Apple Ruins Microsoft's New Ad Campaign

If by "easier", you mean "less intuitive and more complicated", I guess it is easier.

 

Yeah, that's a funny ad. I like it. I think I'll refrain from being drawn in to yet another Apple/Microsoft fight, though.

 

I'm sure i would go that far... For someone new to the environment, the new layout may improve productivity and give you everything you want. For someone who has been using it for a long time (probably everyone here), It has the exact opposite effect in the short term - things aren't where we're used to them, so our productivity decreases as we learn the new system.

That being said, I only have the smallest amount of experience with the new look and feel of things. So for me doing anything there is a big pain. But i've gone through these types of switches before, and all it takes is some time to retrain your brain.

 

Well put. The process is rather amusing too. The oldbie will struggle & complain about the new methods for a few months. Then one day, they have a moment where the past looks different... leading to the question: why wasn't it always this nice in the first place? Then they begin singing praise.

Sound familiar? We have lots of stories where the very same thing happened with Prius ownership... usually coming from a spouse resistant to the obsession of the other.

It's obviously not for everyone. But trying to decide without a decent amount of real-world use aided by veteran suggestions could very well lead to an incorrect conclusion.

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I am very good at learning new interfaces. That used to be my job. However, I use XP at home, and XP at the places I volunteer at. However, my girlfriend has Vista, so when I need to work on her computer my brain goes "OK, go to the file menu... wait, where's the menu?!?"

 

It's a clever ad. But at this point, I think Apple is beginning to alienate more people with its negative ads than win them over. I am a happy Vista & XP user and frankly the take-away I get from the ads is "you, windows user, are an idiot". Not exactly the way to inspire legions of people to become new customers.

The ads remind me of the McCain ads. Focused on their competitor's negatives since they apparently have nothing positive to say about themselves. Let me guess -- the next thing will hear from Apple is how Bill Gates is a terrorist!

 

Apple ads had nothing to do with my switching. Since I don't have a TV I'd never seen one of their ads until someone posted a YouTube of one here. But I was extremely frustrated with the security issues with Windows, and I had tried Linux but could not get it to work, and then someone told me that OS X is Unix. When I learned that I pretty much ran out as soon as I had the chance and bought my Mac.

 

Well put. Exactly what I was thinking. I've used both and I get why people like MACs but XP/Vista does everything I need my computers to do at maybe 1/3 of the price. Honestly, I've had more issues upgrading Firefox than Vista.

 

I have to agree with you. I didn't express myself very well. What I should of said was that OS/2 was a good operating system, but was doomed commercially when Microsoft pulled out. From a commercial standpoint it was DOA. From an architectural standpoint it was great.

Tom

 

Or TECO: 0tt<esc><esc> would print out the current line. The "0t" printed from the beginning of the current line to the cursor. The second "t" printed from the cursor to the end of the line. The first escape terminated the command. The second escape executed all of the buffered commands.

Things sure were easier in those days.

Tom

 

I see the same thing on the Windows side. I have a relative who is solely a Mac user. Those 2 or 3 times a year when they need to use a PC for something they gripe and complain about how crappy Windows is, how Windows sucks, how it doesn't make sense, etc. If they had a "decent amount of real world use" I think they would see it does quite everything a Mac does - just differently.

As an aside (and I suppose back to the point of this posting), perhaps Apple should follow its own advice and spend a bit less on advertising and a bit more making sure they get their products right. Anyone for two F10 keys?

 

Yes, some of the ads are negative ads, like this last one... but i don't think you can say that about most of them. Apple has to show the user differentiation with the ads - explain to them what Mac's have the PC's don't. And i think if you go through the Ad's with that thought in mind, you might see that most of them aren't negative. Some are, i won't argue that, but a lot of them are of the type "Here's what Apple has, and PC doesn't". Like the iSight camera. Or the Apple Genius that will transfer all your files off your PC to your new Mac. Or Time Machine. Or Apple's great device support (at a time when Vista driver support was practically non-existant).

Apple - Get a Mac - Watch the TV Ads

 

I agree there may be some positive Apple ads, but I haven't seen many recently. It is all meant to disparage Vista rather than say for instance why it's worth over 2 grand for a MacBook Pro - which maybe is a hard argument for them to justify.

As for what the Mac has that Windows PCs don't, there is really very little that I can see despite what Apple's ads might imply. The "i-sight" camera - nearly every PC out there has a built in webcam. Time Machine? Every external hard drive I've bought over the past 10 years comes bundled with back up software and Vista has Shadow Copy (in Ultimate) and if you don't have Ultimate, you can still use Shadow Copy by downloading a free utility. As for device compatibility I will bet that Vista - even pre-SP1 - supports far more hardware than the Mac. Certainly when it comes to software there are far, far more options with Windows.

Just like with McCain's ads - the negative, misleading and inaccurate approach might appeal to the converted but you aren't going to win over many in the middle. Just my 2 cents.

 

whine whine whine...

i work with a pretty simple system and provide tech support for it. the war stories about the dumbest customer interactions with tech support i can tell you is 100% true...

the variability in the level of knowledge for the general population is staggering. facts are, we simply have people that are complete and i mean COMPLETELY CLUELESS on anything technical aspect about ANYTHING PERIOD...

this has nothing to do with their level of intelligence... it simply has to do with their level of exposure and ignorance.

so as far as any computer, OS or process, there will be MILLIONS who simply dont get it. and there will be millions who think it works just fine.

now MS has a larger market share due to unethical business practices and no other reason what so ever. unlike most industries where the cream will eventually rise to the top, MS has made sure the "salt of the earth" remains salty

 

Yes, they do now... but even 2 years ago they didn't. As far as i know, Apple started including them in all of their laptops long before other PC manufacturers did.

I agree, there have been programs out there that do it for you. But Time Machine brought it to a new level, in my opinion. And in all honesty, this is the very first time i've even heard of "Shadow Copy".

Yes, more software is compatible with Windows, i don't think you'll find anyone who will argue that. But hardware? Anything i've found to plug into a firewire or USB port simply worked with my Mac. No need to hunt for drivers or anything. it just worked. I have a 10+ year old webcam at home i tried out a few months ago, and it just worked with my Mac. My windows box i spent 3 frustrating hours trying to track down drivers to get it to work before i gave up.

As for justifying 2k for a Macbook Pro... It's the same for a Dell with equal specs! Well, almost the same... I priced out a 2.4 GHz Macbook Pro against a 2.4 GHz XPS M1530, doing my very best to match them feature for feature. Same screen size. Same processor. Same amount of memory. Same hard drive. Same wireless connectivity. Same built in camera options. Same LED display. The Macbook had a slightly better graphics card than the Dell, but there weren't options available to match those and i don't think it would make a difference anyways.

The results? The Macbook Pro comes out to $2,199. The Dell XPS M1530 is $2234 before their limited time offer, which knocks it down to $1,699. I don't know how long that offer will last, but without it the Dell is more expensive. With it, you pay an extra $500 for the MacBook, but you actually get a lot more on the software side because of iLife (trust me, i've had plenty of opportunities over the years to play with all of the Window's equivalents to portions of iLife. They don't really compare).

So if a company has to provide a limited time offer to reduce the cost of their laptops below their competitors, are you still going to sit there and hammer on the competitors costs?

 

around here, Dell is not the place to go to get the best price. local shops can match the price (or in my case about $200 more on a $2500 setup) but provide 10 times the tech support.

i have a Dell, i have never called tech support once but my sister who purchased an identical system did and all it got her was 5 attempts, about 132 minutes of phone time and ZERO help and the issue was caused by her using the automatic driver update that came installed with her Dell. it installed a video card update that froze up her system.

i basically re installed the OS with the default drivers that came with the system, used another driver found at the video card/MB manufacturers website (against Dell's recommendation) and has worked fine ever since.

moral of the story: do not buy a built in video card that has been "optimized" by the assembler.

 

Windows boxes are available cheaper than Macs because many (most? all?) PC manufacturers offer low-end machines that either have low specs, or poor-quality components or poor build quality. Apple has chosen to skip the low-end market, so the cheapest Macs are high quality, and cost more than the cheapest PCs.

I don't trust the giant manufacturers like Dell. The best Windows PC I had (quality wise) was from a local shop that assembled components to order. It cost more than a Dell with comparable specs, but the components were higher quality, service (had I ever needed it) was local, help and advice (which I needed a couple of times) were local, either by phone or by walking in to talk to a tech face to face, and I was supporting local business and by extension my city.

If Linux was ready for slobs like me, my next computer would be a locally-assembled PC running Linux. One of my objections to big companies like Dell is that I'd be paying for a Windows license that I'd never use, since I'd wipe Windows off the HD and install Linux as soon as I took the machine out of the box. Unix is even better than Linux (just my opinion) so with my Mac I have the best OS running on high-quality hardware.

 

Take a look at Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a Linux distro designed for non-guru users. With most hardware, you can pop in the Ubuntu CD and everything will install just as it does with any modern commercial OS. The Ubuntu installer will even partition your Windows drive and automatically set up a dual boot system.

Your point about good hardware is well taken. When I built my main Linux desktop box I used high end components. It's rock solid and very fast, without any of the freaky transient problems that often pop up with cheap components.

As for Windows machines, the same thing holds true with hardware. I just retired a Windows NT server that has been faithfully running in my office for 12 years. It's never been shut down, except during power failures, and once to install a bigger hard drive. It too was built with high end components.

Tom

 

I tried Ubuntu, Kubunto, SuSE, and I think one other, before I settled on Linspire for my laptop. None of them but Linspire would play DVDs on my laptop or play streaming media. I gather it's because the codecs for media files are proprietary, and only Linspire was willing to include code that is not open source. And only Linspire allowed (at that time anyway) for software to be installed by someone like me who is not a Linux/Unix guru, via a one-click selection that automatically found and installed any necesary dependencies. With Ubuntu I never managed to get anything to install and run other than the OS itself.

At a minimum, an OS for my home desktop computer must be able to play all media types, must be able to operate my iPod (several distros/programs claim to be able to do that, but none could for me, not even Linspire) and must make it EASY to install programs not included in the distro.

At the time I was doing this, there were very confusing lists on the net listing which distros would install on what hardware and which functions of which distros would not work on which hardware. I could find no resources that would say that laptop X would just simply work with Linux distro Y. It was all exceptions and work-arounds.

 

Quality makes all the difference. I have a Seanix PC that hasn't given me a moment's trouble - less than the iMac, in fact. Mind you, I've never hooked it up to the net, so that could be part of it.

The apparent price discrepancy between macs and PCs, it seems to me, is much like the mythical 'hybrid premium'. If you consider similarly equipped machines, and include the ongoing maintenance costs, there's little difference in total cost of ownership.