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yet another Microsoft blogger

# Tuesday, February 06, 2007

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Apple Commercial on Vista

The Apple Commercial about the PC Guy going to get upgraded to run Vista is funny. But what happens next? I mean the commercials are funny because they poke fun at the fact that the PC has been carrying around a lot of baggage for the past 5 years while the Mac OS has received almost yearly upgrades.

But common. Vista is fan freaking tastic. Everyone that has come to our house and used our iMac running Vista has had a favorable impression. It's dammed cool and has some killer features that I will blog about soon. Vista Media Center simply rocks.

The hardware will probably never be as cool. I mean never, and here is why:

  1. Cables. A PC OEM will never care as much about cables, adapters and plugs as Apple does. You will mostly get some nasty wall wart. They don't give a rat. Some one at Apple deeply cares about how the cables look, feel, and their usability.
  2. The blinking lights, leds and other useless nonsense will always be there. Even Sony's have buttons like "S1" and "S2". What the heck do those do.
  3. Screws, compartments, and protrusions. Ever look at the bottom of a powerbook? Take a look at the bottom of a dell, hp, thinkpad, any dammed laptop. Enough said.
  4. Stickers. Macs will never come with stickers on them. It would be like buying a Ferarri with a big sticker on it for the brand of tire.
  5. Crapware. Your brand new PC is going to be busting from the seams with crapware, the Mac never will.
  6. Backwards Compatibility. Apple routinely chops off support for legacy peripherals. My PCees still have parallel ports. One even has a joystick port. Sigh. These are ugly and take up valuable space.
  7. DVI. Mac's have digital video for everything. every Mac, laptop etc has a DVI port. Why settle for less? Oh right, when you are trying to save $2 on the box you are making.
  8. Big Ugly Boxes. Generally speaking PCees are ugly as sin. Every single PC at Best Buy is just terrible looking.

But anyway, besides the obvious I wonder where they are going to go with this. Seriously... what's the Mac guy going to make fun off when PC guy is running Vista?

The fact that iTunes doesn't work well?

Apple | Microsoft | Software
Posted Wednesday, February 07, 2007    Permalink    Comments [6]  View blog reactions

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10 Things I've learned in 10 years at Microsoft
Purchasing an iPhone 3G
On the road to paying a lot for the iPhone
Thoughts on the 3G iPhone
Apple Stuff 2008

 

Wednesday, February 07, 2007 4:33:32 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
I think Apple has faith that Microsoft will come up with something worth mocking.
Total
Wednesday, February 07, 2007 5:07:23 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Done and done

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple-getamac-security_480x376.mov
Boomzilla
Wednesday, February 07, 2007 9:09:19 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Oh, that's funny!
Omar Shahine
Wednesday, February 07, 2007 10:17:22 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
It's the resigned tone of voice in that final "Allow" that really gets me. Great acting (and writing). I've come to find the PC guy much more endearing and likable than the somewhat too-hip-and-smug Mac guy over time. I think that's what makes this series really brilliant: instead of portraying the PC character as stupid, which would raise hackles, defensiveness, and some anger, he's portrayed so that you start identifying with him, or at least empathisizing. Meanwhile the somewhat-smug superiority of the Mac character becomes taken for granted, and the vaunted superiority of his Mac along with it. Empathy not required, maybe a bit of envy instead. Sooner or later, almost every PC user not totally driven by just finding the cheapest price is going to want to check this out and see if maybe there really is something to it. Very smart product product placement.
Paul Berkowitz
Wednesday, February 07, 2007 2:22:40 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
All of that, and you are still not getting an Apple laptop. Does not make too much sense to me. Heck, install vista on it, but get the good HW. Sure, there might be some problems right now, I hope you don't regret later...
Andre
Wednesday, February 07, 2007 3:12:06 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Omar, While I agree with you on a few points (especially #3 - the underside of my Mom's 2 Compaq laptops look like they were designed with play-dough), I think there are a *few* decent hardware manufacturers out there (although I have yet to find a decently built laptop). Mind you, I still believe that the OEM's really need to wake up and hire some real designers...

The last computer I bought was a Shuttle XPC (shuttle.com), I got it because it looked half-decent and didn't have any outdated hardware (I absolutely hate floppy disks); it doesn't have any serial/parallel/joystick ports, measures 8" x 7" x 11", and with a graphics card (the on-board video sucks) it has DVI. It also runs Vista with Aero just fine.

Did I mention that it’s 3 years old and I didn't need to upgrade anything to run Vista!!!

That is the part of the Apple ads that I don't care for: I've installed the beta builds of Vista on a handful of computers, both new and old, and they all ran fine. I had a grand total of 3 problems (all related to the sound card drivers, which were resolved after a quick internet update). No surgery was needed for me.

Yes, I admit: I'm a MS fanboy. I really wish they'd start making computers, because I'm sick of these OEMs screwing up and making Microsoft and the whole PC industry look bad. (Origami, anyone?)
Nathan Scott
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