New Santa/PC/Mac ad

[Tony-S]

Don't watch if you're not interested in the "Get A Mac" ads from Apple. Requires Quicktime.

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple_getamac_holiday_480x272.mov

[Dan-o]

I really hate those ads. :rolleyes:

[Ronald S. Jr.]

I love my iMac. :-D

[Dan-o]

I have nothing against Apple ( Own 5 Ipods and 150 shares of stock.) Just find those commercials stupid.

[Mark_Cohran]

I really love those ads. :)

[AirBrontosaurus]

I'm not a big fan of the Apple adds, mostly because they tend to make no logical sense when you think about them.

First, the breakaway power cord on a laptop commercial. Apple really that I'd spend nearly twice as much for the same hardware, limit myself to 10% of the world's software, and spend ludicrous repair fees just so my power cord will break away when someone steps on it? That's really a selling point of a computer? The thing does millions of calculations per second, is a marvel of modern technology, and has the power to run the world... and you focus on the power cord? Something about that just doesn't make sense to me.

Or how about my personal favorite, where Justin talks about how PCs aren't any "fun" because all they do is spreadsheets, whereas Macs are fun because they can do things like edit pictures and movies. So editing pictures and movies is "fun"? I always thought of it as rather laborious. A labor of love, to be sure, but far from exciting. The sort of thing you do mostly because you have to, not really because you want to. And, what about games... you know... the textbook definition of fun? The epitome of fun? Fun incarnate? The things Macs can't run without dual booting Windows (which makes switch to a Mac seem kinda pointless when you think about it)?

Also, they put forth some pretty odd arguments. In one of their newer adds, they talk about how no one likes Vista, and how everyone is downgrading to XP, and how Vista is terrible and never works... and that's all. If I'm going to spend thousands of dollars on a product, I'd like something more reassuring than "Why should you buy from us? Well, our competition sucks terribly, so give us your money instead!" That doesn't teach me anything about Macs, but rather teaches me that instead of touting their own performance, they try to cut down their competition (which also is tough comprehend logically, seeing as how Windows sells more in a day than Mac sells in a year).

Those commercials are aimed at a certain demographic (young, hip kids with money to burn, people with limited computer knowledge and money to burn, or just people with money to burn), but to me all they really do is convey a message that's just skin deep. They take jabs at Windows and act like that improves their product. They focus on misconceptions, knowing that 99% of people will just take their word on it. And there's just something about Justin Long that bothers me ;).

PS: I have no problems with Macs or their users. Just so everyone knows.

[Ronald S. Jr.]

PS: I have no problems with Macs or their users. Just so everyone knows.



Noooooo....who would have thought that? ;-)

[PacAce]

All I can say is that those two characters look a lot more interesting in 3-D graphics than in real life. :lol:

And yes, I hate the Apple TV commercials, too. Especially when it pops up everytime I visit the Apple website (like I have nothing better to do than wait for the silly thing to load and start up :rolleyes: ). But I do like my Apple computers a lot. :D

[equetefue]

Mac's are cool but I can get enought of custom cuilt computers.

[TomTomTuning]

HAHAHA.. Funny Ad....

My first Apple product i got was an iPhone, now i want a Mac book...

[SoaringUSAEagle]

All I can say is that those two characters look a lot more interesting in 3-D graphics than in real life. :lol:

And yes, I hate the Apple TV commercials, too. Especially when it pops up everytime I visit the Apple website (like I have nothing better to do than wait for the silly thing to load and start up :rolleyes: ). But I do like my Apple computers a lot. :D

Hmmm whe I go to apple's site I see OSX Leopard now available, as I have for the past three months.

I dont mind the ads. I guess I dont take them to heart as some do here, apparently. I think a magsafe power cord is an amazing feature as my wife ruined our other pc laptop a year ago by tripping over the cord and damaging both the end of the cord and the plug in on the computer.

I'm going to end this now before I get into much more.

[Tony-S]

I mostly like the tribute to Rankin and Bass. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was my favorite childhood Christmas show. (Ok, I confess, it's also my favorite adult Christmas show...)

[tiktaalik]

I love my Mac but I hate those ads.

(One of the things I love about the Mac is that I can open a terminal window
and easily accomplish something a PC user was asking about here: find all
image files and copy them somewhere else. I can do this easily with
cd /
cp `find . -name "*IMG*" -print` ~/NewPicFolder

But then, I doubt the folks who put together this ad campaign consider
UNIX to be hip and cool :rolleyes:
)

[SoaringUSAEagle]

Ah, see I mention apple having the same homepage for months now and they changed it between earlier this morning and now to show that new ad. It's definitely not their funniest one.... But I really dont mind the ads. Every company has them.

[gary88]

It's better than when they had Al Gore plastered all over their home page.

[carianoff]

First, the breakaway power cord on a laptop commercial. Apple really that I'd spend nearly twice as much for the same hardware, limit myself to 10% of the world's software, and spend ludicrous repair fees just so my power cord will break away when someone steps on it? That's really a selling point of a computer?

I teach Design at an art school and in the last few years leading up to this innovation I have seen several laptops knocked to the floor from a cord trip. In a room if 15-20 students all with laptops, this feature sells itself.

[SoaringUSAEagle]

It's better than when they had Al Gore plastered all over their home page.

Now this is very true. I thought that was absolutely ridiculous.

I teach Design at an art school and in the last few years leading up to this innovation I have seen several laptops knocked to the floor from a cord trip. In a room if 15-20 students all with laptops, this feature sells itself.

I totally agree, as I stated above, a computer I had was ruined when my wife tripped getting up from her chair. I dont know how, all I heard was... ut oh. haha. I just took it and threw it away after we saved what was important before the battery died. I took out the HD and mangled it really well too just in case.

[Tony-S]

First, the breakaway power cord on a laptop commercial.

I had to replace a power supply on an iBook G4 when my kid tripped over the cord and broke the wall connector. The MagSafe is nice, but as of yet no third-party vendor has been able to replicate it.

Apple really that I'd spend nearly twice as much for the same hardware,...

Similarly-equipped Macs and PCs cost just about the same.

...limit myself to 10% of the world's software,...

What do you mean?

The things Macs can't run without dual booting Windows (which makes switch to a Mac seem kinda pointless when you think about it)?

You don't have to dual-boot to run Windows apps. Fusion and Parallels run within Mac OS X.

[AirBrontosaurus]

I had to replace a power supply on an iBook G4 when my kid tripped over the cord and broke the wall connector. The MagSafe is nice, but as of yet no third-party vendor has been able to replicate it.

Then you'll want the IBM T61 laptop. I've seen demos of it being dropped from 4 feet 50 times in a row while running and being perfectly fine. Since most of you appear to live in areas where laptops are thrown around like trout, I'd wager you'd want something that's durable all over, not just durable on the PSU connector.

See, if one of your kids chucks the Mac across the room, then it breaks. If they chuck the T61 around, it'll be fine!

Case closed, problem solved!


Similarly-equipped Macs and PCs cost just about the same.

Oooof... sorry, but that just plain isn't true.

Mac octo core vs PC octo core - 75% markup
http://hubpages.com/hub/MacPro_OctoCore_Can_Be_Duplicated_While_Saving_4_0 78

Mac quad core vs PC quad core - 153% markup (!)
http://hubpages.com/hub/The_Mac_Pro_Quad_Core_Can_Be_Duplicated_While_Savi ng_2_564

Parts for Macs are also far overpriced. In general, you usually have to double your cost for graphics cards as well as double the cost of RAM. And let's not even talk about repair costs.

What do you mean?

I mean Macs are only capable of running 10% of the worlds software because OS X is one of, if not the, most proprietary softwares in the entire world. No one wants to spend their time and money writing software for less than 10% of the market share, so with most every application, Macs are left out in the cold. Couple that with the fact that it is literally illegal to run OS X on a non-Apple-hardware-certified-machine, and Apple has pretty well carved out a tiny hole for themselves that alienates a vast, vast, vast majority of software developers.

So, you're left with either emulating (which is slower than running natively), or dual booting (which defeats the purpose of a Mac altogether), both of which are negative side effects of choosing Mac over Windows.


You don't have to dual-boot to run Windows apps. Fusion and Parallels run within Mac OS X.


But isn't that kind of silly? You bought a Mac to get away from Windows, so why are you trying to run applications meant specifically for Windows? If you like Macs, then that's great; but shouldn't part of the deal include staying with Mac software? And, if you can't live with just Mac software... then why chose a Mac?

It's the same story with the iPhone. People liked the idea, but hated how Jobs had them by the balls when it came to third party apps. So, they hacked it. Then, Jobs patched it so that all the hacked iPhones, paid for by loyal Mac fans who liked Macs, but just wanted some functionality from their crippled phones, were bricked.

People wanted the iPhone, but they didn't want to be limited to Apple's relatively arbitrary decisions about what applications can be on the iPhone. So, they paid $600 for a phone that was inferior to phones already on the market in terms of functionality and use simply because it was a Mac, and the first thing they did was remove the one thing that made it a Mac so they could actually use it how they wanted to. When just a tiny bit of research would yield the Nokia E70, which is cheaper, more functional, not crippled, and had been out for a freaking year before the iPhone.

Anyone else want to get in before this is locked ;)?

[Tony-S]

Oooof... sorry, but that just plain isn't true.

Mac octo core vs PC octo core - 75% markup
http://hubpages.com/hub/MacPro_OctoCore_Can_Be_Duplicated_While_Saving_4_0 78

Mac quad core vs PC quad core - 153% markup (!)
http://hubpages.com/hub/The_Mac_Pro_Quad_Core_Can_Be_Duplicated_While_Savi ng_2_564

Parts for Macs are also far overpriced. In general, you usually have to double your cost for graphics cards as well as double the cost of RAM. And let's not even talk about repair costs.

I noticed that those machines do not list any details, such as wireless connectivity, Firewire 800 and 400, optical audio input/output, fiber channel PCI, built-in wireless N router, etc. He also uses a "garden variety" (his words) enclosure ($100 of PS and plastic) compared to the Mac's aluminum enclosure. I priced that 8-core Mac with third-party RAM and two Segate 750 gig 7200 rpm SATA drives (total 1.75 TB) and the cost was $5374 compared to the cost of his PC at $5465. I have no idea how he came up with $9500.

I mean Macs are only capable of running 10% of the worlds software because OS X is one of, if not the, most proprietary softwares in the entire world.

OS X is open source (http://openosx.com/). Anyone can install it.

So, you're left with either emulating (which is slower than running natively),...

Macs don't emulate, they run Windows apps natively.

..or dual booting (which defeats the purpose of a Mac altogether), both of which are negative side effects of choosing Mac over Windows.

Again, there's no need to dual-boot. Just plop down $70 for Fusion and run your Windows apps natively from within Mac OS X. I do this on a regular basis.

But isn't that kind of silly? You bought a Mac to get away from Windows, so why are you trying to run applications meant specifically for Windows?

Because I have some apps that do not have Mac OS X versions, thus the need to occasionally run Windows on my Macs.

If you like Macs, then that's great; but shouldn't part of the deal include staying with Mac software? And, if you can't live with just Mac software... then why chose a Mac?

The alternative, then, would be to have two computers - a WinPC and a Mac. With a Mac, I can have two computers in one.

It's the same story with the iPhone. People liked the idea, but hated how Jobs had them by the balls when it came to third party apps. So, they hacked it. Then, Jobs patched it so that all the hacked iPhones, paid for by loyal Mac fans who liked Macs, but just wanted some functionality from their crippled phones, were bricked.

I agree with you on this. But my hacked iPhone is marvelous. Glad I have T-Mobile instead of AT&T, too.

People wanted the iPhone, but they didn't want to be limited to Apple's relatively arbitrary decisions about what applications can be on the iPhone. So, they paid $600 for a phone that was inferior to phones already on the market in terms of functionality...

That's debatable, at least with a hacked iPhone. :) My iPhone is just another computer (it runs on OS X); and it also happens to be a phone.

... and use simply because it was a Mac, and the first thing they did was remove the one thing that made it a Mac so they could actually use it how they wanted to. When just a tiny bit of research would yield the Nokia E70, which is cheaper, more functional, not crippled, and had been out for a freaking year before the iPhone.

I don't know anything about the E70. But my iPhone does what I need it to do.

Anyone else want to get in before this is locked ;)?

Why would the thread get locked? It seems civilized enough to me.

[Ronald S. Jr.]

If you like Macs, then that's great; but shouldn't part of the deal include staying with Mac software?


That's like saying "don't buy Sigma lenses". :-D

[lakiluno]

I like macs - I like the hardware, I like the operating system. I don't particularly like windows, and I absolutely hate windows vista. I want to get a mac laptop.

TBH, you're both misguided. AirBrontosaurus: Macs don't cost much more than PC's - I specced a macbook and a similar dell laptop and found the cost to be about the same. People like the interface of macs - they don't buy them so they can only run OSX apps. Yes, you may of bought a mac to get away from windows, but VMware fusion only shows the actual window, not the windows interface - you don't have to use that day to day.

Tony-S: VMWare fusion is an emulator - it runs an entire copy of WinXP in memory on a virtual processor. It uses software to make it appear like only the window you want (eg IE) is running, but in actual fact there is an instance of windows running. It is not running windows applications natively (like WINE for linux does).

[Belmondo]

I don't like computers. I just happen to dislike Macs a whole lot less than Windows machines.

I just wish Apple would come up with a decent Mouse.

[Tony-S]

Tony-S: VMWare fusion is an emulator - it runs an entire copy of WinXP in memory on a virtual processor. It uses software to make it appear like only the window you want (eg IE) is running, but in actual fact there is an instance of windows running. It is not running windows applications natively (like WINE for linux does).

I think that's sort of splitting hairs. Win apps run extremely fast compared to the days of Virtual PC and Real PC (what I think of when I hear "emulation"). I use Fusion (and used to use Parallels) and it is extremely speedy, although I do not do 3D gaming (where it apparently suffers). But it does take advantage of Intel's Virtualization Technology that is part of all CPUs used in Apple's current computers; even using multiple cores and multiple processors concurrently. After all, the binaries are nearly identical since they are compiled for Intel's instruction set.

[theflyingkiwi]

haha, those ads are funny.

but like all ads ever created regardless of subject, they lie!