximally productive.

It's like the band velvet underground. Sure, there were more popular bands, but fans of velvet underground largely created later progress in subsequent waves of musical progress.

arien• 18 years ago

MS and apple... It's kind of cute, like watching kids fight :)

sofal• 18 years ago

I'd say the same thing about the presidential debates. The problem is that these cute fights represent a power struggle of unthinkable magnitude and influence.

mixmax2• 18 years ago

Now if apple would only realise that quicktime on the net has lost out to flash I would be able to wacth this. Quicktime reminds me of realplayer: buggy on PC's, runs lots of processes in the background I didn't ask for and requires me to install itunes which I don't want.

sjh• 18 years ago

"Slimming down the bloated iTunes 8 installer": http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=554

mixmax2• 18 years ago

Thanks for the link, but my point was more that Apple should really watch their step here. They're creating a crappy product that pushes stuff you didn't ask for to potential buyers. And it inflicts heavy damage on their otherwise good reputation.

rkowalick• 18 years ago

You can always use mplayer for windows

astine2• 18 years ago

On Windows, I prefer VLC. It's an easier install though YMMV.

jordyhoyt• 18 years ago

VLC media player: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

cubicle67• 18 years ago

Irony: I can't view this link on an iPhone

jkent• 18 years ago

I wonder what proportion of Vista users think it needs fixing?

I don't understand the new Microsoft PC adverts either. What does having glasses have to do with anything?

cstejerean2• 18 years ago

I don't think Apple is trying to target users of Vista, just people that are considering moving off XP.

unalone28• 18 years ago

Why can't it be they're targeting both?

jcl• 18 years ago

What does having glasses have to do with anything?

That is exactly the point Microsoft is trying to make. The Apple ads personify Windows as a glasses-wearing dork, while the Microsoft ads try to dispel that association.

visitor4rmindia• 18 years ago

When did advertisments become about putting your competitor down? Heck even the Coke v/s Pepsi wars didn't stoop this low.

If Apple can't market it's products on their own features and has to rely on this kind of negative adverts I'd say it's really hitting a low-point. The ad kind of pisses me off actually.

DanielBMarkham• 18 years ago

You know, I'm starting to agree with you.

I've had Vista since it came out and am completely happy with it. I thought the Apple commercials were cute, but off-base. They were funny, and they emphasized Mac good points, so I liked them.

But now it just seems mean. Hell, computer commercials are getting like political commercials, and we've all had enough of that lately.

rbanffy5• 18 years ago

I am sure not a full-time Mac evangelist (I use Linux myself), but have you tried to use a Mac for a month or so?

I was perfectly happy with Windows (XP then) when I decided to check the greener grass on the other side of the fence (Red Hat, first, then Debian, then Ubuntu) and I never thought about going back. Linux is so much more refined under the hood that more than compensates for the lack of software in several niches. I recommended my then girlfriend (now wife) to buy a Mac when she wanted to upgrade her PC and she loves it. I wouldn't recommend Linux for her because the added elegance under the hood would not compensate the limitations in dealing with complex (read quirky) Office documents.

Now, we both cringe our teeth because our employers issued Windows running Dell laptops for us. Argh.

jimbokun7• 18 years ago

"But now it just seems mean."

This is Microsoft you are talking about.

One thing Microsoft can never, ever earn is the right to sympathy. You may say that business is cut throat, and thus Microsoft's pitiless, air supply choking history is entirely justified. But feeling sorry for Microsoft because someone is mocking them is just absurd. They have richly earned several lifetimes of ridicule.

cbrinker3• 18 years ago

Perhaps it's because Apple offers nothing worth switching for over a Microsoft solution that is generally cheaper and more supported by not only oem manufacturers and colleagues, but software and hardware manufacturers?

rbanffy5• 18 years ago

You obviously never used a Mac. ;-)

schapman2• 18 years ago

I concur that this ad is a bit much, but Apple's re-branding of Microsoft has worked so well with these ads that I doubt they'll know when to stop.

petercooper• 18 years ago

It's very much like political advertising, actually.

jumper• 18 years ago

I don't know... on the one hand it has gotten nasty, but on the other... some of the problems Windows has are kind of ridiculous, and it's almost a feature to say, "We don't do all that stupid crap!", even if, ideally, it never would have been necessary to mention in the first place....

Then again, I feel Macs do stupid crap too, so it would seem to be a two way street.

ratsbane3• 18 years ago

I liked it. It isn't mean at all. It's lighthearted and funny but it does address something I've thought about before. Perhaps Vista isn't as bad as most people think but it certainly does have problems. Instead earnestly promising to address any real issues Microsoft announced a $300m ad campaign to deal with it. MS could have earned a lot more credibility and respect by admitting to perhaps even a small sampling of complaints and issuing updates to deal with them - but they didn't. By trying to address these problems with a very expensive ad campaign MS effectively blames Vista users. This Apple ad captures that in a lighthearted and funny way. This ad makes me like Apple.

briansmith5• 18 years ago

What parts of Vista need to be fixed?

unalone28• 18 years ago

They're getting aggressive because they want big results.

OS X is on the rise: it's getting big pretty quickly. Apple wants to take advantage of that and force every last Apple product they can into the consumer marketplace.

jimbokun7• 18 years ago

"If Apple can't market it's products on their own features"

I might be able to accept this technique if I could see any evidence of Microsoft actually advertising their features.

What the heck is "I'm a PC" advertising? Can you point out the features highlighted in those commercials? What about the "Wow." commercials before that? I'm trying to remember the last Microsoft commercial I saw that actually advertised a feature of its products.

The iPhone ads are almost entirely about features, and brilliantly done. As others have pointed out, many of the "I'm a Mac/PC" ads have highlighted differences between Macs and PCs. I don't see how Microsoft has any standing when it comes to complaining about advertising based on actual product features.

jyothi2• 18 years ago

Hilarious!

Ad reflects what differentiates Apple from MS. Original, highly creative and perfect.

thorax• 18 years ago

This confuses me-- what does Apple spend on advertising? It's surely enormous.

eggnet2• 18 years ago

Apple invests in advertising. There is a difference.

thomasmallen5• 18 years ago

This is pretty ironic considering how Mac ads far outnumber Windows ads. Maybe next time around Apple can pull a few of the spots and get Java up to date sooner than a year after an OS release.

unalone28• 18 years ago

But do the Apple ads cost as much as this Microsoft campaign? (Disclaimer: I don't know if they do or not. I'm curious myself about this.) Because with Microsoft the cost of the ads kept popping up, especially in regards with Seinfeld. I'm guessing their current campaign is pretty vastly expensive, and I don't know if Apple's campaign is or not.

thomasmallen5• 18 years ago

It's just that, regardless of cost-effectiveness, an advertisement that criticizes another company for spending money on advertising is pretty hypocritical.

yef• 18 years ago

While 3 years old, this article says Apple spend $287 million in advertising in 2005, and that was part of an upward trend. http://news.cnet.com/iPod-ads-cost-Apple-a-bundle/2100-1047_...

In comparison, the Vista campaign is reported at $300 million today.

I think we can say that Apple spends comparable money on advertising as Microsoft.

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but it does make this particular commercial annoying and misleading; a big disappointment from the clever ones that began this ad campaign.

TweedHeads• 18 years ago

Ads are really funny, unless you are on the microsoft side.

astine2• 18 years ago

if you are on either 'side,' then you either own stock in one of the companies, or their is something wrong with you.

But that's just my opinion.

unalone28• 18 years ago

I'd call myself on Apple's side, mainly because where they go there's an emphasis on polishing things till they shine and really caring about users. I've had a marvelous experience not only with Apple products but with Apple designers. Not so much on the other side.

tel• 18 years ago

As dirty as it is, Microsoft was asking for this.

It's not polite to tease, but when the head of the pack shows they're susceptible to it, it's going to happen.

tok9• 18 years ago

Apple couldnt go any lower these days with thier ads.

The desperation is starting to seep through.

Readmore• 18 years ago

I think it's actually pretty hilarious. Ever since the Microsoft "I'm a PC" ads came out I've wondered what it meant for the Apple ads, I guess now we know. Apple has them coming and going, there really isn't much they can do.

Gizmodo had a similar reaction to many of you, that it's a pissing match and normal people don't care, but actually I think it's the opposite. People LOVE the Mac ads, even people who don't use a Mac think they are funny. This is another instance of the Techie echo-camber getting in the way, so what if some hardcore techies don't like them because Linux is superior, btw it's not, the market at large loves the ads and it's getting them to take a better look at Apple computers, end of story.

aspirant• 18 years ago

"Advertising is the price you pay for being unoriginal."

mds• 18 years ago

Reminds me of the escalating bumper sticker wars between the Jesus fish stickers and the Darwin fish (with legs) stickers... recently I've started seeing "Jesus fish eating a Darwin fish" stickers. I'm still waiting for "Darwin fish eating a Jesus fish eating a Darwin fish".

I can't wait to see Microsoft's meta-meta-response.

jagjit2• 18 years ago

These ads are getting more and more lame. As a fulltime programmer and xp and vista user - I never felt the need to use macs but for their unix base and cool design. Considered buying one recently but settled for a vista pc with much better configuration at half the price. It has been running great for me with not a single issue in past 6 months. For any need of unix system, I run ubuntu or freebsd vmware appliances on my vista.

If apple cannot convince a frugal programmer like me who would love to own a mac - I do not know how even these ads can help them much in the general pc market. I think they will remain limited only to folks who really appreciate their commitment to design and would pay so much extra just for that.

jagjit2• 18 years ago

And a crazy apple fanboy wants to vote my opinion down - why dont people like me just get it already.

I guess these ads have an audience after all. But then it is a waste of the apple advertising dollar to preach to the choir.

olefoo• 18 years ago

One very cynical view is that Apple is mostly in the business of selling 'Taste'. As such, confirming to customers who purchase many, many Apple products over the years that they are somehow better than those who lack their refined sensibilities is not wasted money.

sfphotoarts• 18 years ago

These ads lack class, which is what Apple has always tried to stand for, in design of their products and their company image - anyone remember the Think Different campaign?

I'd rather they work on reducing the difference in price between the pc world and the mac in laptops. It used to be a couple hundred dollars difference, which I'm ok with because that, to me, is the price of OSX, but its getting increasingly harder to justify the expanding price difference.

If/when the OSX86 project gets to the point where their ISO is a no-brainer install of OSX on cheap dell/acer (etc.) laptops then Apple will have to reconsider its pricing.

The irony here (like rain on your wedding day!) is that it's actually Apple with that big pile of cash spending it on advertising, while MSFT goes back to the drawing board to come up with an O/S that more people like...

socratees• 18 years ago

I liked the ad anyways!!!

Apple responds to "I'm a PC"

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