We had those kid ads a while back here in the US. They did not last long. Prolly because they were dumb as hell. I assume that the UK will be getting Laptop hunter ads at some point.
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Microsoft Alters "Laptop Hunters" Ads in Wake of Apple Price Cuts
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We had those kid ads a while back here in the US. They did not last long. Prolly because they were dumb as hell. I assume that the UK will be getting Laptop hunter ads at some point.
They just haven't gotten over there yet, probably due to the difference in monetary system. The little kids doing 'creative stuff' in Windows is the predecessor to the 'Laptop Hunters' ads.
Uh... let's see. On my 2001 Dell 15" notebook I had a 4:3 1600x1200 screen... On my 2003 Dell 15" I had 1680x1050... and on my 2006 Dell I had 1680x1050 again (it was available in 1920x1200 too, but that was a bit over the top for a 15")... so after nearly 10 years with a minimum of 1600 pixels vertical I'm supposed to believe that 1440 is "amazing"? No, it's laughable, and more to the point it's very inconsistent with the 17" model because that one has 133 PPI, while the 15" only has 110 PPI - huge difference in scale, and very strange approach for a company that once strived to have uniform PPI across the entire product range. If they upgraded it to 1680x1050 it would be closer (129 PPI), but seeing as those panels have only been around for 6-7 years I expect it will be another 5 years before Apple catches on, and when they do I bet they'll advertise it as a breakthrough innovation.
Under a rock? No, sorry. I've worked at quite a few large multimedia companies and one software house (where I did tech support for Mac and PC via mail for a while), all with large mixed machine parks, and started doing so at a time when both Macs and PCs were still beige. And I have yet to meet any *professional* PC user who has had trouble with viruses (crashes, sure, back in the 90's that was routine but it's not like MacOS 7, 8 or 9 were stable either). The only virus-ridden PC I've seen in my life was one that was used by my non-tech savvy parents and my three young siblings... that one was a giant virus and fragmentation fest. But it's pointless to recommend Macs to people like them because they don't spend amounts like that on something they barely use, and it's equally pointless to recommend Macs to professionals because they already have all the insight they need to make informed purchases. The "OMG viruses malware registry crashes" speech only works on n00bs.
Did anyone notice that the original point of the ad and the offer is to find a computer that the ad agency will PAY FOR...!!!!!!!!!! So its a free computer.
And in some references, I am of the impression that the person keeps the difference between what they pay and the amount that they are looking to buy at or under.
So, to buy a laptop for under $1700 and you get one for $800 means you get the computer free and get $900 back.
Gee, I would go with a Dell too for that offer. Then I could sell the Dell on e-bay and buy a good Mac.
"" What the He** were you thinking!!"" To copy a phrase from Avril.
WOW!!!!! I never thought about that. Someone should look up this girl and see what she is using now. If its the Dell it should be moving as slow as a snail by now. It took the New Dell they bought for my desk at work about 6 weeks to slow to a crawl. We ended up reformating it after about 3 months then two months and it was back to a crawl. Crazy!!! Mac for me buddy.
Well I guess the college professors with their PhD's who's systems I fix are just non-tech savvy people. And wait, doesn't Microsoft try to appeal to the non-tech-savvy group? Heck, don't they have a mom and kid go laptop shopping? Nobody in those commercials seems like a hardcore tech person to me.
And feel free to think that 1440x900 is laughable, don't buy the computer again. I think its fine, and plenty of my friends have 1280x800 15" systems. Hell, looking around my office we have 20 Dell D600's with 15" 1024x768 systems that were $1800 each, and 40 year 2006-2008 1280x800 15" Gateway systems that were $2,000 each. Crazy.
See, if these ads were real there's no way they'd spend under a grand with a $1700 budget. You'd do your damnedest to spend $1699.99...
No less absurd than touting that value in one of those clever "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads that do little more than bash Windows in a parody, wouldn't you say?
Classic Example of Brains Vs. Brawn
Micro$oft has a lot of dough, but nobody makes the most of their resources and creativeness the way Apple does.
Legal bent them over.
Personally, I'm more interested in value than finding the lowest priced PC. That's why I'm a mac owner.
In these commercials, Windows creates a false perception of value by comparing guts to guts.
Reliability, longevity, stability, and the software included on Macs, are far superior to that of a windows counterpart.
They should be spending their money on the development of their software, rather than running preventative ad campaigns.
They're basically using bubble gum to plug a hole in a dam. Eventually, the water is going to break through.
Micro$oft has a lot of dough, but nobody makes the most of their resources and creativeness the way Apple does.
Legal bent them over.
Personally, I'm more interested in value than finding the lowest priced PC. That's why I'm a mac owner.
In these commercials, Windows creates a false perception of value by comparing guts to guts.
Reliability, longevity, stability, and the software included on Macs, are far superior to that of a windows counterpart.
They should be spending their money on the development of their software, rather than running preventative ad campaigns.
They're basically using bubble gum to plug a hole in a dam. Eventually, the water is going to break through.
Haha.. yeah.. I wonder if Kevin Turner was still doing "cart wheels" down the corridor when he compared MS loss of quarterly profits to Apple's gains in quarterly profits. What a fool! Must've rubbed off from Balmer.
Looks like last week's gloating has been countered with this week's earnings reports.
I guess thats why major corporations have full IT departments to manage the disaster that is Windows. I have worked in IT and have many friends in the field. Windows crashes and it does it often. You can manage it with time and money. If you shut down your computer when you go to lunch and when you leave at the end of the day or program it to do so at these times. You can also make sure it stays off the internet because in total isolation it is more stable. And if you are only running one or two programs like in a Media System it can be more stable because you are not installing new programs. Keep in mind too that with professional media software they get MS's help in programing to help make it more stable and insure the Registry is not damaged. Most others will load other software and do downloads. Thats why they bought the computer in the first place. Right?!!
they should put in the ad that you can get a white macbook with an ipod touch 8GB for under $1K at amazon.
btw, viruses on windows PCs are a myth just like the paid antivirus service. savvy users know comodo, just like that most keygens are marked false positive.
btw, viruses on windows PCs are a myth just like the paid antivirus service. savvy users know comodo, just like that most keygens are marked false positive.
Ok, you've proven one point--the PC is extremely vulnerable to malware when used by a consumer. You then turn around and say "... it's pointless to recommend Macs to people like them..." when they're the people who really need something that doesn't require as much care.
"... it's equally pointless to recommend Macs to professionals because they already have all the insight they need to make informed purchases." Yet too many of those same professionals demand the job security that only Windows offers them. If an enterprise were to move away from Windows to more reliable hardware and a more efficient operating system, that enterprise would not need as large an IT staff for maintenance and start laying off unneeded personnel. Those professionals have the insight to maintain their jobs, but not to know how to run a business efficiently.
The people who count, do. The executives who suddenly have to pare away the highest costs have begun to realize that they need to consider alternatives and actively seek ways to cut IT costs, probably the one highest piece of overhead in any corporation. There are articles available on the internet now that state that 50% of enterprises are actively looking for these alternatives and 12% are already in the process of migrating away from Windows. This isn't going to be an instantaneous process, but when it's all said and done, Microsoft's dominance will be greatly reduced.
One's a parody with a funny comedian (PC), the other is attempting to mimic real life with paid actors. I say that is a pretty big different there in objective.
I guess so. They weren't Windows-savvy, that much is clear.
As long as they stick with Vista or later, they'll be alright. The machine I referred to ran on Win98 which was wide open for all malware imaginable.
If it's between a Vista/Win7 PC and a Mac, it's pretty much a tie as far as newbies are concerned. The potential for screwing up the PC is higher, but on the other hand there's such an abundance of problem solving assistance built into Windows these days that newbies stand a fair chance of digging themselves out of the hole. A Mac with problems really gives you no clues at all. It still gives you OS9-style error codes rather than coherent information. Once you get frequent crashes, runaway CPU usage or some other weird stuff on a Mac, you're on your own. So you try Google and find bizarre suggestions about opening Terminal and entering cryptic code that's completely over a newbie's head, or better yet, the old "archive/restore" suggestion. That one always cracks me up. First we con newbies into believing that the Mac experience is this trouble-free paradise, but when reality hits, we tell them to wipe the machine and start from scratch, hoping they don't remember that we recently told them the great thing about Macs is that they just run and run and you never have to reinstall anything...
Well, the problem with that is that Apple's business support is abysmal. Enterprises buy from the likes of Dell and HP because if they run into hardware issues, they'll just place a simple phone call and the manufacturer's service personnel will be there within 24 hours and fix it, no questions asked. Apple doesn't even do on-site repairs unless you have a Mac Pro *and* you live within a certain number of miles from the nearest Premium Apple Reseller. That right there leaves Apple out of the running for 99 out of 100 enterprises. No on-site support, no sell, bye bye.
Also, you're kidding yourself if you think Macs are maintenance free. It's been a few years since I worked in a big office because I run my own company now, but back when I did, the IT guys were just as busy with Macs as they were with PCs. It wasn't always Apple related as such, many times it had to do with the fact that Mac versions of third party software were often a lot crappier than the Windows versions, but nevermind the blame game, it didn't change the fact that it was difficult to get work done. I remember this web design company where we had pretty much a 50/50 Mac/PC ratio... we used Lotus Notes for mail/calendar etc (because the suits wanted it) and then of course Macromedia and Adobe products for the production. I can't recall a single day when I didn't hear the Mac people use every profanity in the urban dictionary because Director kept crashing, Flash kept crashing and Lotus Notes kept crashing itself and everything else. Again, this was a few years ago but it remains a problem... a lot of third party software is subpar on the Mac platform. Whenever I have a job with a tight deadline I always fire up BootCamp and do everything in CS4 on Windows, because it's more stable than the Mac version, plus Photoshop is 64-bit. Is that Apple's fault? No, it's Adobe's but as an end user I don't friggin' care, my concern is to get a job done. I use Macs only because Windows still sucks as a platform for professional audio. If it weren't for that snag I'd be on a "real" Windows PC rather than Boot Camp.
When I was in the UK I managed Macs as well as PC's, we had just as many problems on both. I don't know where you're going with having to shut down PC's so often, or not have them connected to the network, or why you're pointing out that people need IT support. Any company of any real size needs to have an IT department to handle issues, if you're using Windows, Mac or Linux. It doesn't make sense not to.
Not true in my case. The power button on my first MBP became dislodged rather quickly, and the case was scratched up. My MB had a hard drive failure because Apple bought crap ones, and I had to have the top case replaced after less than 9 months because of the fatal design flaw. I've had a netbook for the last 6 months and its been perfect hardware wise.
I don't see why people get so riled up about the ads, either on the PC side or the Mac side. I support PC's and own a Mac at home. Both work fine and do everything I need to do, its just a preference. I don't feel better about myself as a person because I run OS X at home, nor should anyone else.
So here is a true tale from my summer vacation...
While visiting my father, the entire family (kids age 6 to 17 and adults) sat down for dinner. My step mom had been checking her email on the computer which is located on a desk in the dinning area. She had closed out of the web browser and the computer was sleeping when about 5 minutes in to dinner the computer woke up, the browser (IE - not their default browser) launched full screen. We really didn't notice until nude pictures started to appear on a web page which automatically launched with hard core sex scenes right in front of my 6 and 8 year old daughters. We had to shut the computer off as the sites just kept popping up.
Their setup was a firewalled version of XP SP3, firewalled router, up-to-date versions of XP/anti-virus software/anti-malware software.
It took me 6 hours to figure out what the problem was, find the fix and repair the machine. The problem - it was malware which my step-mom clicked on so yes, her fault but it was caused by a legitimate email sent by her son from a bad website that they always use to create custom ecards. The malware was so bad and even had self healing properties to it and very sneaky in disabling just portions of the anti-virus/malware software. I should mention my step-mom isn't computer stupid and is aware sites can install bad software as well as try to trick you. I would consider her to be an average computer user.
I couldn't believe how bad this was and how easy it was for them to get infected. So being the mac guy I am, I gave it a test on my mac. Knowing the site and email was bad, I visited it on my mac in Safari, Firefox and Camino. I clicked on every link my step-mom told me she would use. After almost a week - no malware or virus on my mac - shocker there.
So, prior to this experience I might have granted you Apple was over exaggerating the CURRENT shape which Windows is in regarding virus/malware. Not from my experience.
No matter how you cut the experience above - user error, bad anti-virus/malware software, poor computing practices - the bottom line is MY MAC DID NOT GET INFECTED. I have NO anti-virus software installed, NO anti-malware software installed and I disabled my firewall during this time period. This is a BIG deal to the average user. My step-mom's computer is only a year old and was slower than molasses due to the malware. The cost of the computer also had an on-going annual cost which is hidden to most Windows users and that is the annual anti-virus/malware software update fees.
BTW - had to send instructions on how to fix the problem to my step-mom's son, daughter, and cousin as they were all infected too. I didn't have to send it to one of her brothers though - he uses a MAC!
I wonder if anyone has on video the editing process MS used? Was it done using a MacBook Pro laptop with Leopard OS using Apple's Final Cut Pro?!
Those kiddie ones were indeed very annoying...Go on to the microsoft website you can view the laptop hunter ads there... tbh I found them quite funny. Some people obviously take things like this much more serious than I do.
Dude, you don't need to be a hard core tech person to have a good experience with PCs. I am a 16 year old high school student and I use a Dell Inspiron 1420 with Vista and I like it a lot. I would love to have a Mac, but at 700$ this this is amazing. From this experience, I don't know if getting a Mac is worth the extra price.
So the problem is with unpatched machines running no firewall (even XP SP2 enables the firewall by default). Most fresh OS installs with no OS patches or firewall protection connected directly to the internet will be in for a tough time of things. Given that even the basic software firewall of SP2 will block any incoming attacks long enough for patches to be installed I think you need to go dig up some other misleading articles.
If by first ever annual loss you mean made double Apple's profits in the last financial quarter then you are correct.
I admittedly don't fully understand the situation but if the Macs were indeed in contact with infected files (if someone emailed you them, potentially) it would probably be prudent to download ClamXAV or some other scanner to check if your computer is a carrier. I finally installed ClamXAV on my mac because the windows computers at work were getting infected by USB drives (yes, the windows computer didn't have antivirus installed because the one the IT department likes loves to disable the microscope software that the computer uses). So I am now scanning USB drives on my mac to make sure I'm not reinfecting windows machines.
You didn't need to tell me your age after addressing me as "dude", I could have guessed.