This Laptop Hunter Isn’t a PC
By Harry McCracken | Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 9:08 am
There’s a new Apple “Get a Mac” ad out–and this one is the first one that would seem to respond directly to Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunters” ads and their snarky put-downs of Macs, since it involves a woman shopping for a computer and addresses the fact that there are gazillions of PCs out there:
The ultimate gist of the commercial–Windows PCs involve hassles that Macs don’t–is the same as that of many previous “Get a Mac” ads. But it’s interesting to see Apple acknowledge the fact that Macs don’t offer the variety that PCs do, and to say that choice is less exciting if all the computers you can choose from are flawed.
I’m burned out on the Windows-Mac commercial wars (I didn’t even bother to mention Sheila, the star of Microsoft’s most recent ad). But choosing a computer is as much or more about the experience you hope to get from the machine on a day-to-day basis as it is about raw specs. And I continue to be surprised that the Microsoft ads don’t address living with an operating system at all, and to think that it makes sense that that the Apple ones do.
Anyhow, I don’t know if anyone involved with Apple’s advertising thinks that the Laptop Hunters spots are having an impact and needed a response, or whether the company just thought it would be fun to parody the Microsoft commercials. Either way, Microsoft’s surprising decision to embrace Apple’s “I’m a PC” and to compare PCs and Macs in its ads is having an impact. Even if its ads’ comparisons are pretty specious.
9 Comments
Read more:
7 Comments For This Post
2 Trackbacks For This Post
-
Laptop-Hunters TV-Spots: Apple kontert auf Windows-Werbung | TechFieber | Hot Gadget Blog. Smart Tech News. Says:
May 13th, 2009 at 11:52 pm[…] This Laptop Hunter Isn’t a PC […]
-
Laptop Hunters: Apple zwingt Microsoft zur Änderung von TV-Spots | TechFieber | Hot Gadget Blog. Smart Tech News. Says:
July 24th, 2009 at 12:51 am[…] This Laptop Hunter Isn’t a PC Diesen Artikel Twittern, Social Bookmarken, Drucken oder per E-Mail versenden: […]
May 13th, 2009 at 9:27 am
I really don’t like these apple ads at all. All they do s just talk about Microsoft’s faults and rarely talk about their own products. All they do is make we want to not buy windows, but does not convice me to get an Apple.
Personally this ad, like many others lie and exaggerate. The mac should have walked about the when she wanted a laptop without a small screen (entry macbooks have 13 inch screen, that can be considered small) and did not want something that has malware and crashes. (every computer can get those, so every computer including the mac should have walked away)
May 13th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
@Aaron
I disagree. Yes, entry-level Macs have smallish screen (there MUCH smaller windows computers out there). However, there are Macs with larger screens too, so “Mac” had no reason to walk when she made that requirement.
What it basically came down to is “Ok, we have some Macs and some PCs that will meet my performance and size needs. Now, do they have OS problems?” While, of course, no computer is perfect, one would have to be pretty thick-headed to argue that Macs are even close to being as problematic as PCs. Plain and simple, Mac issues (Malware, crashes) are few and far between. I’ve had my Macbook Pro for three years, 99.9% trouble free (once in a blue moon an application will crash). My Dells, Sonys, etc. with Windows in the past, on the other hand, were constant pains in the butt.
And that’s the point the commercial was trying to make.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:41 am
I don’t think I’d ever buy a Mac, mostly because I prefer Windows and enjoy all the video games I play (which many aren’t supported on the Mac OS), however, I actually love all the commercials. The commercials really don’t sway my opinion either way but I do find them funny (at least most of the Mac ones, the PC ones are usually a bit too serious). I think people get too caught up in advertising, you shouldn’t let what a company has to say about their own product guide your judgement.
May 14th, 2009 at 9:56 am
I’ve been building my own PCs since the 386 days. I’ve ran every version of Windows since the 3.1 days. Being in the tech industry, I know a lot of operating systems, and MAC OS is basically a powerful Unix based OS with a great GUI, that most linux systems lack. I changed to OS-X years ago and the more I work with it, the less tolerance I have for windows bugs, fixes, updates, and virus junk. One point you can’t buy a PC without anti-virus period, you WILL get a virus. You have a yearly fee associated with this, every year more money for security and anti virus updates.
Yes macs have viruses and the more popular they become the more virus will be written for them. But the OS is structured so that it is very difficult for apps just to “suddenly appear” in my root directories from me visiting a web site.
Like the gamer above, I still play PC games, and I dual boot my MAC in windows XP to game on. My MAC can run Windows XP/Vista, OS-X, and open source, all at the same time or on a dedicated boot for optimal performance. You simply can’t do that on windows. All intel based macs can run Windows, and OS-X, but no other platform (without hacks), can run OS-X and Windows. And oddly enough my MAC is the most stable XP platform I have!
And a quick final point, for all of you that fix PCs out there for your family, you know who you are, all of that stops when they get MACs. My parents are still using the MAC that is over 5 years old, and my not so technical friends all have macs now, and we still play our XP games on them. The only difference is I’m not rebuilding their PC every year because of some issue. If your sick of fixing everyones PCs get them a MAC, you won’t regret it.
May 14th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
@ The Chaplin
I am that guy, too. And that is exactly what happened when I got them Macs – I stopped having to fix their computers or build them a new PC every year.
I still use my desktop that I built a year or so ago. And believe me, running a Mac next to it makes me sick and disgusted of vista almost upon every use.
August 21st, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Im honestly getting tired of all the dissing on windows and mac. depending on what you do on the computer should decide the OS. yes mac may be less virus work but you will have the virus whether you want it or not. Windows can do almost anything… with artistic type stuff choose mac, windows will probably lack the features to do what you want. Im not slamming any operating systems like stubborn people out there. if you wanna learn to do computer maintanence get a pc. ide choose a pc to program, i like windows because you can change alot. like i said i havent gotten to use a MAC OS so i cant confirm anything… my thing against mac is the cost factor… i have the same issue with buying the windows operating systems. heres a question for a mac user… can you give me some specs on your MAC? im curious to see this cause i think most of this pricing of things is around the operating system. Like i said though, im not an expert with all operating systems so please dont knock me down… i have used a little linux but ive used windows since ’95… im 16 and still learning. Your reading this thinking wtf? right? i apologize for my messy post but thank you for taking the time to read it. please ANY mac users… can i get the specs on your computer such as
-RAM
-Processor
-Graphics card
-The basic computer setup pretty much
-then… the type of computer… like i know for say toshibas laptops have Satellite… like the one im on now is a satellite m45-s331. Its not my main computer so dont knock it please =) im 16 and working to learn more and get to understand more. thank you all again!
August 21st, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Oh and Chaplin. FALSE on the windows simply not being able to dual boot. Its quite easy. I made this toshiba boot Windows XP Dark, Windows XP Home Edition, and Linuxs’ Xubuntu. (still havent tried mac but i make things work and do what i want thats why i still like PC’s…) But one day im gonna have to try out Mac just to see what it is like.