Apple Comments on Microsoft's Laptop Hunter Ads

[4D4M]

A Mac is a PC. Why is it so hard for Mac users to accept that?

We know it is. And we also know that there may be some ghastly bricks for sale out there with higher specification at a lower cost than our MacBook Pro. But we still choose our MacBooks, because we like them better.

Why is it so difficult for PC users to accept that?

 

[warpet]

Until Apple has something comparable to Media Center I'm sticking with Windows. Windows 7 Media Center has Clear Qam support with fully functional DVR and 2 week program guide that allows me to record shows in much better quality than what Apple wants you to pay for. I'm sorry but Frontrow doesn't even come close to MCE neither do Sagetv, BeyondTV or any thing else for that matter and it's free.
As far as BSOD's I haven't had one since Windows 98 I can't remember the last time windows even froze that's more of a Mac problem than a Windows problem. As far as viruses go I have a very good antivirus program it's called AVG and it's free, but I never leave it running becuase I don't download porn. You guys watch too many commercials Windows Isn't nearly as bad as Apple would have you think. Infact Windows 7 is the 2nd best operating system I've ever used and the best isn't from Apple.
The only people who like the Mac ads are Mac fans, PC owners see these ads as insulting and childish at best. As PC owners they know Windows rarely Freezes or locks up. These ads are meant to keep current customers more than to get PC owners to switch.

 

[warpet]

We know it is. And we also know that there may be some ghastly bricks for sale out there with higher specification at a lower cost than our MacBook Pro. But we still choose our MacBooks, because we like them better.

Why is it so difficult for PC users to accept that?

We just find it strange that someone would gladly pay twice as much for the same thing. Why is that so hard to understand?

 

[Lestrange]

...

Quote:
"A PC is no bargain when it doesn't do what you want .... The one thing that both Apple and Microsoft can agree on is that everyone thinks the Mac is cool. With its great designs and advanced software, nothing matches it at any price."

...is it just me, or does this seem in part to be an admission of 'cool tax'...


And pcs certainly do do what you want, often at less cost, they may not do it as smoothly, they may not look all that nice, they may not have all the bells and whistles and fancy extras, but the simple fact is initial outlay for a machine is often THE deciding factor in buying an expensive piece of hardware for most non-rich people. =]

Don't get me wrong, I love Apple, and Macs, and ideally I'd be running both Mac and PC, but the closest thing to a decent machine from Apple is far out of my and most average people's price range (design/illustration student here).

 

[AidenShaw]

your point is?

...the closest thing to a decent machine from Apple is far out of my and most average people's price range (design/illustration student here).

So, your point is that "an Apple would be cool if it offered value commensurate with the price"?

 

[Sehnsucht]

We just find it strange that someone would gladly pay twice as much for the same thing. Why is that so hard to understand?

Why is it so hard to understand that it really isn't the same thing?

Sure, a Mac may contain mostly the same components as a Windows PC, but they also run an infinitely better OS and are backed up by infinitely better support, i.e. Apple. And as an added plus, they're shiny!

Yeah I know..."Buh-buh-buh-but my Dell PowerEdge systems come with three-year free on-site servicing and repair through Dell" blah blah blah...We're talking about consumer-class desktops and laptops here, not enterprise servers. Yeah, buy a cheap (or expensive) PC at Best Buy and have fun getting ripped off by the Freak Squad...(or you could take a class to learn Hindi and then call the HP tech support hotline.)

Ours are better.

 

[DMann]

So, your point is that "an Apple would be cool if it offered value commenserate with the price"?

Commenserate? Perhaps you mean commensurate? Apple does indeed offer value commensurate with their prices. The Mac's overall user experience, reliability, support, hassle free, and seamless operation seems to appeal to those who immensely value their time, peace of mind, and an OS environment which tends not to get in the way, i.e. interfere with their productivity. Value can be measured in ways beyond monetary measures alone, and to many, the premium is well justified.

 

[4D4M]

We just find it strange that someone would gladly pay twice as much for the same thing. Why is that so hard to understand?

It's OK that you find it strange, everybody is different. I've chosen a Mac with OS X and I won't be changing my mind. You've chosen a PC with Windows. Enjoy.

So why are you here, on a Mac site? Did you come here just to tell us our choice is wrong?

 

[edwardh]

I actually had a HP dv5t for a week before I returned it. There is no way any of the HP dvt models compares to a Macbook in terms of looks. The seams on the plastic don't even match up perfectly where the edges of the plastic meet together. It also feels and looks really bulky. The Macbook is in a whole other league of design, sorry.

Even in the first Microsoft commercial, that Lauren chick likes the look of the Dell machine better than the HP (even though she doesn't know that it's a Dell Studio 17 she's talking about).

IMO, dv5 looks better than MacBook/MBP, and is priced only one-third the cost of a MacBook Pro. The Apple is just too way over-priced.

In the Microsoft commercial, Lauren may have liked another machine, but she walked out the store with a HP notebook.

 

[joaoferro37]

The price is right but it is not sexy.

 

[-hh]

... You guys watch too many commercials Windows Isn't nearly as bad as Apple would have you think.

There are many readers/posters here who use Windows PCs every day at work and thus aren't the ones who are watching too much TV ...

These {Apple} ads are meant to keep current customers more than to get PC owners to switch.

But if that's true, then how is it reconciled with the fact that roughly 40% of new Mac sales are going to customers who new to the platform?

We just find it strange that someone would gladly pay twice as much for the same thing. Why is that so hard to understand?

Because they're not the "same thing" for as far as that buyer is concerned.

For example, a laptop that is 1/2 the price, but is 2x the weight...is it the same thing?

YMMV, but it shouldn't be all that intellectually hard to understand the concept of different people having different needs, priorities & thus, with them ending up with different product choices at the end of the day.


-hh

 

[Double J]

The price is right but it is not sexy.

See, it all boils down to this ^^^. It's strictly aesthetics over value, and Mac people have such an annoying superiority complex. EVERY other argument falls apart under scrutiny, to the point where every single Mac user eventually falls over and just says "It's just different okay, why don't you understand that, leave me alone, ahhhhh!"

"OS X is infinitely superior to Windows "
Really? Why?
"It just is. " (Why do people on this forum use so many frickin smilies?)

Put a Mac user and PC user side by side and see how much ACTUAL WORK each one can get done. Maybe the Mac is good if all you use is Photoshop, but I have to use anywhere between 30 and 50 different applications every day, and usually have 10 or 12 open simultaneously. "But, but what about all the PC problems, the viruses, the headaches, the tech support???" Yeah, in any given year, that might take up 1/10th of 1% of my time.

And the reason I'm on MacRumors is because I have an iPhone and love it. That's where their design philosophy actually makes sense. Sure, it lacks some basic features and has some annoying Apple-y qualities (like lying about battery life), but what it can do for a portable device still can't be beaten.

 

[NT1440]

We just find it strange that someone would gladly pay twice as much for the same thing. Why is that so hard to understand?

Because its not the same damn thing, obviously. Does anyone using a computer look at just the specs? Its the whole experience mac users love, is THAT so hard to understand?

 

[AidenShaw]

Its the whole experience mac users love, is THAT so hard to understand?

yes...

 

[polaris20]

See, it all boils down to this ^^^. It's strictly aesthetics over value, and Mac people have such an annoying superiority complex. EVERY other argument falls apart under scrutiny, to the point where every single Mac user eventually falls over and just says "It's just different okay, why don't you understand that, leave me alone, ahhhhh!"

"OS X is infinitely superior to Windows "
Really? Why?
"It just is. " (Why do people on this forum use so many frickin smilies?)

Put a Mac user and PC user side by side and see how much ACTUAL WORK each one can get done. Maybe the Mac is good if all you use is Photoshop, but I have to use anywhere between 30 and 50 different applications every day, and usually have 10 or 12 open simultaneously. "But, but what about all the PC problems, the viruses, the headaches, the tech support???" Yeah, in any given year, that might take up 1/10th of 1% of my time.

And the reason I'm on MacRumors is because I have an iPhone and love it. That's where their design philosophy actually makes sense. Sure, it lacks some basic features and has some annoying Apple-y qualities (like lying about battery life), but what it can do for a portable device still can't be beaten.

Hey, thanks for the the personal anecdotes that mean pretty much nothing.

Too bad the majority of the users on this site have no clue what subjectivity is, yourself included.

Why do people like Macs? Because they do. So they buy them. So?

 

[Sehnsucht]

yes...

You will someday.

 

[Double J]

Why do people like Macs? Because they do. So they buy them. So?

So I don't have a problem with it as long as Mac people don't argue about value or productivity, and don't go "Oh my god Windows is teh suxor, how could you use that unbelievable pile of ****, my Mac soooooo amazing and beautiful and perfect I'm going to go have sex with it right now !"

 

[NT1440]

So I don't have a problem with it as long as Mac people don't argue about value or productivity, and don't go "Oh my god Windows is teh suxor, how could you use that unbelievable pile of ****, my Mac soooooo amazing and beautiful and perfect I'm going to go have sex with it right now !"

And how many people in real life have come up to you and done that?

Thats not because they are a mac user, its because they are just an opinionated douchebag. Very few people in real life walk up to others for no reason just to tout their stuff.

 

[4D4M]

And the reason I'm on MacRumors is because I have an iPhone and love it.

Yeah shhuuuuurre it is. And you accidentally strayed on to the Mac related discussions, multiple times, I suppose?

You have no interest in Macs other than to bash them, so your reason for being here is very obvious to everyone.

We prefer Macs, and people like you aren't going to change our minds, so why waste your time?

 

[BongoBanger]

I bought my Macbook because of the hardware and the multitouch trackpad which is brilliant.

OS X is, in my opinion, no better or worse than Vista on this hardware.

 

[vipergts2207]

We just find it strange that someone would gladly pay twice as much for the same thing. Why is that so hard to understand?

As other's have said it's not the same. Sure, processors and graphics cards might be the same, but what about the little things? The things that differentiate Macs from PC's. Does the HP have a backlit keyboard? What about a nice, large multi-touch trackpad? A magsafe power cord (which by the way, probably saved my laptop twice)? Probably not.

 

[Solemony]

Totally agree with the Apple comments on Microsoft's laptop hunter ads...

 

[-hh]

Put a Mac user and PC user side by side and see how much ACTUAL WORK each one can get done. Maybe ...

Easier said than done ... and generally pretty hard to find free references on the Internet that have good objective data. (FWIW, here's one example that I can't recall seeing before...it uses PPC G5, so its not particularly new, but nevertheless has some interesting measures).

"But, but what about all the PC problems, the viruses, the headaches, the tech support???" Yeah, in any given year, that might take up 1/10th of 1% of my time.

Lucky to be you. I'd kill for a downtime of only 0.001% on my Windows PC, since that's only 2 hours per workyear.

I'm already at ~0.015% downtime for my Windows laptop for this last quarter (roughly 10 hours of downtime)...and none of it was due to hardware; it was all software and nearly all OS.

A good chunk of it were IT disruptions from doing supposedly Urgent "Emergency" patches during the workday, although there was also some mischief from a corrupted NORMAL.DOT in MS-Word this past month too, as well as an airline flight that required 3 reboots which ate up 25% of the laptop's battery.

In general, we have more downtime than we tend to remember, since its in small dribs and drabs and we're not necessarily good at logging the outages.

And the reason I'm on MacRumors is because I have an iPhone and love it. That's where their design philosophy actually makes sense. Sure, it lacks some basic features and has some annoying Apple-y qualities (like lying about battery life), but what it can do for a portable device still can't be beaten.

So while you like the iPhone, this also somewhat sounds like you've perhaps never actually lived with OS X for a couple of months to know if there's factors other than merely productivity measures which may be of interest or value to a consumer..?


-hh

EDIT: nevermind. I see that your account has been banned.

 

[polaris20]

So I don't have a problem with it as long as Mac people don't argue about value or productivity, and don't go "Oh my god Windows is teh suxor, how could you use that unbelievable pile of ****, my Mac soooooo amazing and beautiful and perfect I'm going to go have sex with it right now !"

If people do that in real life to you, perhaps you should seek employment somewhere else, where people conduct themselves in a more professional manner.

I'm more productive now with OS X than I was running Windows or Linux. My boss still likes Windows better. The web dev is more productive on Ubuntu. See how that works? It's subjective.

Subjectivity refers to a subject's perspective or opinion, particularly feelings, beliefs, and desires.

 

[kingtj]

re: Media Center

This is true, BUT, I still don't really grasp why so many people actually want their main computer to do double-duty as their PVR and "media center"??

A long time ago, I saw all the value in a media center / PVR, but that led me to build a separate computer JUST for that job! As long as I was doing that, it made little sense to spend money with Microsoft for a copy of Windows with media center capabilities in it, when there were far better and more functional solutions with things like "MythTV" for Linux.

(And no, you don't need to know a whole lot about Linux to install one. www.mysettopbox.tv has the Knoppmyth distribution of MythTV all set up as a bootable CD ISO image which will do the whole installation for you rather painlessly.)

I don't want my main computer to have a large part of its drive space taken up with recorded video, or a movie collection. I don't want to watch everything on my computer display either, and I don't want to run a huge video cable across the house from my computer room to my 50" plasma TV in the living room either.

Most people I know who care much about television shows already own some sort of set-top box capable of scheduling and recording programs, too. My AT&T U-Verse service does, and I know DirecTV or Dish Network have PVR receivers as well. A Tivo is another alternative for a stand-alone box, and with a program like Roxio Toast on your Mac, you can xfer recordings over from a Tivo on your home LAN and burn them to DVD.

I use BOTH Windows and Mac systems, and I far prefer OS X. (It's what I use 90% of the time at home these days.) I deal with Windows all day at work, and it's fine for what we need there. We run a lot of specialized software that will never be released in an OS X version, and barely has more than a total userbase of 500-1000 customers for the Windows version either. But I don't find the Mac ads insulting at all. Sure, Windows doesn't completely crash like it did years ago ... but it DOES have problems far more than my Macs do. At work, we constantly have issues with the boss's PC, for example, where the outlook.exe process won't die when he closes out of Outlook. Then when he goes back into it, he's actually running the "engine" for the app TWICE, so it won't let him add new calendar entries anymore or edit contacts, and meeting reminders stop popping up.

Until Apple has something comparable to Media Center I'm sticking with Windows. Windows 7 Media Center has Clear Qam support with fully functional DVR and 2 week program guide that allows me to record shows in much better quality than what Apple wants you to pay for. I'm sorry but Frontrow doesn't even come close to MCE neither do Sagetv, BeyondTV or any thing else for that matter and it's free.
As far as BSOD's I haven't had one since Windows 98 I can't remember the last time windows even froze that's more of a Mac problem than a Windows problem. As far as viruses go I have a very good antivirus program it's called AVG and it's free, but I never leave it running becuase I don't download porn. You guys watch too many commercials Windows Isn't nearly as bad as Apple would have you think. Infact Windows 7 is the 2nd best operating system I've ever used and the best isn't from Apple.
The only people who like the Mac ads are Mac fans, PC owners see these ads as insulting and childish at best. As PC owners they know Windows rarely Freezes or locks up. These ads are meant to keep current customers more than to get PC owners to switch.