At least in the Seinfeld ads, you had some mystery and confusion as to figuring out what they were doing and looking for thing. Agreed with after the first five "I'm a PC" there is nothing left to see and once I've seen it, who cares.
My wife is now seriously considering the switch to MacBookPro from her PC - she will not run Vista under any circumstance. THIS is a significant change and there may, for once, be peace in the house around the Mac/PC subject!!!
I'm guessing people aren't watching them because there's nothing to see. After the first five or so "I'm a PC," I'd say most people are thinking, "Okay, already. I got the point."
Agreed!
Even Apple's first iPhone commercial that aired during the Oscars or whatever Hollywood event, showing all the actors picking up the phone saying "Hello", was short lived and just a teaser and ran only a few times until the phone actually came out.
The subsequent iPhone commercials have been geared towards telling people the multiple, every day uses of the iPhone.
Kind of like the HP ads about the computer being personal again. HP does a better job explaining what todays PC can do, they just don't tout one operating system or another. MS should learn from them and come up with a stimulating ad about what Vista can do for your computer and thus for you! Of course, MS will have to come out with the right version of Vista, one that they can be proud of tooting it's horn.
Seinfeld ads would be a good idea. Pretty much everybody said how Seinfeld is "washed up," and "irrelevant," but you were wrong. I was right.
Don't care which ad was better, 'Gates/Seinfeld' or MS's version of 'I'm a PC'.
Seinfeld, IMO IS "washed up" and "irrelevant" only to the fact that he is so '90's and that was when he was younger, hip, da bomb and in vogue, that watching him was cool, fun and interesting!
For MS to take him away from his comedy club circuit to make a couple of weird azz commercials leaving people who watched them to say, "WTF", is as disturbing as bringing back the '60's cast of "Gilligans Island" for a tv movie remake of that old sitcom. A wrinkled face Gilligan trying to get a laugh out of the same tired old exploits, just was not right. Same with "Return to Mayberry" and a 70 year old Barney Fife trying to pull off the same mannerisms as was done when he was a 35 year old, visually just didn't provide the stimulus to find enjoyment or to laugh along. "Washed Up" and "Irrelevant" because their time as that "character" has come and gone and trying to resurrect it when you've added 10, 20, 30 years of age to the character you liked just distorts the good memories you had and to try and resurrect a theme (as in a computer commercial about nothing vs the old tv show about nothing) just didn't tickle my fancy, is all I'm saying.
Last night, I caught the "Get a Mac: V Word" commercial followed immediately by an "I'm a PC" ad. The result of the two running together was that the MS ad looked like it was part of the Mac ad -showing a bunch of losers using crappy webcams. I laughed pretty hard. I'm not the biggest fan of the "Get a Mac" ads, but seeing it against the MS ad, it is pure gold.
PC users have a different mentality from Mac users; most Mac users are proud of the computer they're using, whiile PC users are using just an ordinay box.... How many cars have you seen with an Apple sticker on ? Have many cars have you seen with a Windows sticker ?
Or "Never ask a man what computer he uses. If it's a Mac, he'll tell you. If it's not, why embarrass him?" - Tom Clancy
.....and then get rid of Ballmer who is the biggest monkey act they ever had.
Definitely. Although I never liked Gates' heavy-handed (and often underhanded) business practices, he understands technology and has a good sense for shipping product that people will buy, even if it is significantly less than perfect.
Ballmer, on the other hand, is totally clueless. With him in charge, the product changed from flawed-but-useful to fatally-flawed-and-useless. And he isn't a very good businessman either.
I've heard it said (and have often repeated) that if Ballmer wasn't Gate's college buddy, he'd be selling used cars today - and not doing very well at that either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sgntscrawn
... does anyone remember Steve Ballmer dismissing the iPhone, saying who was going to pay that much for a phone?
Q.E.D.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ascii
Microsoft don't need these ads - so many people use their computers that if they just released a good solid no-nonsense version of Windows, they would be incredibly popular.
I've been saying that for years. Microsoft had several wonderful opportunities to make a clean break from their past messed up architectures, and they blew every one.
The first was when Windows 95 shipped. A new 32-bit architecture means you don't have to mimic the old broken 16-bit architecture. (And Win32s could've been silently dropped.) Legacy apps could run in an emulator, like they were already doing on NT.
The next was when Windows XP shipped. There was already lots of app breakage going on. If they had gone to a new architecture and set up an emulation environment for legacy Win32 apps, the public probably wouldn't have reacted any differently than they did with XP-as-shipped.
The third was with the introduction of the 64-bit releases of Windows.
They refuse to do the really hard work needed to ship a modern world-class OS, because they're afraid to break legacy apps (even though these apps often end up broken anyway) and they're afraid to change their APIs (partly because developers would complain, but I think mostly because their own developers don't want to learn anything new.)
Apple, in comparison, has performed this kind of rearchitecture many times since the first Macs shipped in 1984. There were two radical changes in processor (Motorola 68xxx to PowerPC to Intel) plus several more motherboard architecture changes. On the OS front, there has been one radical shift (Classic to OS X) so far, plus several less radical shifts, and another (Snow Leopard) coming soon.
Apple realizes that you have to make big changes from time to time if you want to keep a modern system from becoming a tangled mess of spaghetti code. Yes, these changes sometimes break apps, and yes customers do sometimes get angry, but if you handle it intelligently (e.g. provide emulation modes like Classic and Rosetta for several years after the switch) there is usually little long-term downside.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ByronVanArsdale
My wife is now seriously considering the switch to MacBookPro from her PC - she will not run Vista under any circumstance. THIS is a significant change and there may, for once, be peace in the house around the Mac/PC subject!!!
Ditto. I'm forced to use Vista on my employer-provided computer, but there is no way I will run it on a system that I have to own and maintain.
The bugs don't bother me (they eventually do get fixed), and neither do the hardware requirements (since I frequently upgrade hardware anyway), but certain aspects of Vista's design - which won't be fixed because they are operating as intended - are completely unacceptable. One of these is the draconian product activation system. Another is the DRM-everywhere architecture that (they say) the movie studios forced them to implement.
Maybe this means I won't ever be able to play a Blu-Ray movie on my Mac. I don't care - that's why I'm going to soon be buying a PS3. It offers everything I might need a PC for (HD movies and games), costs a lot less, and doesn't force me to give up all my free time maintaining it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rot'nApple
MS should learn from them and come up with a stimulating ad about what Vista can do for your computer and thus for you! Of course, MS will have to come out with the right version of Vista, one that they can be proud of tooting it's horn.
True. Furthermore, MS should be focusing on Windows, not PCs. Microsoft shouldn't care if you're running Windows on a Mac vs a PC. And they should care a lot if you're running Linux (for example) on a brand new Dell or HP system.
It's worth noting that Apple's commercials don't (usually) attack Windows. Some even go so far as to point out that you can run Windows on Macs using BootCamp, Parallels or VMWare.
Microsoft should follow a similar pattern. Tell people that they don't care if you buy a Mac. They should openly support running Vista on Mac hardware, possibly even offering packages that bundle it with Parallels or VMWare.
If they make the product good enough that people want to buy it, then they won't lose anything with this approach. And if they don't fix their product, no amount of marketing will save them.
Its just an Ad, some work and some don't. Maybe the first lot reached one audience and the second reached another.
The Ads will also mean different things to different people. Lots of people will have watched it and though Microsoft just looks scared of Apple. Some will think they just have a rubbish Ad department. For me though it did kinda highlight the fact all Apples ads seem to center around things like iPhoto as if there all that exist in the world, whereas Microsofts is saying you can do anything. Then it also made me think Microsoft is viewing people as being different with different needs and desires offering something to try and fit all, whereas Apple go with a more idea that they have the perfect way to do things and all should follow, but if you don't like it then your not one of the customers there targeting. And then lastly I though, this is kinda sad thinking about this, so I went out, got pissed and had a life.
Its just an Ad, some work and some don't. Maybe the first lot reached one audience and the second reached another.
The Ads will also mean different things to different people. Lots of people will have watched it and though Microsoft just looks scared of Apple. Some will think they just have a rubbish Ad department. For me though it did kinda highlight the fact all Apples ads seem to center around things like iPhoto as if there all that exist in the world, whereas Microsofts is saying you can do anything. Then it also made me think Microsoft is viewing people as being different with different needs and desires offering something to try and fit all, whereas Apple go with a more idea that they have the perfect way to do things and all should follow, but if you don't like it then your not one of the customers there targeting. And then lastly I though, this is kinda sad thinking about this, so I went out, got pissed and had a life.
I'm waiting for the secret footage of Deepak Chopra screaming at his PC as a virus takes his only draft of his latest book on karmic peace.
[...]The three Apple segments' first week of collective views generated a modest 70 percent of the viral views managed by the "I'm a PC" ad, but were also placed on twice as many websites overall -- 140 versus 70 -- and promised greater exposure than Microsoft's promos.
Wow. You really need to wear your critical thinker's cap when reading AI lately. Could you report how "Seinfeld" and "I'm a PC" compare the the 3 Apple ads you've already combined? What about against just 2 of the Apple ads? Something tells me that those numbers wouldn't fit your narrative, so you chose to compare 1 of M$'s ads to 3 of Apple's and run with it.
Love Macs, always have, but the Kool-aid is really getting sweet over here.
Comments
WWVD? (What would Vista do)
At least in the Seinfeld ads, you had some mystery and confusion as to figuring out what they were doing and looking for thing. Agreed with after the first five "I'm a PC" there is nothing left to see and once I've seen it, who cares.
My wife is now seriously considering the switch to MacBookPro from her PC - she will not run Vista under any circumstance. THIS is a significant change and there may, for once, be peace in the house around the Mac/PC subject!!!
I'm guessing people aren't watching them because there's nothing to see. After the first five or so "I'm a PC," I'd say most people are thinking, "Okay, already. I got the point."
Agreed!
Even Apple's first iPhone commercial that aired during the Oscars or whatever Hollywood event, showing all the actors picking up the phone saying "Hello", was short lived and just a teaser and ran only a few times until the phone actually came out.
The subsequent iPhone commercials have been geared towards telling people the multiple, every day uses of the iPhone.
Kind of like the HP ads about the computer being personal again. HP does a better job explaining what todays PC can do, they just don't tout one operating system or another. MS should learn from them and come up with a stimulating ad about what Vista can do for your computer and thus for you! Of course, MS will have to come out with the right version of Vista, one that they can be proud of tooting it's horn.
Seinfeld ads would be a good idea. Pretty much everybody said how Seinfeld is "washed up," and "irrelevant," but you were wrong. I was right.
Don't care which ad was better, 'Gates/Seinfeld' or MS's version of 'I'm a PC'.
Seinfeld, IMO IS "washed up" and "irrelevant" only to the fact that he is so '90's and that was when he was younger, hip, da bomb and in vogue, that watching him was cool, fun and interesting!
For MS to take him away from his comedy club circuit to make a couple of weird azz commercials leaving people who watched them to say, "WTF", is as disturbing as bringing back the '60's cast of "Gilligans Island" for a tv movie remake of that old sitcom. A wrinkled face Gilligan trying to get a laugh out of the same tired old exploits, just was not right. Same with "Return to Mayberry" and a 70 year old Barney Fife trying to pull off the same mannerisms as was done when he was a 35 year old, visually just didn't provide the stimulus to find enjoyment or to laugh along. "Washed Up" and "Irrelevant" because their time as that "character" has come and gone and trying to resurrect it when you've added 10, 20, 30 years of age to the character you liked just distorts the good memories you had and to try and resurrect a theme (as in a computer commercial about nothing vs the old tv show about nothing) just didn't tickle my fancy, is all I'm saying.
PC users have a different mentality from Mac users; most Mac users are proud of the computer they're using, whiile PC users are using just an ordinay box.... How many cars have you seen with an Apple sticker on ? Have many cars have you seen with a Windows sticker ?
Or "Never ask a man what computer he uses. If it's a Mac, he'll tell you. If it's not, why embarrass him?" - Tom Clancy
.....and then get rid of Ballmer who is the biggest monkey act they ever had.
Definitely. Although I never liked Gates' heavy-handed (and often underhanded) business practices, he understands technology and has a good sense for shipping product that people will buy, even if it is significantly less than perfect.
Ballmer, on the other hand, is totally clueless. With him in charge, the product changed from flawed-but-useful to fatally-flawed-and-useless. And he isn't a very good businessman either.
I've heard it said (and have often repeated) that if Ballmer wasn't Gate's college buddy, he'd be selling used cars today - and not doing very well at that either.
... does anyone remember Steve Ballmer dismissing the iPhone, saying who was going to pay that much for a phone?
Q.E.D.
Microsoft don't need these ads - so many people use their computers that if they just released a good solid no-nonsense version of Windows, they would be incredibly popular.
I've been saying that for years. Microsoft had several wonderful opportunities to make a clean break from their past messed up architectures, and they blew every one.
The first was when Windows 95 shipped. A new 32-bit architecture means you don't have to mimic the old broken 16-bit architecture. (And Win32s could've been silently dropped.) Legacy apps could run in an emulator, like they were already doing on NT.
The next was when Windows XP shipped. There was already lots of app breakage going on. If they had gone to a new architecture and set up an emulation environment for legacy Win32 apps, the public probably wouldn't have reacted any differently than they did with XP-as-shipped.
The third was with the introduction of the 64-bit releases of Windows.
They refuse to do the really hard work needed to ship a modern world-class OS, because they're afraid to break legacy apps (even though these apps often end up broken anyway) and they're afraid to change their APIs (partly because developers would complain, but I think mostly because their own developers don't want to learn anything new.)
Apple, in comparison, has performed this kind of rearchitecture many times since the first Macs shipped in 1984. There were two radical changes in processor (Motorola 68xxx to PowerPC to Intel) plus several more motherboard architecture changes. On the OS front, there has been one radical shift (Classic to OS X) so far, plus several less radical shifts, and another (Snow Leopard) coming soon.
Apple realizes that you have to make big changes from time to time if you want to keep a modern system from becoming a tangled mess of spaghetti code. Yes, these changes sometimes break apps, and yes customers do sometimes get angry, but if you handle it intelligently (e.g. provide emulation modes like Classic and Rosetta for several years after the switch) there is usually little long-term downside.
My wife is now seriously considering the switch to MacBookPro from her PC - she will not run Vista under any circumstance. THIS is a significant change and there may, for once, be peace in the house around the Mac/PC subject!!!
Ditto. I'm forced to use Vista on my employer-provided computer, but there is no way I will run it on a system that I have to own and maintain.
The bugs don't bother me (they eventually do get fixed), and neither do the hardware requirements (since I frequently upgrade hardware anyway), but certain aspects of Vista's design - which won't be fixed because they are operating as intended - are completely unacceptable. One of these is the draconian product activation system. Another is the DRM-everywhere architecture that (they say) the movie studios forced them to implement.
Maybe this means I won't ever be able to play a Blu-Ray movie on my Mac. I don't care - that's why I'm going to soon be buying a PS3. It offers everything I might need a PC for (HD movies and games), costs a lot less, and doesn't force me to give up all my free time maintaining it.
MS should learn from them and come up with a stimulating ad about what Vista can do for your computer and thus for you! Of course, MS will have to come out with the right version of Vista, one that they can be proud of tooting it's horn.
True. Furthermore, MS should be focusing on Windows, not PCs. Microsoft shouldn't care if you're running Windows on a Mac vs a PC. And they should care a lot if you're running Linux (for example) on a brand new Dell or HP system.
It's worth noting that Apple's commercials don't (usually) attack Windows. Some even go so far as to point out that you can run Windows on Macs using BootCamp, Parallels or VMWare.
Microsoft should follow a similar pattern. Tell people that they don't care if you buy a Mac. They should openly support running Vista on Mac hardware, possibly even offering packages that bundle it with Parallels or VMWare.
If they make the product good enough that people want to buy it, then they won't lose anything with this approach. And if they don't fix their product, no amount of marketing will save them.
How you ask?
Take the P out of PC and what do you get imac.
I bet they don't even realize this.
You heard it hear first.
I wonder if Microsoft even realizes that the "I'm a PC" commercial really is a subliminal commercial for Apple.
How you ask?
Take the P out of PC and what do you get imac.
I bet they don't even realize this.
You heard it hear first.
Perhaps it's a combination of iMac and IMAP - a secret message to prisoners of Windows.
( Speaking as someone who is currently paying Microsoft to extricate himself from Hotmail ).
The Ads will also mean different things to different people. Lots of people will have watched it and though Microsoft just looks scared of Apple. Some will think they just have a rubbish Ad department. For me though it did kinda highlight the fact all Apples ads seem to center around things like iPhoto as if there all that exist in the world, whereas Microsofts is saying you can do anything. Then it also made me think Microsoft is viewing people as being different with different needs and desires offering something to try and fit all, whereas Apple go with a more idea that they have the perfect way to do things and all should follow, but if you don't like it then your not one of the customers there targeting. And then lastly I though, this is kinda sad thinking about this, so I went out, got pissed and had a life.
Its just an Ad, some work and some don't. Maybe the first lot reached one audience and the second reached another.
The Ads will also mean different things to different people. Lots of people will have watched it and though Microsoft just looks scared of Apple. Some will think they just have a rubbish Ad department. For me though it did kinda highlight the fact all Apples ads seem to center around things like iPhoto as if there all that exist in the world, whereas Microsofts is saying you can do anything. Then it also made me think Microsoft is viewing people as being different with different needs and desires offering something to try and fit all, whereas Apple go with a more idea that they have the perfect way to do things and all should follow, but if you don't like it then your not one of the customers there targeting. And then lastly I though, this is kinda sad thinking about this, so I went out, got pissed and had a life.
I'm waiting for the secret footage of Deepak Chopra screaming at his PC as a virus takes his only draft of his latest book on karmic peace.
[...]The three Apple segments' first week of collective views generated a modest 70 percent of the viral views managed by the "I'm a PC" ad, but were also placed on twice as many websites overall -- 140 versus 70 -- and promised greater exposure than Microsoft's promos.
Wow. You really need to wear your critical thinker's cap when reading AI lately. Could you report how "Seinfeld" and "I'm a PC" compare the the 3 Apple ads you've already combined? What about against just 2 of the Apple ads? Something tells me that those numbers wouldn't fit your narrative, so you chose to compare 1 of M$'s ads to 3 of Apple's and run with it.
Love Macs, always have, but the Kool-aid is really getting sweet over here.
Yes, as I remember , 'harakiri' means belly-cutting, which is quite demeaning of the act, whereas 'seppuku' is the preferred name for the ritual act.
P.
And Soduku is shear torture.
yes it would be evil.