Why all the hate, VCO3? The Mac users who are doing their work are usually at their home or office doing their work, so of course you’re not going to see them at Uncommon Grounds editing in Photoshop (although I will do so from time to time.) Most of these “hipsters” I see are students near the university areas, and everyone knows that Apple and education have gone hand-in-hand since the inception of Apple Computers, so it certainly doesn’t cause me consternation to see college kids using Macs. I’ve seen plenty of hipster-looking kids doing the same crap on their shiny new Dells, sipping a latte.
I like the one where PC gives Mac a “C++ GUI Programming Guide” for Christmas and Mac gives PC a photo album.
I came to work one day after they ran that commercial, and everyone was like, “man, I’d rather have that programming guide.”
The message of the commercials are a little weird, though. PC users know some of the claims are false, or outdated, so maybe Mac is just trying to retain their base.
However, I don’t think that Mac is smug & unlikeable.
It’s really all just branding. . .an appeal to cool & youthful that every car company, and beverage company tries to do on a regular basis.
I don’t see them as smug at all. I also don’t see Mac as being “hipper” than PCs.
Like most ads, they don’t tell the whole truth. I enjoy them because I like Hodgeman and the other guy (I’ve already forgotten his name)–they work well together. I also like seeing what the next angle will be…and the security guy is hilarious.
We have both types of computers in the house. I like my Mac very much, but I prefer Word, so I have it loaded on my Mac. UNLIKE the PC here, my Mac has never had a virus, never crashed, never given me the Blue Screen o’ Death. YMMV.
The virus thing is true, but I think it’s as much a product of hitting the largest target as anything else. I also fully believe that you will see more viruses for Macs in the future.
Regarding peripherals, I totally disagree. Do you all remember the, “I saved Christmas” commercial about 5 years ago? It was the one where a girl had to use her Mac to get photos off the new digital camera since the PC needed drivers that weren’t available on Christmas (I guess the web was closed for the holiday). Right after that hit the air, my GF reinstalled her Mac OS. Shortly after she tried to get photos from her camera. She needed a driver disk that was in storage. We plugged it into my PC. There was much joy with no driver download or CD required.
In the years since, it’s always the same. Setting up something new for her Mac is like pulling teeth. I should have tossed her Airport into the trash years ago. What an overpriced POS that is. She gets a better wireless connection from a Linksys router in a house across the street than she does from the Airport in the next room.
Anyway, I’ll give you the virus thing, but I’m not buying the superiority when it comes to peripherals.
I was amused with the first one I saw. After that, it was same ol’, same ol’.
The thing that really annoys me is the idea that with Macs you get fun applications like photo albums and music, while with PCs you get boring applications like spreadsheets and databases.
Are they fucking high? Walk into any game store and take a look at the rack for PC computer games. Now take a look at the rack for Mac games. Need I even point out that the store probably doesn’t even have a rack for Mac games? And if they do, it’s for games that have been out for the PC for years, and only the very top bestselling titles?
If you want to play any kind games more advanced than solitaire, you absolutely have to get a PC.
Why don’t they show the PC guy wearing space armor, covered in alien gore, and blasting away at hordes of inhuman monsters in order to save Planet Earth, while the Mac guy is trying to show of his photo album?
PC user here, and Gadarene summed up my viewpoint. I always look forward to new ones. The newer Vista one is hillarious.
Of course, I have. But I’ve also crashed Macs - and the experience is 1000X more painful than almost anything I’ve done to a PC.
I still like the commercials, though. They’re cute and I don’t find them smug. Not going to make me buy a mac, because I generally disagree with the points the commercial is making. (For example, the new one with the PC in the hospital gown, going in for major surgery before upgrading. Can you run new software on a 10 year old mac, either?) But the commercials are still cute.
Ah, that makes more sense. I only saw that one once…and to be honest, I tend to tune out mentally whenever I hear one starting up these days to avoid the inevitable brain hemorrhaging.
Heck, OS X doesn’t even support any OS 9 apps. I had to find a virtual machine to run OS 9 games. And, as has been pointed out, the idea that Macs are for fun and PCs are for business is asinine, as any hardcore gamer would tell you. Ever see a Mac specced out for gaming performance? Didn’t think so.
I’m not sure, though, what’s painful about crashing OS X. It’s the same as crashing a PC from my experience. Just reboot and you’re back to normal.
They reenforce something I heard a while ago, I forget the source but it was someone who had a substantial marketing background. They basically indicated you could tell a lot about the market share of a company based on it’s ads. The person who is at the top had no need to compare themselved to another product.
I mean it’s no secret PCs have the larger market share but the commercials are a textbook example of this.
That’s a nice sound bite, but companies do this all the time. Side-by-side product comparisons pitting the name-brand laundry detergent/paper towel/floor wax against the “other leading brand”, then a month later it’s the “other leading brand” doing the same thing. Remember the cola wars?
I think the ads are pretty witty. I have a mac at home and have used a PC at work for the last 10 years or so- they each have their strengths and weaknesses. Sure there’s some hyperbole- PC’s don’t just do spreadsheets and pie charts in shades of grey- but it’s advertising. They’re trying to sell a product. It’s been going on in every industry since, oh I don’t know, forever.
I like the aesthetic of them- both actors have great timing, the set-ups are clever, the lighthearted tune in the background fits well… whoever came up with the campaign did a great job.
What some of you see as “smug”, I see more as “bewildered”. The Mac is hearing the PC describe problems that are simply foreign to the Mac.
It’s roughly analogous to the time I was sitting in shop enjoying a burrito and a meth-addled woman sat at the table next to mine and started telling me all bout her problems with some people she knew. She talked about these other people as if I knew who they were, and as if I knew what the hell she was talking about. I wasn’t smugly thinking, “Ha! I’m sure glad I don’t have to deal with that kind of thing! Superior non-meth-addicts like me don’t have to deal with that crap!” Rather, I was bewildered: “What on Earth is she talking about?”
In a much closer analogy, I was recently over at a friend’s house to play cards. This friend had finally purchased a computer (a Windows PC) and gotten on the Internet a month or two earlier. One of the guys in our group of five, an experienced Windows-user, had brought along some virus-scanning software to run on the first guy’s computer. The software discovered seventy-one viruses. The three experienced users smiled and agreed “That’s not too bad.” As the only Mac user in the group, I was left thinking “‘Not too bad?’ You’re kidding, right?” I wasn’t feeling smug, I was bewildered. Having been running my Macs on the Internet for ten years without ever encountering a single virus, the idea of somebody contracting seventy-one viruses in less than two months was completely foreign. Casually brushing it off as “not too bad” was bewildering to me.
Anyway, I rather enjoyed this ad parody.
John Hodgeman has emerged as a bit of a nerd god since the commercials started airing. The Areas of my Expertise should be on the back of every proper nerd’s toilet.
I was not aware that the ads were directed by the same guy who directed Junebug, a great movie from last year.
Yes, there is some hipster appeal to Macs. So what? Style matters. The tools you use to get through the day should make you happy.
)Rats, beaten to the punch on the “truenuff” ad parodies.
(I like the Unix guy the best. :D)
So I’ll just share some Mac x PC slash instead! XD (worksafe, but not necessarily brainsafe)
I grew up on Apple products, so I do have pleasant nostalgic memories of that line, but I’m pretty much exclusively all PCs now despite its myriad shortcomings, and I don’t see myself switching back any time soon.
And besides, Red Hat secretly runs the world behind both their backs anyway. 
thanks Lemur! I needed a good laugh at the end of the day!
Other than ads for New Coke in the 1980s (back when it- “Coca-Cola”- and “Coke Classic” were both on the market at the same time), has Coke ever mentioned Pepsi by name in an advertisement? Pepsi, the perpetual #2, has had a number of ads over the years referring to Coca-Cola by name, but I can’t recall any Coke ads mentioning Pepsi by name.