New online-only Mac vs. PC ad.

[Anonymous Freak]

I see it on Engadget (http://www.engadget.com) on every single page there, as well as some pages of PC Magazine (http://www.pcmag.com). It's a two-piece ad, with a banner on top that has an old fashioned light-bulbs-on-wood sign with a cord coming off the end that starts off with all the bulbs off reading "DON'T GIVE UP ON VISTA", and a second piece on the right hand side of the page lower, with PC holding a big red button connected to the cord (running toward the top banner, obviously,) and they talk about how people shouldn't give up on Vista; PC hits the button, and just the words "GIVE UP" light up. Then he hits it again, and "ON VISTA" also lights up. Then they go back and forth about the sign, PC hitting the button repeatedly, and "DON'T" never lights up, although the other words flick on and off at various intervals.

edit: attached a screenshot of the ad. Yes, I'm reading a PC Mag article about an early-touted Windows Vista feature that isn't really available yet. Ah, the irony.

[neonblue2]

Got 'em (http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=91799)

[apfhex]

It's a two-piece ad, with a banner on top
I had to watch the ad (at Engadget) twice, only got it after reading this thread. My eyes completely missed the banner at the top of the page, I'm so used to ignoring them.

[Anonymous Freak]

I had to watch the ad (at Engadget) twice, only got it after reading this thread. My eyes completely missed the banner at the top of the page, I'm so used to ignoring them.

heh, yeah. I had my banner-ad-blocker turned on the first time, which made the top one completely disappear, and the 'main' one got put on the left-side of the page, OVER the body of the article. That had me going "what the.?.?.?" so I turned off my ad-blocker to figure out what was going on.

[TimTheEnchanter]

LOL! Thats pretty clever. :D

[FireArse]

Coolest Mac Vs. PC ad :)

I like it a lot!

F

[rph105]

LOVE IT, I gave up on XP

[slu]

I don't think new ads belong on the main page. Who cares about the ads? I sure don't.

[ShortCutMan]

I laughed, that's pretty original! :D

[elppa]

I watched the ad and completely missed the banner at the top.

Having had it pointed out I have to say that is one of the most innovative ways to use the two ad banners on the page.

It's very, very funny.

Pity iPhone users won't be able to see it :p

[stainlessliquid]

Its way too big, I totally didnt understand what they were looking at because the top part was out of frame since the bottom video is so big. Basically I was like "wtf, how is that supposed to be funny?" It wasnt until I came here and saw it in a small image that I finally understood what the point was. It also doesnt help that they arent connected to eachother so it looks like 2 different ads, the top one being a typical banner ad that I naturally scroll down until its out of view.

[ezrabud]

Simply Brilliant

[jaredtorres]

Not only is this ad another funny mock of Windows, I think it will actually be quite effective.

[ntrigue]

Excuse me I forgot I had AdBlock (maybe the best Safari plug-in). After disabling it I watched a fantastic Apple ad! Just love it!

[Str8edgepunker]

That was awesome and really creative on apple's part. :D

[Pressure]

Funny! :D

[kuebby]

This is a good one. I've been wondering though, I had so many problems with XP on my old Dell, so if that was so bad for me I can't even imagine how bad Vista must be. (My logic being XP is said to be relatively good and Vista is relatively widely accepted as not yet up-to-par.)

[SolRayz]

He he thats pretty funny. :apple:ftw!

[Di9it8]

Pity iPhone users won't be able to see it :p

NewsFlash

Flash coming soon to iPhone along with Vista update:D

[bigbossbmb]

Coolest Mac Vs. PC ad :)

x2

That is brilliant.

[plumbingandtech]

Very Very Funny.

[contoursvt]

Sadly, we've had more stability issues with Tiger than Vista within our organization. While the problems in vista seem to be more driver availability and some incompatabilities with older software, with Tiger, we've had all kinds of weird issues with finder content not refreshing, printing not working at all (to any printer) until reboot..etc. Just weird things that seem silly in this day and age.

We even had two machines side by side looking at the computers on the network and one would see machine called "X" lets say and the other would not show it in the list. No matter what we did it wouldnt show. Even upon reboot it failed to show. Very weird. Both were running 10.4.x at the time. It was a 2K3 server that failed to show but other 2k3 servers we had still were there.

Anyway from my experience in our environment where we have 100+ XP stations, 10-15 Vista stations and 20 OSX stations (10.4) I can honestly say that Apple is grasping at straws with the ads. You may not like the UI but all the talk about stability and viruses and all that being a major issue is a farse. In the 4 years of being at the company, I have yet to see 1 comprimised computer (Virus, Trojan or Malware). All the ads are doing is annoying the people who are computer literate enough to use both platforms and the ones that fine them believable are the inexperienced and gullable. Thats my take on things. Even speaking to the hard core designers who have used both platforms, they find the ads unprofessional.

If you've ever seen a really small cocky guy being all loud mouth and pushy even towards the big guy... Well you know where I might be going with this. I believe in speak softly and carry a big stick. The ads IMO show apple as the 'little' guy who makes a lot of noise. One day he's gonna get hit. LOL.

Really, with MS office being such an important software for a lot of people, all MS would have to do is stop development of that product on the apple platform and it would do major damage. Not sure if anyone else feels this way but I think its retarded to poke the sleeping bull with a big stick....

[mwwlse]

The ironic part is, if I load it in Safari it crashes my browser. Way to go Apple.:mad:

[minik]

Aside from the content, I generally dislike ad on webpages.

[Consultant]

Really great ad!

------
If you think Vista has less problems than OS X? Think again.

Vista requires driver to connect to common DVI or VGA output (to say, a Video Projector), that even OS 9 can auto detect. Yeah those "drivers" don't exist for most projectors, so if you have to make a business presentation while on vista, you are screwed...

Vista requires drivers for networked IP printers. OS X has most printers built in.

"Vista worries lead IT pros to consider Linux, Mac alternatives"
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/111607-vista-worries.html

[GSMiller]

Hahaha, that's too funny. I figured it'd give a BSoD thing or something.

[plumbingandtech]

Aside from the content, I generally dislike ad on webpages.

Yep. But something has got to pay the bills.

[MattG]

This is a good one. I've been wondering though, I had so many problems with XP on my old Dell, so if that was so bad for me I can't even imagine how bad Vista must be. (My logic being XP is said to be relatively good and Vista is relatively widely accepted as not yet up-to-par.)

It really can't even be explained...you just have to try it to see how bad it is. I use XP on a daily basis, and in relative terms it's not so bad. It works, it really doesn't crash much, with all the latest patches and fixes it runs relatively solidly. Vista on the other hand is just a complete trainwreck. Every time I use it makes me feel like most people probably do the first time they use a computer, where you just can't find your way around anything and feel confused in general. It's actually kind of embarrassing for me when I go to help someone with a Vista machine, and I look like I don't know what I'm doing, because some things are just hidden so deep within the OS that it takes forever to find them. It's so bloated and over-complicated; to me a good application is one that minimizes the number of clicks to get to something, and Vista does just the opposite.

[thejadedmonkey]

Sadly, we've had more stability issues with Tiger than Vista within our organization. While the problems in vista seem to be more driver availability and some incompatabilities with older software, with Tiger, we've had all kinds of weird issues with finder content not refreshing, printing not working at all (to any printer) until reboot..etc. Just weird things that seem silly in this day and age.

We even had two machines side by side looking at the computers on the network and one would see machine called "X" lets say and the other would not show it in the list. No matter what we did it wouldnt show. Even upon reboot it failed to show. Very weird. Both were running 10.4.x at the time. It was a 2K3 server that failed to show but other 2k3 servers we had still were there.

Anyway from my experience in our environment where we have 100+ XP stations, 10-15 Vista stations and 20 OSX stations (10.4) I can honestly say that Apple is grasping at straws with the ads. You may not like the UI but all the talk about stability and viruses and all that being a major issue is a farse. In the 4 years of being at the company, I have yet to see 1 comprimised computer (Virus, Trojan or Malware). All the ads are doing is annoying the people who are computer literate enough to use both platforms and the ones that fine them believable are the inexperienced and gullable. Thats my take on things. Even speaking to the hard core designers who have used both platforms, they find the ads unprofessional.

If you've ever seen a really small cocky guy being all loud mouth and pushy even towards the big guy... Well you know where I might be going with this. I believe in speak softly and carry a big stick. The ads IMO show apple as the 'little' guy who makes a lot of noise. One day he's gonna get hit. LOL.

Really, with MS office being such an important software for a lot of people, all MS would have to do is stop development of that product on the apple platform and it would do major damage. Not sure if anyone else feels this way but I think its retarded to poke the sleeping bull with a big stick....

Tiger was a train-wreck of an OS. Tiger on my friends G4 is always running slower then slow, and Tiger on my MBP was always crashing. Upgrade to Leopard, it's way better.

[thingamajigidid]

luv it, but with the recent post of the imei on the iphone, i fear big brother might be doing the same thing on the macs.... or r they doing so right now..

*runs and hides*

[celloman]

hahaaha that ad was very funny :)

[x86isslow]

Tiger was a train-wreck of an OS. Tiger on my friends G4 is always running slower then slow, and Tiger on my MBP was always crashing. Upgrade to Leopard, it's way better.

Leopard, definitely way better, but man it has some teething problems too. Granted, most of that had to do with not releasing GM-build Leopard to developers until retail release.


Unsanity, hurry up… me hates me some uglydock and menubar.

[stevearm]

Not only is this ad another funny mock of Windows, I think it will actually be quite effective.

It's funny everyone is praising this ad and how clever it is, when the majority of people on here didn't even spot the banner at the top of the screen.

[happydude]

easily the best internet ad to date.:apple::apple::D:apple::apple:

[stevearm]

easily the best internet ad to date.:apple::apple::D:apple::apple:

I doubt it'll make the 95+% of people in the world who are happy with their PC's switch however.

[michaelsviews]

This has to be one of the best ad's going. at least IHMO, as for PCMAG and John Dvorass and his trivial opinions . Apple the way to go and I went over a year ago. Never looked back once, and will NEVER EVER load winblows on any MAC I own.

One thing I noticed about the PC Ragazine years ago was who ever PAID the most for advertising got the best ratings and reviews. Just MY Opinion and thats that

As for the ones out there feeling insecure about an IMEI number and are reading in between the lines , oh well , get over it. VZW and AT&T have both sub come to the government so if your doing something illegal well sooner or later your going to be caught but more than likely the IMEI thing is nothing more than tracing/tracking what devices are out there and where are they?

[happydude]

I doubt it'll make the 95+% of people in the world who are happy with their PC's switch however.

when i say its the "best ad out there" or whatever i said, i'm going with how clever it was to have to dual banner thing going, the humor and the general idea. as far as reaching switchers . . . obviously getting the other 95% to swtich is never going to happen, but just getting people to enter the site, browse around and keep the possibility of buying a mac in the future is definitely there. maybe they'll get an ipod while they are there too. regardless of marketing, i still give this ad a 11 out of 10 just because it's clever and funny and breaks the mold.

[Jetson]

The ironic part is, if I load it in Safari it crashes my browser. Way to go Apple.:mad:
Apple really needs to get it's act together.

Safari bugs and other things people have pointed out show that Apple isn't perfect by any means, so these ads poking fun at Windows stretch credibility to say the least.

It's like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

Still, the ads ARE working, judging by the growing number of Mac customers, so I don't blame Apple for continuing this frequently humorous ad campaign.

[ivan1234]

very original, apple's best ad yet! :D

[JesterJJZ]

Ok that was funny. :D

[deathshrub]

What a lame ad. Glad I use adblock.

[AtHomeBoy_2000]

Really great ad!
"Vista worries lead IT pros to consider Linux, Mac alternatives"
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/111607-vista-worries.html
I work for a church and we recently asked a few IT people to volunteer their time to help us revamp our servers and network. One of his first questions was "do you have any vista PCs?" I told him no, i dint think it was very stable yet. He replied "good. dont!"

[billystlyes]

I rolled back to Tiger! I hate to say it, but Vista is more stable than Leopard. Leopard is very buggy.

[msharp]

This is Brilliant!

That made me laugh! (Although I didn't get it for the first time).

I think this is gonna cost Apple some money for nothing because everyone of us who already is a Mac owner needs to watch that twice (at least).

:D

[AeronPrometheus]

Apple deserves an award for creative advertisement for this. No other company has made me look forward to the next commercial or avalanche ad.

The ironic part is, if I load it in Safari it crashes my browser. Way to go Apple.:mad:

It's you, reinstall Safari.

edit: Ok, I just successfully played the ad on the Safari 3 beta... on Windows... Vista... x64. And it played just fine. It's definitely you.

[Steve Works]

ok it was rather funny....but it's getting a bit dull these ads...always the same thing... ok we know microsoft sucks...
but leopard sucks as well....so you should make a banner saying "please don't give up on leopard...just wait untill there's a real update..."

geez...i'm really tired of these ads...

[smueboy]

Pretty clever!
[But i'm sure i would have ignored it (like i do all ads on webpages) if it wasn't posted here.]

[paola105]

Hahha that was pretty funny :D

[whistlerpro]

lol, fantastic ad, the problem is though, lots of people who are seeing it are having to force quit their browsers, mac or pc, safari, ie or firefox. Engadget have even posted an article telling people how to block flash. I thought it was a fluke, but it kept happening. Apple may have made a wrong move.

[katanna]

I hosted the video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z-peol6A_c

Matthew

[pknz]

I watched the ad and completely missed the banner at the top.

Having had it pointed out I have to say that is one of the most innovative ways to use the two ad banners on the page.


I have to admit the first time I saw it I didn't notice the top banner either. Makes more sense now...

[Nuc]

Great ad. Very funny!

[Westside guy]

I'm wondering if they (the sites themselves) have pulled the ad off their pages - I'm having trouble finding it now on Engadget or PCMag.com. There are some generic Mac ads, but that one seems to be gone...

I imagine PC Mag doesn't want people reading their article on "fine-tuning Vista" and seeing that ad...

[mlcolorado]

NewsFlash

Flash coming soon to iPhone along with Vista update:D

Who ever said that?????:confused:

[33scottie33]

I'm wondering if they (the sites themselves) have pulled the ad off their pages - I'm having trouble finding it now on Engadget or PCMag.com. There are some generic Mac ads, but that one seems to be gone...

Still showing for me.

I missed the banner too, the first couple of times I saw it. It is absolutely the best Mac ad yet!!!! Two thumb up!! Way up!!:D

[whatever]

Aside from the content, I generally dislike ad on webpages.

Yeah, but if it wasn't for the ads their would be much on the internet.

Ads pay for much of everything going on the internet.

No ads, no revenue, no revenue, no Google, no Yahoo, no YouTube, no Free sites, no price drops in technology, no usage, no....

Well you get the picture.

so many people forget what it was like 15 years ago on the internet (being from one of the original first 1000 .com's in the world I remembered being yelled at by the academics about putting up a site and how we were going to destroy the internet...).

[Westside guy]

Here's the page from the screenshot at the head of this thread (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2218280,00.asp); but apparently the ad is no longer on it...

[joseph2166]

Sadly, we've had more stability issues with Tiger than Vista within our organization. While the problems in vista seem to be more driver availability and some incompatabilities with older software, with Tiger, we've had all kinds of weird issues with finder content not refreshing, printing not working at all (to any printer) until reboot..etc. Just weird things that seem silly in this day and age.

We even had two machines side by side looking at the computers on the network and one would see machine called "X" lets say and the other would not show it in the list. No matter what we did it wouldnt show. Even upon reboot it failed to show. Very weird. Both were running 10.4.x at the time. It was a 2K3 server that failed to show but other 2k3 servers we had still were there.

Anyway from my experience in our environment where we have 100+ XP stations, 10-15 Vista stations and 20 OSX stations (10.4) I can honestly say that Apple is grasping at straws with the ads. You may not like the UI but all the talk about stability and viruses and all that being a major issue is a farse. In the 4 years of being at the company, I have yet to see 1 comprimised computer (Virus, Trojan or Malware). All the ads are doing is annoying the people who are computer literate enough to use both platforms and the ones that fine them believable are the inexperienced and gullable. Thats my take on things. Even speaking to the hard core designers who have used both platforms, they find the ads unprofessional.

If you've ever seen a really small cocky guy being all loud mouth and pushy even towards the big guy... Well you know where I might be going with this. I believe in speak softly and carry a big stick. The ads IMO show apple as the 'little' guy who makes a lot of noise. One day he's gonna get hit. LOL.

Really, with MS office being such an important software for a lot of people, all MS would have to do is stop development of that product on the apple platform and it would do major damage. Not sure if anyone else feels this way but I think its retarded to poke the sleeping bull with a big stick....

lol so did you like the ad?! Only a tinsy bit off subject I spose!

I dunno how much apple would really be hit by Office being pulled - after all we've survived 4 years (?) without an update to Office - if we had another 4 years I'm sure somebody (maybe apple) would fill the gap with a 'pro' iWork.

p.s. could i suggest Leopard if you're having stability problems? ;)

[contoursvt]

We have laptops all the time with vista connecting to two different projectors (for our boardroom) we have (one panasonic and one epson). Sees the projector as a generic PNP display... Treats it like any other monitor. You can adjust the resolution just like any other screen....


Really great ad!

------
If you think Vista has less problems than OS X? Think again.

Vista requires driver to connect to common DVI or VGA output (to say, a Video Projector), that even OS 9 can auto detect. Yeah those "drivers" don't exist for most projectors, so if you have to make a business presentation while on vista, you are screwed...

Vista requires drivers for networked IP printers. OS X has most printers built in.

"Vista worries lead IT pros to consider Linux, Mac alternatives"
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/111607-vista-worries.html

[SeaFox]

I doubt it'll make the 95+% of people in the world who are happy with their PC's switch however.
Just because +95% of the people in the world use Windows doesn't mean they're happy with it.

*YAWN* Using you're logic, people who live in housing projects are satisfied with their living situations.

[joejoejoe]

It was funny at first, but these ads keep getting more and more immature. Be original Apple! Why do they feel like they need to resort to second grade name-calling and poking fun?

[hdsalinas]

Just because +95% of the people in the world use Windows doesn't mean they're happy with it.

You are right!

Take the case of my wife. She really doest care about computers and Windows has been the only OS she has ever used. If I wasn't into Macs she would have never knon what an apple computer was.

She has a Compaq laptop which came with vista. After 6 months she got tired of it. Her machine was just too slow. i upgraded it to XP and she has been happy with it.

The first time she used my mac, she did not like it. After about two weeks she was very confortable with it and now I have to tell her to use her Windows laptop. She really likes my MBP. She is not a power user, just a regular person who has to use a computer.

So what I am trying to say, if people had the chance to use a mac they would see how great they are. Yes they are not perfect, but the computer experience is just more rewarding.

So if you want to now if windows users are happy with windows, just look at all those windows sticker in the back of their cars :-)

I actually like apple the way it is. I would hate it if everyone had a mac. Lets keep our little club small and exclusive.

[MacTheSpoon]

I would definitely downgrade to XP if I was getting a Windows machine, no doubt. I remember watching this poor guy trying to give a presentation on his laptop running Vista; the thing kept on popping up little dialog boxes from the task bar the whole while informing him of this and that. Then suddenly it told him that it had finished downloading an update and rebooted in the middle of his presentation.

[daysleeper]

This thing has been screwing up my Engadget reading all day. I finally gave in and watched it, and I have to say that it seems like an attack ad in bad taste. If you're going to have an ad that big, use it to show off Leopard's features, not bash the competition.

Anyone can attack. In organizations, as in people, true class acts succeed on their own merit.

[Lollypop]

While the problems in vista seem to be more driver availability and some incompatabilities with older software....

I tend to agree, every machine we get we have to downgrade to XP first, most of the cases because of older software not working perfectly. I have no similair cases with Tiger -> Leopard.

Anyway from my experience in our environment where we have 100+ XP stations, 10-15 Vista stations and 20 OSX stations (10.4) I can honestly say that Apple is grasping at straws with the ads. You may not like the UI but all the talk about stability and viruses and all that being a major issue is a farse. In the 4 years of being at the company, I have yet to see 1 comprimised computer (Virus, Trojan or Malware).

Please tell me how you guys acomplish this! Ive only been with the company for a year and have seen at least 5 machines completely compromised by some sort of virus/torjan. I also think most homes dont put as much effort into security as businesses, i think apple is trying to focus on those people. The safety through obsurity thing has been discussed into the grace IMO, but the fact remains, becuase of it there is less down time on macs that PC's because of viruses.


Really, with MS office being such an important software for a lot of people, all MS would have to do is stop development of that product on the apple platform and it would do major damage. Not sure if anyone else feels this way but I think its retarded to poke the sleeping bull with a big stick.... I completely agree, im just wondering as time progresses with MS "opening" their office document format if the loss of Office on the mac will really do that much damage?

All things aside, think its the cutest add ive seen online in ages!

[Snowy_River]

Apple really needs to get it's act together.

Safari bugs and other things people have pointed out show that Apple isn't perfect by any means, so these ads poking fun at Windows stretch credibility to say the least.

It's like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

Still, the ads ARE working, judging by the growing number of Mac customers, so I don't blame Apple for continuing this frequently humorous ad campaign.

So, what you're saying is that one product has to be perfect before any criticism can be leveled at another product? If 10% of Mac users are having problems while 35% of PC users are having problems, Apple can't suggest that they are better?*

In short, I don't think that there is any stretch of credibility here. Sure, Leopard had some problems on launch, but they were pretty penny-ante compared to the Vista problems, from what I've read. (The only problem I had with Leopard was my own fault. With exception given to that, Leopard has performed flawlessly on both my 1.67GHz PB G4 and my wife's 867MHz PB G4, as did Tiger before it.)

Back on topic, I have to agree that this ad was hilarious! I was just rolling. I generally download and keep copies of these ads (yes, call me what you will, I find it entertaining), so I'm trying to figure out how to do that with this one. The link from the main page to an MP4 file doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions?

* Percentages were made up by me to illustrate a point, but from anecdotal accounts, they don't seem to be that far off, by my reckoning.

[egsaxy]

i like the ad. there are a few things to add to the discussion.

first what company actually advertises what their product does these days? It isn't a my product can do this or that, but a lifestyle. look at swifer for example. it attacks "simple" products like brooms. unless it is a product with no compitition or no existing market to sell one has to make attacks or sell a "brand." the generation pepsi campaign comes to mind.

second in 30 seconds its hard to sell time machine, explain how it works, what it needs. that's why comercials have become more "sophisticated" (a communications study buzz word). that's why apple has stores full of knowlegable sales people who can inform/educated consumers.

finally through humor apple is establishing a connection with people. the ads are making generalizations that people can relate to. of course not all windows boxes get trojans/spyware/malware and not everyone who is using vista decides to go back to xp. but who hasn't used a pc and had to deal with tech support of some sort. or when the upgrade happened your desk was empty for a week for "surgery". long before that ad came out i was calling any tinkering i did surgery. but the generalizations are simple enough that a connection can be made. if you give a scenario talking about putting together a supercomputer cluster about 50 people would get it. the generalization/ second grader mindset is necessary to reach a broad audience.
In the current age of advertisements this is a well done and effectively used the medium. Would it be so successful on tv, probably not. It works better on the internet. Hooray for using my communication studies degree. BTW in the end its just an advertisement, the goal of which is to get you to think about and eventually buy the product. With 3 pages (and counting) the proof is in the pudding so to speak. We are thinking about the ad much longer than the 30 seconds (or so) it plays. Whether or not it does justice to the apple product line is moot. It is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Cheers

[Unspeaked]

The part where PC guy flashes back and forth between "Give Up" and "On Vista" is classic...

[Zwhaler]

Hillarious... really well done. And yes, Give up on Vista.

[fewture]

I think its completely immature and negative.

Apple being negative will only invite more negativity towards Apple. If Apple is so great, it doesn't need to be negative about competition in this way.

I am about to buy my first Mac soon (after Macworld) but I really don't like stuff like this. Mac needs to get rid of the snooty attitude rather than develop it in new ways - people hate Apple because of it.

-edit: and as mentioned above, Mac does have it fair share of problems (mainly hardware) - and Vista isn't all bad. Its slowly improving - this ad, although supposed to be a joke, is kind of inaccurate in that way. Reminds me of the PowerPC is so much faster than the top pc equivalent ad's which was always exaggerated and sometimes fabricated.

[Macmanus]

I think its completely immature and negative.

Apple being negative will only invite more negativity towards Apple. If Apple is so great, it doesn't need to be negative about competition in this way.

I am about to buy my first Mac soon (after Macworld) but I really don't like stuff like this. Mac needs to get rid of the snooty attitude rather than develop it in new ways - people hate Apple because of it.

-edit: and as mentioned above, Mac does have it fair share of problems (mainly hardware) - and Vista isn't all bad. Its slowly improving - this ad, although supposed to be a joke, is kind of inaccurate in that way. Reminds me of the PowerPC is so much faster than the top pc equivalent ad's which was always exaggerated and sometimes fabricated.

Very well said. I'm in the same case as you, and I definitely second that.

[jokarak]

Hm...what are all these problems plaguing Vista users in this forum? I know that this is a Mac forum, so most people are using OS X, but seriously, what issues are people here having with Vista? I'm using a Vista box I assembled from scratch, and it runs really well. It goes to sleep and wakes up w/o any issues, two monitor setup runs great, don't have any viruses or malware (last time I have a virus in XP must have been over 8 years ago), my Epson 2200 prints great (whereas I really have a hard time printing from my Apple computers - G5 tower, PBG4, macbook - drivers aren't great for the 2200, and I can't get my Samsung c600 network printer to work on the Macs, either). Never got the blue screen of death, the computer hasn't frozen on me yet, etc. Programs have crashed (specially when I'm converting some large vector graphics into JPGs or something), but nothing that brought down the whole system.

I mean, is it an urban legend thing where people say that Vista is bad, so it must be bad or are people actually writing from personal experience? By the way, isn't Tiger 10.4x? I'm still on Tiger (will upgrade to Leopard next January when I get my new macbook pro), and it has its share of problems (programs crashing, wireless not working after coming out of sleep, etc.). Both platforms perform well, so much so that I have no qualms of using either OS, unless it comes to printing, where I'll usually send a PDF from the Mac to a Windows box and print from there.

Oh, and back to the topic at hand ;), put me in the column of people that really don't like these Mac vs. PC ads all that much.

[iansilv]

Sadly, we've had more stability issues with Tiger than Vista within our organization. While the problems in vista seem to be more driver availability and some incompatabilities with older software, with Tiger, we've had all kinds of weird issues with finder content not refreshing, printing not working at all (to any printer) until reboot..etc. Just weird things that seem silly in this day and age.

We even had two machines side by side looking at the computers on the network and one would see machine called "X" lets say and the other would not show it in the list. No matter what we did it wouldnt show. Even upon reboot it failed to show. Very weird. Both were running 10.4.x at the time. It was a 2K3 server that failed to show but other 2k3 servers we had still were there.

Anyway from my experience in our environment where we have 100+ XP stations, 10-15 Vista stations and 20 OSX stations (10.4) I can honestly say that Apple is grasping at straws with the ads. You may not like the UI but all the talk about stability and viruses and all that being a major issue is a farse. In the 4 years of being at the company, I have yet to see 1 comprimised computer (Virus, Trojan or Malware). All the ads are doing is annoying the people who are computer literate enough to use both platforms and the ones that fine them believable are the inexperienced and gullable. Thats my take on things. Even speaking to the hard core designers who have used both platforms, they find the ads unprofessional.

If you've ever seen a really small cocky guy being all loud mouth and pushy even towards the big guy... Well you know where I might be going with this. I believe in speak softly and carry a big stick. The ads IMO show apple as the 'little' guy who makes a lot of noise. One day he's gonna get hit. LOL.

Really, with MS office being such an important software for a lot of people, all MS would have to do is stop development of that product on the apple platform and it would do major damage. Not sure if anyone else feels this way but I think its retarded to poke the sleeping bull with a big stick....

Work for microsoft much? :D

[iansilv]

If apple is making flash ads, you can only hope they will make a flash player for safari on the iphone... :(

[Bonte]

It's funny everyone is praising this ad and how clever it is, when the majority of people on here didn't even spot the banner at the top of the screen.

I watched it four times to find the clue, when i linked it with the top banner i loved it. Marketing guys would kill for an add like this, grabbing the attention of a visitor is hard to do and letting them watch it over and over is even harder. :D

[Confidemus]

Really, with MS office being such an important software for a lot of people, all MS would have to do is stop development of that product on the apple platform and it would do major damage. Not sure if anyone else feels this way but I think its retarded to poke the sleeping bull with a big stick....

From the old times where MS had AAPL stocks a lot there is a (hidden?) agreement that MS supports Apple OSX with MS Office and vice versa Apple does NOT release OS X free for PCs.

Best, Confidemus

[Macmanus]

Hm...what are all these problems plaguing Vista users in this forum? I know that this is a Mac forum, so most people are using OS X, but seriously, what issues are people here having with Vista? I'm using a Vista box I assembled from scratch, and it runs really well. It goes to sleep and wakes up w/o any issues, two monitor setup runs great, don't have any viruses or malware (last time I have a virus in XP must have been over 8 years ago), my Epson 2200 prints great (whereas I really have a hard time printing from my Apple computers - G5 tower, PBG4, macbook - drivers aren't great for the 2200, and I can't get my Samsung c600 network printer to work on the Macs, either). Never got the blue screen of death, the computer hasn't frozen on me yet, etc. Programs have crashed (specially when I'm converting some large vector graphics into JPGs or something), but nothing that brought down the whole system.

I mean, is it an urban legend thing where people say that Vista is bad, so it must be bad or are people actually writing from personal experience? By the way, isn't Tiger 10.4x? I'm still on Tiger (will upgrade to Leopard next January when I get my new macbook pro), and it has its share of problems (programs crashing, wireless not working after coming out of sleep, etc.). Both platforms perform well, so much so that I have no qualms of using either OS, unless it comes to printing, where I'll usually send a PDF from the Mac to a Windows box and print from there.

Oh, and back to the topic at hand ;), put me in the column of people that really don't like these Mac vs. PC ads all that much.

God bless Macrumors ! I've never seen such an open-minded forum for Mac users.

[FX120]

Really great ad!

------
If you think Vista has less problems than OS X? Think again.

Vista requires driver to connect to common DVI or VGA output (to say, a Video Projector), that even OS 9 can auto detect. Yeah those "drivers" don't exist for most projectors, so if you have to make a business presentation while on vista, you are screwed...

Vista requires drivers for networked IP printers. OS X has most printers built in.

"Vista worries lead IT pros to consider Linux, Mac alternatives"
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/111607-vista-worries.html

What the **** are you talking about?

And by the way, where is the support for network printers in OS X? Oh yeah, it's not supported.


Anyway, as a Vista user and a Mac user, if find this ad somewhat insulting. I have been using Vista on my gaming computer for few months now without issue. It doesn't crash applications anymore than my macs do, which isn't very often. I have yet to have a complete system crash. All my applications run great, with the exception of BF2, and that's really EA's fault.

Frankly I am surprised at how quickly Microsoft has managed to stabilize Visa since it's initial launch. Even though SP 1 hasn't been released yet, some of the other system updates seem to have fixed most major problems. Does Vista still have it's quirks after a year? Yes. Does Tiger still have quirks? Yes. Are either operating systems completely perfect? No.

I noticed that the ad didn't even point out a single positive of the OS X platform, all it did was tell me to "give up on Vista" because apparently I have been having problems I haven't noticed.

[justflie]

Simply hilarious, I love it!

[queshy]

Very original! I like it.

But they need to do a bit more than just bash vista. After all, it isn't that bad!

[ke2000]

Saw that on Engadget yesterday. Did turn volume up as couldn't hear them talking. :p

[japanime]

Because it's a Flash ad, Safari's CPU usage on my MacBook goes through the roof, and the fan starts whining like a jet engine.

Yeah, great ad.

(After 12 years of using great, trouble-free PowerBooks, I "upgraded" to a MacBook, which has been little better than a bucket of bolts with a fan that never stops wooshing.)

[adds21]

I'm both a PC and a Mac user. I run Vista on a Dell XPS, and Leopard on a MacBook.

I have to say that I get really fed up of Apple's playground behavior. Instead of spending their entire advertising budget on telling people how bad the competition is, why don't they just sing the praises of Leopard? All these PC vs Mac adverts simply make me wonder why I'm using a product from such a childish company.

Okay, I'm sure some people find them funny, but in my experience, it simply isn't true. To be honest, Leopard crashes on me more than Vista does (which is incredible when you think that Apple not only produces the software, but also the hardware). I haven't seen a BSOD on my Windows machine for years, and I don't think I've ever seen one since Windows-98 which wasn't due to a hardware failure. I like both Vista and OSX, and use both daily. However, Apples arrogance is really beginning to get to me.

Grow up Steve.

[Mr-Stabby]

What i found hilarious was i went to News.com several times and refreshed it, and i still got the same thing. I got the banner at the top saying DON'T GIVE UP ON VISTA, but not the advert on the side, which played the one at the top. So to sum up, Apple have paid for massive banners saying "DONT GIVE UP ON VISTA" as far as i'm concerned ;)

[aliquis-]

Funny one!
Should have had the Mac and PC guy from the begining instead of the imac thought so anyone bothered to press play.

[aliquis-]

heh, yeah. I had my banner-ad-blocker turned on the first time, which made the top one completely disappear, and the 'main' one got put on the left-side of the page, OVER the body of the article. That had me going "what the.?.?.?" so I turned off my ad-blocker to figure out what was going on.I guess the arguing over at Apple goes that if people is intelligent enough to use an adblocker they can handle Windows with no issues.

[bmk]

The ironic part is, if I load it in Safari it crashes my browser. Way to go Apple.:mad:

Hate to be heavy handed with a 'Macrumors newbie' (I'm one myself) but this is typical of the kind of comments there have been too much of lately - people having problems which are undoubtedly to do with the configuration of their own machines/systems who then immediately blame Apple products or engineers when something doesn't work. If a flash ad on a site doesn't work on your machine and it works on everybody else's then it is pretty much certain that it's to do with your own individual set-up and not anything to do with Apple's programmers. Why don't you look into the problem first and try and work out what's going on, before blaming other people?

[Yuppi]

The first time I watched it, I didn't get it because I ignored the Top banner. But then I saw it and found it extremely funny.
I think that it is ok for Apple to bash Vista because I had to use it from a professional point of view and there are SOOO many inconsistencies in the user experience. Many things that were ok in XP that are now weird to use.

I know that it takes some time to get used to it. But Vista would have a tough time for me. The new security system is completely screwed up. You agree on something that you even have no clue about. When I see a password prompt on Mac I have the feeling that it is coming for a very good reason, and in case I didn't expect it I check why it is coming. In Vista you have no chance to figure out WHY it is coming.
And then there is this AWFUL 64 Bit support. When you installed the 64 Bit version you need to make sure that everything else is 64 Bit too. Because otherwise it might happen that the browser does not load the flash plugin etc..
And finding Vista 64 Bit drivers for my hardware was really difficult even tough I do not consider it outdated.
The new UI had some very bad features as defaults. Like hiding the triangle in a TreeView. This way you have to the tree to see if you can collapse it. (At least you can change that) Than there is this strange scrolling horizontally feature in a tree..
What I really liked about Vista was the new Mixer. I think it is a very good idea to have multiple controls for all running applications.

It is not all Microsoft that screwed up on Vista but it is also the manufacturers that do not supply the drivers. But I am mostly a Mac user, I know that there is world without those problems. But other ones like freezing iMacs. But I still LOVE working on Mac OS X.

[Cleverboy]

What i found hilarious was i went to News.com several times and refreshed it, and i still got the same thing. I got the banner at the top saying DON'T GIVE UP ON VISTA, but not the advert on the side, which played the one at the top. So to sum up, Apple have paid for massive banners saying "DONT GIVE UP ON VISTA" as far as i'm concerned ;)
Which also works in their favor. Why in the WORLD would Microsoft put out an ad that says "Don't Give Up on Vista"? It's a very pathetic and self-loathing ad if ever there was one.

I'd totally buy a t-shirt with this on it. The "Give Up" highlighted, Hodgman whacking the buzzer, and Justin Long shaking his head. Back of the shirt? "Get a Mac". --Hm... I might Cafe Press one up for myself this weekend. :)

~ CB

[JimmyK]

Sadly, we've had more stability issues with Tiger than Vista within our organization. While the problems in vista seem to be more driver availability and some incompatabilities with older software, with Tiger, we've had all kinds of weird issues with finder content not refreshing, printing not working at all (to any printer) until reboot..etc. Just weird things that seem silly in this day and age.

We even had two machines side by side looking at the computers on the network and one would see machine called "X" lets say and the other would not show it in the list. No matter what we did it wouldnt show. Even upon reboot it failed to show. Very weird. Both were running 10.4.x at the time. It was a 2K3 server that failed to show but other 2k3 servers we had still were there.

Anyway from my experience in our environment where we have 100+ XP stations, 10-15 Vista stations and 20 OSX stations (10.4) I can honestly say that Apple is grasping at straws with the ads. You may not like the UI but all the talk about stability and viruses and all that being a major issue is a farse. In the 4 years of being at the company, I have yet to see 1 comprimised computer (Virus, Trojan or Malware). All the ads are doing is annoying the people who are computer literate enough to use both platforms and the ones that fine them believable are the inexperienced and gullable. Thats my take on things. Even speaking to the hard core designers who have used both platforms, they find the ads unprofessional.

If you've ever seen a really small cocky guy being all loud mouth and pushy even towards the big guy... Well you know where I might be going with this. I believe in speak softly and carry a big stick. The ads IMO show apple as the 'little' guy who makes a lot of noise. One day he's gonna get hit. LOL.

Really, with MS office being such an important software for a lot of people, all MS would have to do is stop development of that product on the apple platform and it would do major damage. Not sure if anyone else feels this way but I think its retarded to poke the sleeping bull with a big stick....

You and your coworkers need to loosen up. These ads are not pointed to organizations or the Enterprise. If your network, security and administrators (and your users are semi-competent) folks know what they are doing none of your computers should be compromised (all of us know that the loose nut behind the keyboard is the real problem). This is aimed at the home user. Plus, they are funny ads.

[thesdx]

This is the best Get a Mac ad yet! I didn't give up on Vista, however. I never even gave it a chance. ;)

[Azaka]

Sadly, we've had more stability issues with Tiger than Vista within our organization. While the problems in vista seem to be more driver availability and some incompatabilities with older software, with Tiger, we've had all kinds of weird issues with finder content not refreshing, printing not working at all (to any printer) until reboot..etc. Just weird things that seem silly in this day and age.

We even had two machines side by side looking at the computers on the network and one would see machine called "X" lets say and the other would not show it in the list. No matter what we did it wouldnt show. Even upon reboot it failed to show. Very weird. Both were running 10.4.x at the time. It was a 2K3 server that failed to show but other 2k3 servers we had still were there.

Anyway from my experience in our environment where we have 100+ XP stations, 10-15 Vista stations and 20 OSX stations (10.4) I can honestly say that Apple is grasping at straws with the ads. You may not like the UI but all the talk about stability and viruses and all that being a major issue is a farse. In the 4 years of being at the company, I have yet to see 1 comprimised computer (Virus, Trojan or Malware). All the ads are doing is annoying the people who are computer literate enough to use both platforms and the ones that fine them believable are the inexperienced and gullable. Thats my take on things. Even speaking to the hard core designers who have used both platforms, they find the ads unprofessional.

If you've ever seen a really small cocky guy being all loud mouth and pushy even towards the big guy... Well you know where I might be going with this. I believe in speak softly and carry a big stick. The ads IMO show apple as the 'little' guy who makes a lot of noise. One day he's gonna get hit. LOL.

Really, with MS office being such an important software for a lot of people, all MS would have to do is stop development of that product on the apple platform and it would do major damage. Not sure if anyone else feels this way but I think its retarded to poke the sleeping bull with a big stick....

I have to agree with this. OSX is a great OS and I just wish Apple would focus on promoting what's good with OSX rather then bashing Windows. I think the majority of Windows users are running a stable platform and see through the (sometimes) gross exaggerations in Apples commercials.

I for instance have been running Vista on one box since release. This machine has never crashed or had any instability issues. There are of course other issues with Vista but then again, Leopard BSoD crash at install was irony at it's best.

I love my apple machine (xxx) but I also love my pc. Promote what’s good about OSX and I think apple will appeal to an even larger crowd. Ridiculing the choice of your potential customers ridicules their intelligence, and no one likes to be ridiculed ;)

[Evangelion]

Hate to be heavy handed with a 'Macrumors newbie' (I'm one myself) but this is typical of the kind of comments there have been too much of lately - people having problems which are undoubtedly to do with the configuration of their own machines/systems who then immediately blame Apple products or engineers when something doesn't work.

Well, I can often hear the argument that "OS X just works because the hardware and software is designed for each other! Windows has problems because it has to support hozillion different machines". And five seconds later when someone has problems with OS X, he gets told that "There must be something wrong with the configuration of your machine....".

If a flash ad on a site doesn't work on your machine and it works on everybody else's then it is pretty much certain that it's to do with your own individual set-up and not anything to do with Apple's programmers.

That "individual set-up" would be OS X running on Apple-hardware, right? Just like 99.5% of all OS X's out there are?

Like it or not, you CAN have issues with OS X. When I upgraded to 10.4.11 and got Safari3 with it, the Google-searchbar stopped working. Just like that. Is that my fault somehow? How? What did I do wrong?

Why don't you look into the problem first and try and work out what's going on, before blaming other people?

"My searchbar was working before, but after updating to 10.4.11 it's no longer working. It's obviously my fault"

[netdog]

LMAO! A truly funny ad!

[miniConvert]

Laughed out loud. Loved it :D

Without reading into it, or Apple, it just came across as genuinely funny.

[Detektiv-Pinky]

Hate to be heavy handed with a 'Macrumors newbie' (I'm one myself) but this is typical of the kind of comments there have been too much of lately - people having problems which are undoubtedly to do with the configuration of their own machines/systems who then immediately blame Apple products or engineers when something doesn't work. If a flash ad on a site doesn't work on your machine and it works on everybody else's then it is pretty much certain that it's to do with your own individual set-up and not anything to do with Apple's programmers. Why don't you look into the problem first and try and work out what's going on, before blaming other people?

Huh, what a harsh response.
Are you seriously suggesting that the guy should grab himself some debugger and should try to figure out what is wrong with the software that is supplied and installed on his system?

I was having a Safari crash myself while browsing the Apple webpages. I do not know what caused this crash and I simply don't care. I have not tinkered with Safari in any way besides to install Stand. So it is my fault that Safari crashed? I expect software that is robust. Meaning whatever the ordinary user is throwing at it it should swallow and give me a sensible response. If it does not able to handle this I tend to blame the developer and in this case it is Apple.

[Sesshi]

What the **** are you talking about?

And by the way, where is the support for network printers in OS X? Oh yeah, it's not supported.


Anyway, as a Vista user and a Mac user, if find this ad somewhat insulting. I have been using Vista on my gaming computer for few months now without issue. It doesn't crash applications anymore than my macs do, which isn't very often. I have yet to have a complete system crash. All my applications run great, with the exception of BF2, and that's really EA's fault.

Frankly I am surprised at how quickly Microsoft has managed to stabilize Visa since it's initial launch. Even though SP 1 hasn't been released yet, some of the other system updates seem to have fixed most major problems. Does Vista still have it's quirks after a year? Yes. Does Tiger still have quirks? Yes. Are either operating systems completely perfect? No.

I noticed that the ad didn't even point out a single positive of the OS X platform, all it did was tell me to "give up on Vista" because apparently I have been having problems I haven't noticed.

Best post so far.

[Teddy's]

...I have to say that I get really fed up of Apple's playground behavior. Instead of spending their entire advertising budget on telling people how bad the competition is, why don't they just sing the praises of Leopard? All these PC vs Mac adverts simply make me wonder why I'm using a product from such a childish company...


Grow up Steve.

Hmm, interesting. They do show "praises" of the iPhone and iPods. However, I like these Mac ads because they rely on comparison (Read a Marketing 101 book) and humour.
My favourite so far is "Choose a Vista." Hodgman is definitely the star. So funny guy.

[asrai]

Nicely done... I enjoy those ads in general anyway...

Happily "Gave Up" WinDOH's, hmmm, gotta be almost 10 years now!!!

[tkidBOSTON]

Best part, they're even running the ad on CNET's Vista Page:

http://www.cnet.com/windows-vista.html

:)

[jonharris200]

The ad clearly isn't working the whole time - sometimes just the top banner appears, other times, the two ads are not in sync.

But when it works, it is very, very funny!

[Digitalclips]

Best part, they're even running the ad on CNET's Vista Page:

http://www.cnet.com/windows-vista.html

:)

I am still laughing! The only suggestion I would have had to the ad company that made this is; instead of a 'Staple' style red button, PC guy should had his PC laptop hooked up to start the lights on the banner. Then cursed that Vista was missing the correct driver! :D

[recoman3]

lmao awesome

[bpd115]

What the ***** are you talking about?

And by the way, where is the support for network printers in OS X? Oh yeah, it's not supported.



Huh?

I have a core2duo Mac Mini at work (they let me pick out my workstation) and I can print to any shared printer on our print server and I can print to a Richo MFP unit using an IP Printer port.

Sounds like networked printers to me.

[Smurfman]

ok it was rather funny....but it's getting a bit dull these ads...always the same thing... ok we know microsoft sucks...
but leopard sucks as well....so you should make a banner saying "please don't give up on leopard...just wait untill there's a real update..."

geez...i'm really tired of these ads...

"Leopard sucks"?? Wow... you must be waiting for nano tech to be embedded in your brain that will allow you to work at the speed of thought, without any physical input devices, and injected with super advanced alien technology to allow each brain cell to act as a core processor making a single human brain a walking ZetaFLOP supercomputer.

Apple is progressing Leopard very well and building a solid foundation for the future. This stuff is incredibly complex and takes time dude. No one else, in the entire world, has so far done it better than Apple.

[selowitch]

I'm a huge Mac fan, but unfortunately I'm rather disappointed by Leopard and I ended up reverting to Tiger. So I guess it cuts both ways.

[Popeye206]

Sadly, we've had more stability issues with Tiger than Vista within our organization. While the problems in vista seem to be more driver availability and some incompatabilities with older software, with Tiger, we've had all kinds of weird issues with finder content not refreshing, printing not working at all (to any printer) until reboot..etc. Just weird things that seem silly in this day and age.


I hate to say it, but every time I've seen where a shop has problems with OSX is because the IT guys are too Windows oriented. They don't know how to set up or troubleshoot a Mac. I've been in many mixed shops and it never fails, the IT guys complain about the Macs not doing this or doing that and when it comes down to it, they have designed the entire network on Windows machines and keep trying to make the Mac's do Windows and over think the problems/solutions. I don't know this writers background or his organization, but I would guess the IT department is very Windows knowledgeable and were forced to add some Macs... try getting a true Mac guy in there to consult and I think you'll see a huge change in stability.

[macFanDave]

The way they take two separate (and usually unrelated) elements of a typical web page and join them gives them an opportunity to make uniquely memorable message.

I think whenever an organization communicates in an original manner, they get a "callback" whenever imitators use that means. I don't care what blimp I see, Goodyear always crosses my mind when I see one! Hopefully, this means that when someone runs a multi-panel web ad, people will harken back to this Apple one.

It's great.

[Macmanus]

Vista sucks !!! Leopard rules !!! :D:apple::cool::eek::mad:

Well, ain't you laughing ??? This is sooo funny !!!

[Smurfman]

I'm a huge Mac fan, but unfortunately I'm rather disappointed by Leopard and I ended up reverting to Tiger. So I guess it cuts both ways.

Well... I'm not without some glitches in Leopard. I did find on a few machines where I performed the "Upgrade" choice it was VERY buggy. Once I did the "Archive and Install", everything was MUCH more stable. Also, I've already noticed much better stability/reliability with the 10.5.1 update. One glitch I'm still having on my MacBook Pro is that the hot corners for the screen saver activation don't work sometimes. I have to restart the computer to get them to work. That's pretty minor though.

The part about Leopard that I'm really most excited and impressed with is under-the-hood. Apple really made some great progress with a number of core technologies as well as build a solid foundation for developers to come out with some great software in record time. UNIX certification is a BIG plus. The finder is MUCH more responsive than previously. I connect to network drives in less than a second and multi-tasking/multi-threading is way better. Network printer support is great (and fast too) no matter what others are saying. If you're having problems with network printer, there is something wrong with your set-up or the way IT has implemented the network and/or printers.

OpenGL is a lot faster and the 64bit full support will be a welcome addition once Cinema4D and other high-end apps I use get updated.

The screen sharing and integration throughout the system (like iChat) is excellent and I absolutely LOVE QuickLook!

All the other 300+ additions Apple mentioned are nice too. ;-)

[penx]

The way they take two separate (and usually unrelated) elements of a typical web page and join them gives them an opportunity to make uniquely memorable message.

I think whenever an organization communicates in an original manner, they get a "callback" whenever imitators use that means. I don't care what blimp I see, Goodyear always crosses my mind when I see one! Hopefully, this means that when someone runs a multi-panel web ad, people will harken back to this Apple one.

It's great.
When I tried to view it, I had to refresh 3 times to get it to play properly...

...but aside from that I really can't believe the number of responses on here praising Apple for being original with this. These kind of ads (2 flash banners interacting with each other) have been around for years and there are much better examples out there than this.

[luke-j-s]

This has to be THE coolest mac vs Pc add. :apple:

[Stampyhead]

Really, with MS office being such an important software for a lot of people, all MS would have to do is stop development of that product on the apple platform and it would do major damage. Not sure if anyone else feels this way but I think its retarded to poke the sleeping bull with a big stick....

Yeah right, you really think MS is going to stop developing Office for Mac just because Apple pokes a little fun at them? They've cornered the word processor/spreadsheet/presentation software market. They're not about to just give up a part of it.
That being said, I installed iWork on my Mac and found I don't really need Office anymore. Sure there are things it can't do yet, but for casual users like me it's more than adequate.

[henjin]

Really great ad!

------
If you think Vista has less problems than OS X? Think again.

Vista requires driver to connect to common DVI or VGA output (to say, a Video Projector), that even OS 9 can auto detect. Yeah those "drivers" don't exist for most projectors, so if you have to make a business presentation while on vista, you are screwed...

Vista requires drivers for networked IP printers. OS X has most printers built in.

"Vista worries lead IT pros to consider Linux, Mac alternatives"
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/111607-vista-worries.html

I never used Windows that much except for trying out cutting edge web TV apps and such. All my main work was done on a Mac. I believed all the hype from the adverts and from people like you.
Two weeks ago I received my fist Vista Ultimate computer, HP Blackbird 002 for gaming and compared to Tiger or the dreadful Leopard I have had no problems. Indeed so impressed was I that I upgraded all my Adobe products and the work fast and smooth.
But you'll say it is only 2 weeks.
Fair point: I bought an upgrade to ToonBoom Studio Pro, requires a USB dongle, I loaded the software and told toi put in my dongle, software that was meant to interact with the dongle failed. You see Vista is rubbish... well no... Vista OS automatically started to search the web, found the site and gave me a link. Within 2 minutes I had found an update and downloaded it. No call for tech support needed.

I have never liked the Apple adverts that show a sleek Mac dude and a fat PC guy. When I'm at the Apple store in Soho NYC, the majority of Mac users need a wash, take a walk and really need to diet. I see no hot "chicks" staring at iphone owners, just sweaty with lust fat men.

Through the crap shoot of genetics I'm slim, but now I'm using Vista a lot... does this mean I'll now get fat? Does it mean that my animation will turn into a pie chart, a big fat greasy pie that I'll eat and become fat?

My HP Blackbird 002 Vista Ultimate simply works. My spanking new Apple Inc. computers do not simply work. They have all needed repair. All needed a clean install. Now with Leopard they all need new drivers and updates. Leopard also looks like the ugly twin of Vista.

Vista ZERO problems unsolved. Leopard is now off all my Apple Inc., computers. Tech nightmare belongs to Leopard.

[bmk]

That "individual set-up" would be OS X running on Apple-hardware, right? Just like 99.5% of all OS X's out there are?

Like it or not, you CAN have issues with OS X. When I upgraded to 10.4.11 and got Safari3 with it, the Google-searchbar stopped working. Just like that. Is that my fault somehow? How? What did I do wrong?

Come on, you're being a bit naive if you think that 99.5 per cent of Mac users are running a Mac OS that is completely uncustomised in any way- and what about the hundreds of different hardware permutations. There are innumerable third party add-ons, extensions, apps etc that can effect things not just at system level, but also as far as individual bits of software are concerned, such as a web browser.

My point was not that there aren't genuine problems with the OS, whether it's Leopard or Tiger, but that most people's first response these days to something they don't expect is to say: it's someone else's fault, even though it might be the result of their own set up (running beta software, unsupported extensions, or any of a thousand different software/hardware permutations that might cause a problem).

[slffl]

Great Ad!

BTW I am so tired of the anti-Apple zealots. They LOVE to use the buzz-word 'smug' even though they don't know what it means. Apparently if you drink Coke or Pepsi you are also 'smug' because those two companies have been advertising against each other for decades, and so has pretty much every other company out there.

[Evangelion]

Come on, you're being a bit naive if you think that 99.5 per cent of Mac users are running a Mac OS that is completely uncustomised in any way

I said that 99.5% of OS X-users are running OS X on Apple-hardware. And I said that because we routinely hear comments how Macs "just work" and they do that because the software and the hardware is designed to intermingle. Yet we DO get problems.

and what about the hundreds of different hardware permutations. There are innumerable third party add-ons, extensions, apps etc that can effect things not just at system level, but also as far as individual bits of software are concerned, such as a web browser.

Then why is it that when Windows has issues, Mac-users point and laugh, when you just demonstrated how Macs are no better?

My point was not that there aren't genuine problems with the OS

Yes there are. If you claim otherwise, you are deluding yourself. But if you really DO claim that, then we can just as well say "there are no problems with Windows, all those problems people have are caused by third-party software and different hardware-configurations. Windows by itself is 100% perfect".

Well, are you claiming that?

whether it's Leopard or Tiger, but that most people's first response these days to something they don't expect is to say: it's someone else's fault, even though it might be the result of their own set up (running beta software, unsupported extensions, or any of a thousand different software/hardware permutations that might cause a problem).

So what caused my problem? Google was working fine in 10.4.10, in 10.4.11 it wasn't.

[pacohaas]

Gotta love it when your company blocks ad.doubleclick.net so I have to go to youtube to see an advertisement. In all seriousness, I'm so glad my company blocks this at a network-level, along with Firefox Adblock and hosts file blocks, I rarely see ads online.

[dannychang]

That is brilliant. I love this ad. As a creative designer, I give this idea 5 stars LOL.

[Yateball]

Apple have paid for massive banners saying "DONT GIVE UP ON VISTA" as far as i'm concerned ;)

Still not a bad thing actually, because if a Vista user reads a big ad that says don't give up on vista, they're naturally going to think something is wrong with it and wonder what's wrong that they're not supposed to give up on.

So either way I think the ad works, even if you only get to see half of it.

[kingtj]

Honestly, people tend to get a radically different perspective on Windows vs. OS X in a corporate setting than on their own machines at home.

Mac OS X has been focused squarely on the needs of a home, small office, or even educational user - with "enterprise" and "corporate" needs more of an afterthought. They're starting to address some of this now. (Leopard improves on a number of basic network file/folder sharing issues in OS X that Windows had them beat on, historically.)

The virus and spyware issue is VERY real, and the *only* reason you don't really observe it much in a corporate setting is because businesses make use of good firewalls, have policies implemented that discourage a lot of "personal/entertainment" uses of employee computers, and typically keep anti-virus software subscriptions up-to-date at all times.

I do a lot of on-site computer service for a living, and I quite regularly run into Windows XP based machines, fully patched and updated with "Service Pack 2" and the other Windows "security updates" Microsoft offers via automatic update. Yet, they're so gummed up with spyware and trojan horse virus programs, they can barely boot up or function. All too often, you have to reformat the whole hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch or good backups to eradicate the problems.

I ran OS X Tiger on 3 different Macs at home myself, and have 3 different networked printers on my LAN as well. I never really had any printing issues, BUT, I've observed it on other people's setups. Just like Vista, it usually boils down to poor drivers. Especially in the case of "all in one" scanner/fax/copier/printers, drivers are flaky in OS X. They may work fine on a local printer attached via USB cable - but as soon as you try to attach it to a printer sharing box, giving it an IP address, everything falls apart.

I've found that with printers, you "get what you pay for", in that inexpensive printers usually only work well when directly connected to ONE Mac or PC. If you want to print to one over a network in any way, shape or form, you need to shell out the money for one that's clearly designed for heavier "business" use. HP, for example, just won't put the effort into making their drivers reliable over a network on the "under $200" inkjet printers....


Sadly, we've had more stability issues with Tiger than Vista within our organization. While the problems in vista seem to be more driver availability and some incompatabilities with older software, with Tiger, we've had all kinds of weird issues with finder content not refreshing, printing not working at all (to any printer) until reboot..etc. Just weird things that seem silly in this day and age.

We even had two machines side by side looking at the computers on the network and one would see machine called "X" lets say and the other would not show it in the list. No matter what we did it wouldnt show. Even upon reboot it failed to show. Very weird. Both were running 10.4.x at the time. It was a 2K3 server that failed to show but other 2k3 servers we had still were there.

Anyway from my experience in our environment where we have 100+ XP stations, 10-15 Vista stations and 20 OSX stations (10.4) I can honestly say that Apple is grasping at straws with the ads. You may not like the UI but all the talk about stability and viruses and all that being a major issue is a farse. In the 4 years of being at the company, I have yet to see 1 comprimised computer (Virus, Trojan or Malware). All the ads are doing is annoying the people who are computer literate enough to use both platforms and the ones that fine them believable are the inexperienced and gullable. Thats my take on things. Even speaking to the hard core designers who have used both platforms, they find the ads unprofessional.

If you've ever seen a really small cocky guy being all loud mouth and pushy even towards the big guy... Well you know where I might be going with this. I believe in speak softly and carry a big stick. The ads IMO show apple as the 'little' guy who makes a lot of noise. One day he's gonna get hit. LOL.

Really, with MS office being such an important software for a lot of people, all MS would have to do is stop development of that product on the apple platform and it would do major damage. Not sure if anyone else feels this way but I think its retarded to poke the sleeping bull with a big stick....

[Sesshi]

Great Ad!

BTW I am so tired of the anti-Apple zealots. They LOVE to use the buzz-word 'smug' even though they don't know what it means. Apparently if you drink Coke or Pepsi you are also 'smug' because those two companies have been advertising against each other for decades, and so has pretty much every other company out there.

Definition of smug

"Exhibiting or feeling great or offensive satisfaction with oneself or with one's situation; self-righteously complacent"

Seems like most of the Apple zealots to me.

Blind Microsoft zealots who have not used OS X on the other hand tend to be simply annoying - they don't make my fists itch as much.

[contoursvt]

I'd agree with this but we have an inhouse mac IT guy who's knowledgable. He's been using apple since the days of the Mac Classic and he's quite anti windows and PC, however if he is swamped, he calls me to help. While I do know my way around OSX somewhat, I still have to ask for help once in a while when it comes to some shell commands..etc. I'm primarily a windows guy (and believe it or not.. OS/2. LOL )

Anyway its funny that we have almost 120 stations that are windows and there are 20 OSX boxes. We have two people managing the windows workstations (I'm one). Thats 60 workstations per person. There is one person handling 20 OSX boxes. He calls me to help him with rebuilding machines that have crashed or are acting weird...or helping troubleshoot. We never have to call him for any help. Most of the time we have free time to spare.

So really, how unstable is windows in general then? I'd say its pretty rock solid.

I hate to say it, but every time I've seen where a shop has problems with OSX is because the IT guys are too Windows oriented. They don't know how to set up or troubleshoot a Mac. I've been in many mixed shops and it never fails, the IT guys complain about the Macs not doing this or doing that and when it comes down to it, they have designed the entire network on Windows machines and keep trying to make the Mac's do Windows and over think the problems/solutions. I don't know this writers background or his organization, but I would guess the IT department is very Windows knowledgeable and were forced to add some Macs... try getting a true Mac guy in there to consult and I think you'll see a huge change in stability.

[FX120]

Huh?

I have a core2duo Mac Mini at work (they let me pick out my workstation) and I can print to any shared printer on our print server and I can print to a Richo MFP unit using an IP Printer port.

Sounds like networked printers to me.

I am very sorry, I honestly don't know what was going through my head. I read it as networked projectors, as he was going on about projectors needing driver support in the first part of his post, subconsciously I typed printers, when I really meant projectors.

[THX1139]

The ironic part is, if I load it in Safari it crashes my browser. Way to go Apple.:mad:


You're probably the only one, so it that Apples fault?

[Macmanus]

This campaign reminds me of something someone said, long time ago.

"That is when the enemy is feeling its end that he is becoming even more aggressive". Something like that. :D

Coca vs Pepsi : interesting point. Coca never responded to my knowledge.

[Macmanus]

You're probably the only one, so it that Apples fault?

Typical answer. Of course, he's the only one. He's the only to have problems with his Mac, Lord, let's put him in the Guiness records book.

[THX1139]

Aside from the content, I generally dislike ad on webpages.

Get used to them if you want the web to grow. Without ads, where are the dollars going to come from?

[chameleon81]

it is a clear picture of apples arrogance. I would not put this kind of ad if my new launched Os contains manys bugs or whatever you call them. Apples luck is that not many so people use apple so publicity about complains does not have wide coverage as with Vista. And another thing is that apple users are in love and just ignore some issues.

But still just the spotlight might be a very good reason to switch from microsoft since Ms performanse in searching is still very poor makes me crazy. And integration of iphoto and other things with the OS is also useful.

I use both , getting used to Leopard but happy with the Vista at the same time. ( although i ve it installed on my old x41 tablet px )

[godrifle]

I totally missed the top ad. I watched it and wondered what the tie-in was to the button.

Dohp!

[whistlerpro]

If anyone is wondering why the ads have now stopped or been simplified, it is because the ad was causing many browser stability issues for users on windows and macs. It looks like the ad company has taken action, pitty really, it was a good ad.

[coolfactor]

Typical answer. Of course, he's the only one. He's the only to have problems with his Mac, Lord, let's put him in the Guiness records book.

No, but to blame Apple for his browser crashing, when he's the only one that's reported that behavior is a bit too much. Apple isn't crashing his browser. There's obviously something else causing the problem... a third-party plug-in, bad fonts, the list is endless. It's just wrong to place blame where none is warranted.

Anyway, while the novelty has worn off for me, and I normally hate banner ads, those paired ads made me laugh. It's a very creative use of something that is normally intrusive and annoying.

[coolfactor]

it is a clear picture of apples arrogance. I would not put this kind of ad if my new launched Os contains manys bugs or whatever you call them. Apples luck is that not many so people use apple so publicity about complains does not have wide coverage as with Vista. And another thing is that apple users are in love and just ignore some issues.

Generalization. I sure don't "ignore" problems with my computers that interfere with my day-to-day work. But I also don't spend hours upon hours fixing them, as I did with my Windows computers.

25+ million Mac users is not "not so many people".

The reality is that Mac OS X is a better operating system for the majority of users. They're not saying it's perfect, just better. And that's true. They *need* to compare against Vista because most Windows users don't really see the difference without hands-on experience. This is one way to peak their curiosity to make that comparison. It's working too.

[HLdan]

What the ***** are you talking about?

And by the way, where is the support for network printers in OS X? Oh yeah, it's not supported.



Um, no. Have you heard of Bonjour printing? Get your facts straight before you trash the OS X platform.

[stevesidea]

everyone gets it. mac is cool. windows is a bungler... i wish they'd spend more time actually SHOWING you what a mac does. Apple has established its cool factor, now start showing off the actual features. The people i know who are worried about switching always say... but i need Word and email for work...
they just need to show someone switching... they need a switching guy character series of ads...

luv my new mbp

[Sesshi]

Um, no. Have you heard of Bonjour printing? Get your facts straight before you trash the OS X platform.

Bonjour works great. Only slightly worse than the network printing detection in Vista with automatic driver download for full-featured printing (not generic functionality).

[HLdan]

everyone gets it. mac is cool. windows is a bungler... i wish they'd spend more time actually SHOWING you what a mac does. Apple has established its cool factor, now start showing off the actual features. The people i know who are worried about switching always say... but i need Word and email for work...
they just need to show someone switching... they need a switching guy character series of ads...

luv my new mbp

Agreed, I love the ads because they are funny but this is the perfect time for Apple to show some of Leopard's best features in a commercial. They are wasting money with these Get a Mac ads just spending time talking about Windows.

[coolfactor]

Agreed, I love the ads because they are funny but this is the perfect time for Apple to show some of Leopard's best features in a commercial. They are wasting money with these Get a Mac ads just spending time talking about Windows.

This discussion is a dead horse. Those Get a Mac ads are talked about by people. If they replaced them with ads that showed off the OS X interface, do you really think people would talk about them? "Oh, did you see the ad showing how to check your email on a Mac?"... isn't going to happen. They need to target the heart of the matter, and that is the frustration many people experience with their computers, and the fact that there is something better out there. That's the issue being targeted... the why, not the how.

[Papajohn56]

Anyone who missed it on the CNet page:

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/9448/picture6ss6.png

[Mr Ikasu]

Like others, I'm getting really tired of these ads. The whole Mac being too smug thing is true and although this has been said so many times, it turns alot of people off.

Just give me a 30 second chunk of demos of cool stuff you can do on Leopard, similar to the iPhone ads. Would be alot more effective in my opinion. People are lazy and won't find stuff out for themselves. Show them the cool stuff right there.

As for this particular ad, I like the creativity but the above still applies.

[macFanDave]

When I tried to view it, I had to refresh 3 times to get it to play properly...

...but aside from that I really can't believe the number of responses on here praising Apple for being original with this. These kind of ads (2 flash banners interacting with each other) have been around for years and there are much better examples out there than this.

Well, I've never seen one and I surf the Web a lot (enough so that I've learned to ignore banner ads quite effectively.)

Your claims actually support my praise of this ad, because either. . .

1) These ads really didn't exist, i. e., you are lying mistaken.

or

2) These ads are so ineffective that they are easily ignored, or easily forgotten, so Apple's ad is distinctive in that it makes such an impression on people who see it.

[JeffHendr]

The original Mac vs PC ads that compared and contrasted specific features/capabilities between the two platforms were cool--you get both the entertainment value and the chance for Apple to emphasize some of the Mac's strengths. The latest ads, however, simply criticize Windows. What's the deal with that? If I didn't know better (owning a Mac, myself), I'd conclude that Apple didn't have anything of it's own worth highlighting.

It's not enough to criticize a competitor; Apple needs to show potential customers that they actually have something to offer...something that makes the Mac more than just a curiosity. How many Window's users have ever taken the time to explore the features of OS X? How many Window's users know anything about Spotlight, Time Machine, Spaces, iChat, etc? How many Windows users know that it's possible to dual boot between Windows and OS X on an Intel Mac? And one of the major obstacles...how many Windows users know enough about the Mac hardware to know that the higher price tag is anywhere close to being justified (building a comparable PC is often slightly higher in price)?

I may not like Microsoft's products as much as a lot of Apple products, but I'm starting to admire the fact that they at least stand on their own merit and innovations. Watching an ad that simply criticizes somebody else's product, wouldn't make me want to switch. Nobody likes to watch somebody gloat and belittle, especially in a dishonest, unjustified manner.

[robanga]

You know, as a marketing professional I think Apple's agency is doing a great job with this campaign. Many of the ads are humorous and contain real issues that people can connect with.

I am a new Mac user and I absolutely love my iMac after about two weeks. I came through the iPod->iPhone->iMac progression. We also have two XP machines in the house, a Vista notebook for work and love XP media center, Xbox 360 etc. Indeed a large part of my livelihood comes from the success of Microsoft. Still having used Vista at work for a couple of months, my own experience is a disapointment. The experiences include;

lockups with the OS and Office 2007
Wierd networking connection issues in the home and in the office
Strange software problems that require workarounds or that old versions of Java runtime be maintained etc.

Its the constant security requirements and updates that are the largest issue. Vista asks me whether " I want to continue" way too much. Not having these things on the Mac is such a nice change.

So then you have a company using these real issues to run a campaign that capitalizes on the competition's weaknesses in a humourous way. To me the ads don't even seem mean spirited. They are just funny. If I were a developer for MS I would feel the same way, and those type of jibs would hopefully inspire me and my colleagues to a better job. Apple is gaining market share in PC's after single handedly domination in the digital music market. More power to them. They got me to switch.

[czachorski]

All these people in this thread calling for Apple to "grow up" with these ads and focus on the positive aspects of OS X need to go take a good hard look in the mirror. It it the consumer buying public that makes these ads work. The same is true for negative campaign ads in elections. The best technology does not always win, and showing how your technology is positive and works better is rarely a good marketing strategy, because the buying public doesn't care. Apple is simply responding to those conditions in the market, and if you want them to change, perhaps you should point the finger at the consumer buying public and lecture them to change.

[contoursvt]

Does that mean then that people buying Apple computers are computer illiterate, naive and immature? Just trying to find out the target audience. I mean if those are the consumers wanting apple products then these ads will be working great.

All these people in this thread calling for Apple to "grow up" with these ads and focus on the positive aspects of OS X need to go take a good hard look in the mirror. It it the consumer buying public that makes these ads work. The same is true for negative campaign ads in elections. The best technology does not always win, and showing how your technology is positive and works better is rarely a good marketing strategy, because the buying public doesn't care. Apple is simply responding to those conditions in the market, and if you want them to change, perhaps you should point the finger at the consumer buying public and lecture them to change.

[jonharris200]

Vista asks me whether " I want to continue" way too much.

Subliminal message, no? ;)

[JeffHendr]

All these people in this thread calling for Apple to "grow up" with these ads and focus on the positive aspects of OS X need to go take a good hard look in the mirror. It it the consumer buying public that makes these ads work. The same is true for negative campaign ads in elections. The best technology does not always win, and showing how your technology is positive and works better is rarely a good marketing strategy, because the buying public doesn't care. Apple is simply responding to those conditions in the market, and if you want them to change, perhaps you should point the finger at the consumer buying public and lecture them to change.

I didn't switch to the Mac because I saw a commercial criticizing Windows that suddenly made me think, "Oh man! I had no idea that my operating system was that bad. Maybe I should check out Apple." I buy products based on their features, and I think most other people do, too.

Realistically, this type of ad campaign, focusing more on a competitor's weaknesses than your own strengths is not the norm. It would be the equivalent of a Coke commercial that spends 30 seconds simply criticizing Pepsi or a K-Mart commercial that simply criticizes Wal-Mart. It's ineffective without taking some time to offer a positive alternative. Windows users don't need Apple to tell them about Windows; they have plenty of first-hand experience.

As far as political campaigns go, most people that I talk to are turned off by candidates who spend all their time criticizing their opponent, rather than talking about their own platform. I don't vote for somebody simply because they tell me how bad the other guy is. I want to know what they believe.

[JeffHendr]

Maybe these commercials are actually intended to rally continued support among current customers as opposed to seriously persuading new customers to "convert"? Perhaps Apple realizes that many switchers only do so after talking with already passionate Mac users who are glad to give them a demo?

[ajhill]

I totally missed the top ad. I watched it and wondered what the tie-in was to the button.

Dohp!

All you guys and gals who missed the top ad the first time need to get bigger monitors. I hear the Apple store is having a sale on Friday...

[EagerDragon]

Now that was freaking funny.

[EagerDragon]

The ironic part is, if I load it in Safari it crashes my browser. Way to go Apple.:mad:

No issues here, check your plug-ins, disable them one at a time.

[robanga]

Maybe these commercials are actually intended to rally continued support among current customers as opposed to seriously persuading new customers to "convert"? Perhaps Apple realizes that many switchers only do so after talking with already passionate Mac users who are glad to give them a demo?

Good thought but I think most ad campaigns are aimed at converting new customers. (there are exceptions) Apple's marketing worked on me but in a different way. It allowed me to questions some assumptions based on the pure visibility of the mac out there and my experience with the iPod and iPhone. I would have never considered a mac even a year and half ago, but they helped me challenge some assumptions;

1. Won't I have to buy all new software? - No not really and a lot is already included out of the box.
2. Aren't they expensive for the value? - No not really
3. Won't it be hard to get the mac to talk to other non-macs on my network at home? No - definitely not. As a matter of fact its talks to them better, then they talk to themselves at times.
4. Will it be worth the time to learn a new OS? - Its really easy to learn plain and simple look at your iPod, simple.

[Doctor Q]

An Adweek article (http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003676785) mentions MacRumors and this thread:The video, which Apple fan site MacRumors.com uploaded, has received over 70,000 views since it was uploaded on late Tuesday, making it the 9th most viewed clip of the day.

...

Despite the technical problems, the push certainly resonated with techies. At MacRumors, a short post on the ad attracted more than 130 comments.

[czachorski]

It would be the equivalent of a Coke commercial that spends 30 seconds simply criticizing Pepsi.

You mean like the Pepsi Challenge?

[ungraphic]

LOVE IT, I gave up on XP

wow, thats awesome. too bad XP isnt the windows OS you should have 'gave up' on....

sigh.

[JeffHendr]

You mean like the Pepsi Challenge?

Not quite. The Pepsi Challenge is more of a balanced approach. The key measure of a good soft drink is its taste. The Pepsi challenge compares both products and then emphasizes Pepsi's stronger appeal to taste-testers. ...I just believe that marketing is more effective if (at a minimum) you spend an equal amount of time emphasizing your product's strengths as you do emphasizing your competitor's weaknesses. Focus on selling a good alternative.

To each his own, but when it comes to expensive electronics, I'm all about the functionality/feature set. I think Apple's got enough creativity and quality in their products, they don't have to spend all their time dogging the competition.

[Snowy_River]

Which also works in their favor. Why in the WORLD would Microsoft put out an ad that says "Don't Give Up on Vista"? It's a very pathetic and self-loathing ad if ever there was one.

I'd totally buy a t-shirt with this on it. The "Give Up" highlighted, Hodgman whacking the buzzer, and Justin Long shaking his head. Back of the shirt? "Get a Mac". --Hm... I might Cafe Press one up for myself this weekend. :)

~ CB

I haven't tried Cafe Press, but taking a look at their site, it looks a little less powerful than Zazzle. You can add multiple images to each side of a shirt, plus text, etc. I'd recommend checking them out...

(I have no affilliation with Zazzle other than that of being a satisfied customer...)

[twoodcc]

i saw the ad. i liked it ;)

[John Musbach]

I see it on Engadget (http://www.engadget.com) on every single page there, as well as some pages of PC Magazine (http://www.pcmag.com). It's a two-piece ad, with a banner on top that has an old fashioned light-bulbs-on-wood sign with a cord coming off the end that starts off with all the bulbs off reading "DON'T GIVE UP ON VISTA", and a second piece on the right hand side of the page lower, with PC holding a big red button connected to the cord (running toward the top banner, obviously,) and they talk about how people shouldn't give up on Vista; PC hits the button, and just the words "GIVE UP" light up. Then he hits it again, and "ON VISTA" also lights up. Then they go back and forth about the sign, PC hitting the button repeatedly, and "DON'T" never lights up, although the other words flick on and off at various intervals.

edit: attached a screenshot of the ad. Yes, I'm reading a PC Mag article about an early-touted Windows Vista feature that isn't really available yet. Ah, the irony.
Hahaha very funny, my decision not to purchase Vista still stands until solid reasoning appears for said purchase

[czachorski]

Not quite. The Pepsi Challenge is more of a balanced approach. The key measure of a good soft drink is its taste. The Pepsi challenge compares both products and then emphasizes Pepsi's stronger appeal to taste-testers. ...I just believe that marketing is more effective if (at a minimum) you spend an equal amount of time emphasizing your product's strengths as you do emphasizing your competitor's weaknesses. Focus on selling a good alternative.

To each his own, but when it comes to expensive electronics, I'm all about the functionality/feature set. I think Apple's got enough creativity and quality in their products, they don't have to spend all their time dogging the competition.

"Pepsi tastes better than Coke.", "Macs work better than PCs". Yeah, huge difference in those approaches. :rolleyes:

[Jetson]

I just received my Iomega UltraMax 500GB hard drive and installed it to use with Time Machine. I'm using the firewire connection on a 2.1 gHz G5 iMac.

Set up was simple and Time Machine is running - however...

Time Machine is SLOW as molasses!

I can't believe how ridiculously slooooow this software is. After 30 minutes of running it's only backed up 400MB of 228GBs. At this rate it will take 228+ hours to back up a single hard drive.

Y O U---H A V E---G O T---T O---B E---K I D D I N G---M E---! ! !

Retrospect Express is much speedier than this.

Come on Apple, who ever told you that this was acceptable performance???


:eek:

[JeffHendr]

"Pepsi tastes better than Coke.", "Macs work better than PCs". Yeah, huge difference in those approaches. :rolleyes:

I hear what you're saying, and I agree that a competitor's weaknesses can be effectively used to emphasize your own product's strengths. I just don't hear Apple emphasizing their strengths when it comes to the Mac (very different approach than the iPod or iPhone). I see it as a missed opportunity for a system that I truly enjoy.

Plus, I have much more respect for an ad that states, "Macs work better than PCs" than I do for an ad that simply states that Vista doesn't work ::cut to Apple logo:: --Just one opinion.

[MacTO]

Hilarious!

Cheers. :apple:

[czachorski]

I hear what you're saying, and I agree that a competitor's weaknesses can be effectively used to emphasize your own product's strengths. I just don't hear Apple emphasizing their strengths when it comes to the Mac (very different approach than the iPod or iPhone). I see it as a missed opportunity for a system that I truly enjoy.

Plus, I have much more respect for an ad that states, "Macs work better than PCs" than I do for an ad that simply states that Vista doesn't work ::cut to Apple logo:: --Just one opinion.

I'm with you. I guess I just didn't take this add that way. Maybe I am biased by the rest of the add campaign which has been well balanced, and I am more forgiving of this one, because it feels good to seem the twist the dagger a little.

[HLdan]

This discussion is a dead horse. Those Get a Mac ads are talked about by people. If they replaced them with ads that showed off the OS X interface, do you really think people would talk about them? "Oh, did you see the ad showing how to check your email on a Mac?"... isn't going to happen. They need to target the heart of the matter, and that is the frustration many people experience with their computers, and the fact that there is something better out there. That's the issue being targeted... the why, not the how.

Good point, didn't look at it that way but on the other hand while I am always happy when one of my friends decides to buy a Mac I am getting tired of becoming their human Mac instruction manual. They always ask me what does this do or how does this work? And my favorite one is, "I can do this feature in Windows but I can't seem do do it on MAC!. I hate when they blame the Mac just because they didn't know how to do it.
Apple's ads could show off features like the Finder's cover flow feature like they do it for the iPhone and iPod touch and especially since the Finder mimics iTunes it's much easier for a switcher to adapt.

Leopard is much easier to advertise than Tiger was because most of the features on it like the Finder, iTunes, Safari and iLife are features of the iPhone and some of it is on Windows. Familiar features would sell very well in a commercial. IMO.

[HLdan]

I didn't switch to the Mac because I saw a commercial criticizing Windows that suddenly made me think, "Oh man! I had no idea that my operating system was that bad. Maybe I should check out Apple." I buy products based on their features, and I think most other people do, too.

Realistically, this type of ad campaign, focusing more on a competitor's weaknesses than your own strengths is not the norm. It would be the equivalent of a Coke commercial that spends 30 seconds simply criticizing Pepsi or a K-Mart commercial that simply criticizes Wal-Mart. It's ineffective without taking some time to offer a positive alternative. Windows users don't need Apple to tell them about Windows; they have plenty of first-hand experience.

As far as political campaigns go, most people that I talk to are turned off by candidates who spend all their time criticizing their opponent, rather than talking about their own platform. I don't vote for somebody simply because they tell me how bad the other guy is. I want to know what they believe.

Sorry buddy but you have somehow fallen short on memory in regards to the Napster ad. Remember their campaign? "10,000 songs on an Apple iPod =$10,000.00 spent". "$15 monthly on Napster and a supported mp3 player gets you unlimited downloads".

Well, it didn't work. Apple's iPod is the biggest selling portable music player ever and they hold the largest market share that no one will match.

Focusing on your strengths while bashing the competition doesn't bring in sales. It's either or but you can't do both in the same ad, it will fail as Napster's did.

[macFanDave]

welcome to the Mac platform. The hardest things that Windows switchers need to get is that, on a Mac, "Close" is not "Quit," that is, the red ball is not the same as the Windows X box.

Indeed a large part of my livelihood comes from the success of Microsoft.

The sum total of many people's livelihoods comes from the many failures of Microsoft.

[MattyMac]

hahhaaa...amazing! Apple is really being creative now!

...I know I know creativity is an everyday thing for Apple.

[Jetson]

I hoped that someone would throw me a life preserver, but none came.

So I dug around and around and finally found an article in the Apple Support pages.

Someone there said they discovered that when Norton Utilities are running (in the background) that Time Machine was horribly slow. Then when Norton was turned off, voila! Time Machine was liberated.

I tried it and now Time Machine is going much faster. It's still no speed champ by any means, but maybe it will backup my drive in one day instead of ten days.

This is still a problem though because you shouldn't have to turn off virus protection just to do a backup. For instance, Retrospect Express isn't affected in the least by Norton.


http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5840473

:o

[egsaxy]

"My searchbar was working before, but after updating to 10.4.11 it's no longer working. It's obviously my fault"

Actually it obviously was your fault because you updated to 10.4.11. All kidding aside does anyone know if apple updates the updater builds? like if i upgrade to 10.4.11 today will it be the same build as the one evagelion used a week ago?

If we can't laugh at ourselves, then people will laugh at us and not with us.

[FX120]

Well, it didn't work. Apple's iPod is the biggest selling portable music player ever and they hold the largest market share that no one will match.

So by that statement, these ads will never work. Windows is the biggest selling OS franchise of all time, has the largest market share, that no one will match, so therefore Apple might as well just stop trying with their clever little ads. Right?

[bmk]

And I said that because we routinely hear comments how Macs "just work" and they do that because the software and the hardware is designed to intermingle. Yet we DO get problems.

Let me see if I understand your bizarre logic. Because people tell you that 'Macs just work' you then feel that it is ok to criticise anyone who suggests that a problem on a Mac MAY be caused by the individual user's configuration. And then to add insult to injury you say that this somehow proves that they are saying that Macs are no better than Windows?

There is no inconsistency in saying that (a) Macs are better than Windows machines (my personal opinion) and (b) that there are times when system/software glitches/conflicts occur.

Go back and read my original post - what I was saying is hardly rocket science i.e. that an individual user's problem may have been caused by a some undetermined system/software conflict (third party software, user customisation etc etc), and may not necessarily be the fault of Apple engineers or software designers.

[ckinyc]

........................................Awesome!!!

[goosnarrggh]

My point was not that there aren't genuine problems with the OS

Yes there are. If you claim otherwise, you are deluding yourself. But if you really DO claim that, then we can just as well say "there are no problems with Windows, all those problems people have are caused by third-party software and different hardware-configurations. Windows by itself is 100% perfect".

Gotta love double negatives. You misread the previous statement.

Let's follow through the language that was used:
My point was not that there aren't genuine problems with the OS...

That exactly equivalent to this (IMHO) slightly clearer statement,
"There may be genuine problems with the OS, but you shouldn't always assume that the OS is solely to blame for every issue you encounter."

Well, are you claiming that?
It seems blindingly obvious to me that bmk was not claiming anything of the sort.

[jayducharme]

Sadly, we've had more stability issues with Tiger than Vista within our organization. While the problems in vista seem to be more driver availability and some incompatabilities with older software, with Tiger, we've had all kinds of weird issues with finder content not refreshing, printing not working at all (to any printer) until reboot..etc. Just weird things that seem silly in this day and age.

That is weird. Where I work, there are three Mac labs. All the rest of the computers are PCs with XP. The Macs are the only machines that function well from day to day. All the other PCs have their users cursing. But our I.T. has the same fears you expressed, so Mac use is limited. I ditched the PC in my office long ago for an iMac and I'm extremely happy with its performance and stability.

As far as not having Office, there are plenty of alternatives out there from Apple's well-received suite to reliable open source options.

[Avatar74]

Not quite. The Pepsi Challenge is more of a balanced approach. The key measure of a good soft drink is its taste. The Pepsi challenge compares both products and then emphasizes Pepsi's stronger appeal to taste-testers. ...I just believe that marketing is more effective if (at a minimum) you spend an equal amount of time emphasizing your product's strengths as you do emphasizing your competitor's weaknesses. Focus on selling a good alternative.

To each his own, but when it comes to expensive electronics, I'm all about the functionality/feature set. I think Apple's got enough creativity and quality in their products, they don't have to spend all their time dogging the competition.

Except that the Pepsi Challenge was actually a hoax. The trick was that booths had filled Pepsi in both the Pepsi AND Coke bottles, and then whichever one you selected as the better tasting one of the two, they'd grab the bottle marked "Pepsi" to show that's the one you chose.

The big mistake that Coca-Cola made was they had misinterpreted the resulting data. Sales of Pepsi did not go up sharply because of anything to do with the formula... It had to do with the PepsiCo's aggressive boost in advertising expenditures. Coca-Cola therefore misattributed the cause and then attempted to launch New Coke with a sweetened formula to compete with Pepsi. This proved to be a colossal failure because in the end there was no real evidence that the Pepsi formula was actually preferred by customers over what is now Coca-Cola Classic.

The additional mistake made by Coca-Cola is that studies show that whenever a brand leader compares themselves to the subordinate competition, the subordinate competition gains more sales than they do... out of sheer product exposure.

Therefore it is regarded today as marketing sense to follow the strategy of independent differentiation where the product is marketed on its own attributes and never compared to other brands. 2nd or 3rd place brands do better, according to the same studies, when they do compare themselves to superior brands to gain some credibility by sheer association and comparison to show what they have to offer that is similar to the leading brand.

In Apple's case, they have nothing to lose to compare themselves to Vista because they are not the leading brand in terms of overall volume. Doubly well for them is that they are the leading brand in terms of customer perception of quality... and so by chiding Vista they are exposing its weaknesses, not theirs, and doing so without giving Microsoft any measurable increase in advertising exposure that they don't already have.

Apple can't even fail by trying to make OS X more like Vista, because they have such little market share as it is. Windows, however, could fail by trying to emulate the style and functionality of OS X, which they did with Vista... and it exposes their mediocrity as a developer of user interfaces.

[Snowy_River]

So, are the ads still showing up anywhere? I'd love a higher quality version to keep around than the one on YouTube.

[Macmanus]

Being anti- is always easier than being pro-.

If you're a Third World politician without a single idea, talk anti-american : people will follow you. Not everybody, but a lot.

People from Apple got the trick.

Looks like I'm going to stick with Vista, which has worked normally since the beginning, even if it's an upgrade.

[jonharris200]

And the biggest round of applause goes to MacRumors for successfully using Apple's ad to advertise their own website for free! :D :cool: :)

An Adweek article (http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003676785) mentions MacRumors and this thread:The video, which Apple fan site MacRumors.com uploaded, has received over 70,000 views since it was uploaded on late Tuesday, making it the 9th most viewed clip of the day.

[Scottgfx]

Looks like I'm going to stick with Vista, which has worked normally since the beginning, even if it's an upgrade.

I wish I had the same experience. I bought a new Vista based laptop to run a PC application related to my work. I thought this would be the better way to go as I didn't want to accidently mess up my MacBook by trying to put BootCamp on it. After many hours of trying to get the program to run under the Vista laptop, I learned that the application didn't support Vista. (There was no information to this effect). I then went out and bought a retail copy of XP and tried to install it on the laptop. That didn't work, and the salespeople later told me that they had no success with other's request for the same.

I then, as a last resort, downloaded BootCamp, installed Windows XP on my MacBook and my software ran fine.

I then gave the Vista laptop to my brother because I couldn't find anyone even willing to pay $750 for what was a $1000 machine.

[Scenicroadways]

I think the ads are a good marketing move. Right now is when people are struggling with going from XP to vista and might want to "give up". Why not target these people and tout Mac? It's really the perfect time to bait them over.

[Squozen]

What the **** are you talking about?

And by the way, where is the support for network printers in OS X? Oh yeah, it's not supported.

I guess the network printers that I print to every day without needing to install additional drivers with my Mac are imaginary.

[Scottgfx]

I guess the network printers that I print to every day without needing to install additional drivers with my Mac are imaginary.

Perhaps he's still using one of those IBM printers with the huge Twinax connectors.

[Macmanus]

I wish I had the same experience. I bought a new Vista based laptop to run a PC application related to my work. I thought this would be the better way to go as I didn't want to accidently mess up my MacBook by trying to put BootCamp on it. After many hours of trying to get the program to run under the Vista laptop, I learned that the application didn't support Vista. (There was no information to this effect). I then went out and bought a retail copy of XP and tried to install it on the laptop. That didn't work, and the salespeople later told me that they had no success with other's request for the same.

I then, as a last resort, downloaded BootCamp, installed Windows XP on my MacBook and my software ran fine.

I then gave the Vista laptop to my brother because I couldn't find anyone even willing to pay $750 for what was a $1000 machine.

I too had several softs that couldn't run under Vista, but that's normal to me, you always have to wait. I don't consider this being a problem related to Vista.

BTW, talking about program compatibility, Mac is very, very far from being an easy switch for a PC user... i'm talking essentially about DVD play/write stuff, such as AnyDVD, Nero, DVDFab... but there's a concret problem for PC switchers used to certain programs...

[czachorski]

I too had several softs that couldn't run under Vista, but that's normal to me, you always have to wait. I don't consider this being a problem related to Vista.

BTW, talking about program compatibility, Mac is very, very far from being an easy switch for a PC user... i'm talking essentially about DVD play/write stuff, such as AnyDVD, Nero, DVDFab... but there's a concret problem for PC switchers used to certain programs...

Specific programs...yes. General applications....no. All those DVD functions exist in various packages for Mac.

[Macmanus]

Specific programs...yes. General applications....no. All those DVD functions exist in various packages for Mac.

Looks like you didn't check it out.

AnyDVd for Mac ??? I'll be the first to buy it !

[sushi]

AnyDVd for Mac ??? I'll be the first to buy it !
You might want to check out Mac The Ripper (MTR).

You can then use Toast w/Popcorn to shrink the files and then burn the DVD.

Or you can use DVD2OneX (to shrink the files) and Toast to burn the DVD.

[greysave]

Sadly, we've had more stability issues with Tiger than Vista within our organization. While the problems in vista seem to be more driver availability and some incompatabilities with older software, with Tiger, we've had all kinds of weird issues with finder content not refreshing, printing not working at all (to any printer) until reboot..etc. Just weird things that seem silly in this day and age.

We even had two machines side by side looking at the computers on the network and one would see machine called "X" lets say and the other would not show it in the list. No matter what we did it wouldnt show. Even upon reboot it failed to show. Very weird. Both were running 10.4.x at the time. It was a 2K3 server that failed to show but other 2k3 servers we had still were there.

Anyway from my experience in our environment where we have 100+ XP stations, 10-15 Vista stations and 20 OSX stations (10.4) I can honestly say that Apple is grasping at straws with the ads. You may not like the UI but all the talk about stability and viruses and all that being a major issue is a farse. In the 4 years of being at the company, I have yet to see 1 comprimised computer (Virus, Trojan or Malware). All the ads are doing is annoying the people who are computer literate enough to use both platforms and the ones that fine them believable are the inexperienced and gullable. Thats my take on things. Even speaking to the hard core designers who have used both platforms, they find the ads unprofessional.

If you've ever seen a really small cocky guy being all loud mouth and pushy even towards the big guy... Well you know where I might be going with this. I believe in speak softly and carry a big stick. The ads IMO show apple as the 'little' guy who makes a lot of noise. One day he's gonna get hit. LOL.

Really, with MS office being such an important software for a lot of people, all MS would have to do is stop development of that product on the apple platform and it would do major damage. Not sure if anyone else feels this way but I think its retarded to poke the sleeping bull with a big stick....

Ok, I seriously have to disagree with mostly everything you just said. I am a network admin for a well known cancer research publishing company having both Macs and Windows. We are predominatly a windows shop, but we also have 10 macs. Vista is utter garbage, no one in the industry is honestly going to it yet as it is definately not ready. Active directory tools for 2003 don't install on it, exchange server 2003 systems manager won't install on it as a well as a host of other enterprise microsoft apps. I find this amazing because this is all ms stuff, which you would think they would have planned for it but apparantly they haven't. I do find that I have some issues with the Mac's and the printers but that is basically it. If you are having trouble connecting your macs to windows 2k3 boxes you may want to turn off digitially signing all trafic in the local security policy ediitor.

Vista is not ready for enterprise level integration yet, you can have some success if you use exchange 2k7 but this still doesn't solve the AD integration problems. Also if you do goto exchange 2k7 it is well known to have a memory leak. I only have around 160 mailboxes and find that after a week my memory usage goes from 2gb to 10gb. I have to reboot the exchange server once a week.

The moral of my story is, to say that Vista is more reliable then Tiger is not accurate. Why are most businesses holding off on vista? The reason is quite simply that it is the most unreliable piece of garbage ever. Furthermore Vista with their admin(root) account, desktop search database, gadget, and other things not only borrow from OS X, but also unix in general.

[KurtangleTN]

I wish Apple would smarten up with Mac ads, yes they are funny but they just simply don't get the point across, and just piss off PC users that would consider switching. I was one of them, really I knew nothing about Macs, but I was very turned off by the ads.

You know they wouldn't be so bad if they actually focused on a particular Mac feature, and the contrast on every one.

You could have the PC talk about how he was screamed and yelled at for the users kid deleting a file, and the Mac mentions how he has time machine and it automatically backs up, so they wouldn't have that problem, the PC could say "Well that's boring, how else do you get them so kids don't use the computer" or something, I'm not a writer but you get the point.

Far too often it's just Apple bashing Windows.

Really they also need a more iPhone like ads for the Mac. Actually show features of the Mac in someway, when is the last Apple ad that actually focused on parts of the OS?

[Macmanus]

You might want to check out Mac The Ripper (MTR).

You can then use Toast w/Popcorn to shrink the files and then burn the DVD.

Or you can use DVD2OneX (to shrink the files) and Toast to burn the DVD.

http://lowendmac.com/fishkin/af07/0907.html

Lighten up.

[Sesshi]

Ok, I seriously have to disagree with mostly everything you just said. I am a network admin for a well known cancer research publishing company having both Macs and Windows. We are predominatly a windows shop, but we also have 10 macs. Vista is utter garbage, no one in the industry is honestly going to it yet as it is definately not ready. Active directory tools for 2003 don't install on it, exchange server 2003 systems manager won't install on it as a well as a host of other enterprise microsoft apps. I find this amazing because this is all ms stuff, which you would think they would have planned for it but apparantly they haven't. I do find that I have some issues with the Mac's and the printers but that is basically it. If you are having trouble connecting your macs to windows 2k3 boxes you may want to turn off digitially signing all trafic in the local security policy ediitor.

Vista is not ready for enterprise level integration yet, you can have some success if you use exchange 2k7 but this still doesn't solve the AD integration problems. Also if you do goto exchange 2k7 it is well known to have a memory leak. I only have around 160 mailboxes and find that after a week my memory usage goes from 2gb to 10gb. I have to reboot the exchange server once a week.

The moral of my story is, to say that Vista is more reliable then Tiger is not accurate. Why are most businesses holding off on vista? The reason is quite simply that it is the most unreliable piece of garbage ever. Furthermore Vista with their admin(root) account, desktop search database, gadget, and other things not only borrow from OS X, but also unix in general.

Integration and reliability are two different things. I fully agree regarding the laziness of many application writers and even Microsoft themselves in getting Vista completely compatible with many apps.

It's also true to say that the situation six months ago was radically different, and a lot more half-baked than it is now. I would postulate that many of the Vista-bashers are going in misinformation spread by the blogomoronsphere (which has a tendency to feed on itself) and also according to old experiences. For me, Vista is now suitable for deploying across all of my computers, with a couple of minor exceptions.

It's also true to say that in my experience, Tiger running on a Pro (or in fact, several Pros) is less reliable, in both hardware and software terms, than Vista Business / Ultimate running on a Precision 690. We have recently converted a batch of dual-5160 Precisions 690's to successfully run OSX for our core software suite, and are in the process of tossing out the Pros. Next step: Migrating from OS X in favour of Linux for both the core front-end and back-end applications - but that will take a lot longer, perhaps 2-3 years.

[czachorski]

http://lowendmac.com/fishkin/af07/0907.html

Lighten up.

His post didn't seem all that harsh or un-light to me? :confused:

I too have found MTR, handbrake and Toast to cover all my DVD needs.

[czachorski]

I wish Apple would smarten up with Mac ads, yes they are funny but they just simply don't get the point across, and just piss off PC users that would consider switching. I was one of them, really I knew nothing about Macs, but I was very turned off by the ads.

But it looks like from your signature, that you bought one anyways. ;) Funny when an anecdotal point contradicts itself. :D

[Macmanus]

His post didn't seem all that harsh or un-light to me? :confused:

I too have found MTR, handbrake and Toast to cover all my DVD needs.

Once and for all, a bible truth : you CAN'T just watch DVDs on your mac that are from a different region, you HAVE TO rip them, or FLASH your optical drive.

PCs can do just that.

For details, read the link above.

[czachorski]

Once and for all, a bible truth : you CAN'T just watch DVDs on your mac that are from a different region, you HAVE TO rip them, or FLASH your optical drive.

PCs can do just that.

For details, read the link above.

Until now, your posts were not clear. Especially since the link you posted has a title of "Region Free DVD Viewing on Macs and Windows PCs". I actually thought at first your link was contradicting yourself, until you explained it above. So it seems that it can be done on a Mac, but not just directly in one step -> insert disc and play. Got it. It requires 2 steps and about 8 GB of HD space with MTR. I can see how that would be a pain.

For people who travel a lot to the other regions, region codes suck!

[coffey7]

I am currently using Vista and everything works great for me. Apple should just focus on their own stuff. I use Linux, Windows and OSX and enjoy using them all. :)

What if Microsoft had ads that talked about how 90% of software works with windows but not on a Mac. My friend works at a college in a science dept and he had to put windows on his mac book pro so he could use all of his work programs. Its better not to be cocky until you won the war.

[czachorski]

I am currently using Vista and everything works great for me. Apple should just focus on their own stuff. I use Linux, Windows and OSX and enjoy using them all. :)

What if Microsoft had ads that talked about how 90% of software works with windows but not on a Mac. My friend works at a college in a science dept and he had to put windows on his mac book pro so he could use all of his work programs. Its better not to be cocky until you won the war.

If MS did such an ad, it would be fine, since its true. I too have Windows in parallels at work to be able to run our accounting and CRM software.

MS would be unwise to run such an ad, as described earlier in this thread, because it would be poor marketing to compare themselves to the smaller competitor and give them more credibility. However, the smaller guy has a lot to gain and little to lose with the same comparisons. This rationale made sense to me, and I like the ads too.

[omemedia]

I love these Mac vs. PC ads. I use both a Mac (a G4 at the moment, but I'm planning on getting new one) and a PC in my work. I run WinXP on my PC, but have no intention of ever upgrading to Vista!

[JeffHendr]

Therefore it is regarded today as marketing sense to follow the strategy of independent differentiation where the product is marketed on its own attributes and never compared to other brands. 2nd or 3rd place brands do better, according to the same studies, when they do compare themselves to superior brands to gain some credibility by sheer association and comparison to show what they have to offer that is similar to the leading brand.

In Apple's case, they have nothing to lose to compare themselves to Vista because they are not the leading brand in terms of overall volume. Doubly well for them is that they are the leading brand in terms of customer perception of quality... and so by chiding Vista they are exposing its weaknesses, not theirs, and doing so without giving Microsoft any measurable increase in advertising exposure that they don't already have.

I'm simply stating that Apple is making an ineffective/incomplete comparison. The recent ads focus almost exclusively on the PC, with very little information (if any) on the Mac. It's even worse when their critique of the PC is a tad bit too far over the top to be taken very seriously.

I think the desired message is "PC = bad. Mac = good." The message that I get from the commercials however, is more of a "PC = bad. By the way, the Mac exists." Come on. Surely Apple can come up with a way to seriously present at least one or two things that a Mac can do well.

[JeffHendr]

Therefore it is regarded today as marketing sense to follow the strategy of independent differentiation where the product is marketed on its own attributes and never compared to other brands. 2nd or 3rd place brands do better, according to the same studies, when they do compare themselves to superior brands to gain some credibility by sheer association and comparison to show what they have to offer that is similar to the leading brand.

In Apple's case, they have nothing to lose to compare themselves to Vista because they are not the leading brand in terms of overall volume. Doubly well for them is that they are the leading brand in terms of customer perception of quality... and so by chiding Vista they are exposing its weaknesses, not theirs, and doing so without giving Microsoft any measurable increase in advertising exposure that they don't already have.

I'm simply stating that Apple is making an ineffective/incomplete comparison. The recent ads focus almost exclusively on the PC, with very little information (if any) on the Mac. It's even worse when their critique of the PC is a tad bit too far over the top to be taken very seriously.

I think the desired message is "PC = bad. Mac = good." The message that I get from the commercials however, is more of a "PC = bad. By the way, the Mac exists." Come on. Surely Apple can come up with a way to seriously present at least one or two things that a Mac can do well.

[jayb2000]

Huh, what a harsh response.
Are you seriously suggesting that the guy should grab himself some debugger and should try to figure out what is wrong with the software that is supplied and installed on his system?

I was having a Safari crash myself while browsing the Apple webpages. I do not know what caused this crash and I simply don't care. I have not tinkered with Safari in any way besides to install Stand. So it is my fault that Safari crashed? I expect software that is robust. Meaning whatever the ordinary user is throwing at it it should swallow and give me a sensible response. If it does not able to handle this I tend to blame the developer and in this case it is Apple.


Yes, it is your fault. Or Stand's fault. If you uninstall STAND, reinstall Safari, does it work? Then it is Stand's fault.

If dozens or hundreds or thousand of people were having the same flash/Safari crash, then yes, it is a bug.
Whether the bug is Safari, Flash, Javascript, etc, would need to be figured out by a software developer, which you already said you are not.

So, let us know. If you remove stand, remove Safari, install Safari, update the software, can you browse Apple's page with no crash?