Not really commenting on the issue at hand. Yeah, the new campaign is a bit… condescending, maybe. But does anyone else get the impression, what with all the venom that Brutus is spitting at Apple and anyone who dares to say anything nice about them, that he never really intended to get one in the first place? That this was just started as a pure Mac-bashing thread, but he threw in the “oh, but I WAS planning on buying one” to disguise it? If this isn’t the case, I apologize Brutus, but your (IMO) unwarranted “fuck you’s!” to anyone who takes contrary position is really giving that impression.
I applaud your cynicism! Which is to say, yes.
Still, switching to play less games does seem a little odd to me. But then again, sometimes people on this board decide they need a vacation from it, and have the admins lock their access so they can’t post, which has also always seemed a little odd to me. Granted, the latter involves a whole lot less monetary outlay, but I think there’s a parallel even if a little non-euclidian.
From the sounds of the commercials, though, I suspect that they aren’t really targeted at expanding their market, though they’re open to the side benefit. They’re targeted primarily at preaching to the choir–holding on to the current share. Maintaining product awareness–sort of like those commercials for milk or beef or whatnot. (“What is this ‘milk’ product you speak of? I am intrigued, and think I will buy some!”)
I tend to agree with Anamorphic. The OP really read like a thinly disguised “Macs are lame and you can’t get games for them” bleat.
It also seems to be based on a misconception. No software manufacturer is ever going to make the unequivocal claim that their operating system won’t ever crash. But OS X is much more robust than OS 9 and individual applications are less likely to bring the whole system down. This isn’t really a claim that merits much vitriol.
Anthracite – if you’re learning MFC, I’ve found dejanews to be a great help. I can pretty much always find a thread asking how to do something I find difficult, usually with good answers. Which is at once a commentary on the coolness of the google search engine and people on Usenet, and a sad commentary on the MFC documentation and ease of use.
I’ll give it a look-see, Finagle, thank you.
I like the new Apple commercials because at least they’re about something, as opposed to the “guy sticking his tongue out at a new iMac ad.” I hope they follow them up with commercials going over the iApps, which are so much better than anything that Microsoft produces that its not even funny.
I use both Mac OS X and Windows XP. I even have SuSE 8.0 on my Dell. So unlike Brutus, I’m qualified to discuss all three environments. But only two are the issue at hand.
I have never had a crash or hang in Mac OS X, from 10.0.4 to 10.1.5 (I never used the earliest releases). I’ve had applications, usually Microsoft apps, crash and quit on me, but that’s not Apple’s fault.
On the flip side, I’ve only had one problem with Windows XP, but it was a doozy – suddenly the OS couldn’t find any of the major .dll files. I couldn’t launch Word, couldn’t launch Internet Explorer. Couldn’t even launch msconfig. Had to reformat the system and reinstall everything. Since then I haven’t had that sort of trouble, so I’m thinking it was due to some sort of hashed install. So that’s probably not Microsoft’s fault.
Therefore, I can say, in my experience, that neither OS crashes. At least, not easily. Both are orders of magnitude more stable than their predecessors, OS 9 and Windows Me.
Hmmmm… just trying to verify Brutus’s anti-Apple diatribe, but… despite your repeated claims, I don’t see Apple’s Mac OS X website saying “Mac OS X never crashes.”
And just for the record, fallum, the Microsoft Word equivelent for the Mac is called Microsoft Word.
And as for people who “get the Mac” but not Windows, that’s probably because the Mac is a much better organized. The Mac filesystem is, outside of the OS directory, approachable to the end user. Windows is not. Microsoft even hides the C:\Program Files, and the entire C:\ from users by default, trying to restrict people only to their “documents” folders.
How do you uninstall an Application on the Mac? You drag it to the trash can. Done. There’s no Registry to get corrupted, the filesystem is much easier to navigate. Your programs tend to have far more intuitive names (Internet Explorer.app on the Mac versus IEXPLORE.EXE on Windows, and that’s a minor example).
In Mac OS X (and mybe OS 9), the folder that contains your application can actually be a package so that it serves as the app icon, hiding the various files and libraries that make up the program (its hard to describe, but its a great way to deliver and organize programs… drag one icon to your /Applications folder to install, drag one icon out of it to uninstall).
I used to do Windows tech support for Dell. I’ve yet to meet a human who’s not a technology geek who can manuever the Windows filesystem with ease. And the Registry was incomprehinsible even to those of us who were trained to fix it. Program management at the filesystem level in Windows is so bad that Microsoft had to provide a “fake” filesystem to access your programs, the Start Menu.
Anyways, Brutus is clearly trolling here. Another Apple-hating fool who has no real reason to hate Apple, but does just because they’re different. Anyone who has so little self control that they have to spend thousands of dollars to stop playing computer games should be put down like Old Yeller, for the good of mankind.
Item number 2 on their “Why Switch” page is “It doesn’t crash.”
http://www.apple.com/switch/whyswitch/
Having seen an OSX crash or two in my day, I can say that this is a lie.
Well, in light of Flymaster’s link, I’ll amend my earlier statement. No responsible engineer would ever state unequivocally that the operating system will not crash. But it’s naive to expect absolute accuracy or anything resembling it in anything produced by a marketing department, no matter what corporation they belong to. Of course, they don’t call it “lying”, they call it “hyperbole”.
Item number two on their “why switch” list is, indeed, rather stupid, especially because Microsoft has mostly done away with the BSOD in their most recent OS’s. It wouldn’t have hurt their message to simply say “OS X is really, really stable.”
Okay, that is poorly worded. They should change that. In my experience, OS X hasn’t crashed, but I’m certain it can. However, I would bet dollars to doughnuts that a well maintained Mac OS X system will be more stable than a similarly maintained Windows XP system.
Someone should kick the marketing department upside the head and have them switch the wording on that headline.
Kirk
A) The movie that beagledave posted is hilarious.
B) If OCD includes ‘playing too many video games’, then I have it. I do get out, I work out regularly, I have my MCSD and MCSE (stop laughing now), and am working on my OCDBA. But when I get home, and turn on that PC, I do nothing but game. (Heck, I only post to here from work).
Gaming is not productive. If I will spend hours in front of the PC, I should at least write a novel or learn assembly or something. But nope, gaming it is. Morrowind is my latest crack. Before that, Civ III. And on and on.
I realize that many new games are released for Mac alongside the PC release, or not long after. But I figured that if now I have a 21" monitor, Ge4, yadayada, then when I get a 15"(17"?) I/Emac, I would not be so tempted. Sort of like smoking old, dried out cigarettes. Nasty.
I still want to be able to surf, write, code, and do a wee bit of music dl’ing. I figured that a Mac would be ok since…
(dramatic drumroll)
I have a Powermac 5500/250. Hah! Caught some of you by suprise. The 5500 is like a proto-emac, sort of. All-in-one design, nicely built. Even for a 250, she’s fairly quick. And does everything (albiet slowly) that I want to do. Sans gaming.
And so, looking at my Macwarehouse catalog (I bought one lousy ethernet card from them, and have been getting the catalog ever since), I saw I-Macs, with fleshed-out memory, going for something like $699. Perfect!
Until about a week later, when I saw the first of these new apple commercials. My money will not go to support those ads.
All started by my freakish addiction to video games. (Funny, I can control my Ps2 habit, but not PC. Something genetic.)
C. In all honesty, I would still rather get a Mac or Sun Blade 100 then go Linux. No real reason, just an amoglamation of little preferences/dislikes. Maybe Apple will soon stop airing those fucktardistic ads, so reasonable folk can once again think about buying them without being embarrassed.
D. To some of you naysaying assmongers: This was not an anti-mac thread in any way, shape, or form. This was anti-corporate apple.
Well, if you don’t like corporate Apple, you should be fair and also withdraw your trade form every other company that runs obnoxious commercials or has irritating company policies. By my calculations, this would leave you sitting bare-ass naked in a field eating Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and emulating Civilization III on an Etch-a-Sketch.
PC user here, and personally, I think that the coolest commercial Apple could have for Mac’s is some guy sitting at a PC and every time he tries to do something, you hear HAL’s voice from 2001 say, “I’m sorry, Dave, but I can’t allow you to do that.” Then have him sit down in front of a Mac and have it purr in a sexy female voice, “So, Dave, what would you like me to do?” They couldn’t make enough of ‘em, I’m tellin’ ya, if they did that! Millions of lonely single guys would be out there ponying up for a Mac. 
You don’t?
Perhaps I’m weird, but I will spend money to support good advertising, and I’ll intentionally avoid products that have stupid commercials.
Perhaps you are, because I think most people buy products because the product best fits a need or want, not because of the intelligence of the ads. If all other things are equal, maybe that would make sense, but how often is that?
Yeah, why would anybody want to actually have a wide selection of software?
Yes, macs have advantages too, but do you really have no idea why the vast majority of computer users use Windows?
Because their friends do, and their friends’ friends do…
No, seriously, I’m sure there’s more to it than that. But I do think the “lemming effect” is a big part of it. I remember being a computer newbie. I remember when I even contemplated the idea of getting a Mac, my PC-geek friends almost popped a cork, and told me all sorts of half-truths and inaccuracies, to prevent me from going Mac. Some people get all worked up at the mere prospect that someone might go Mac. I’ll bet that a lot of people buy PCs because they are almost brow-beaten into it. I swear, I am not kidding.
I got a Mac two years ago, (and have gotten some flack for it) after being a PC person for two years before that. (I still own a PC, and intend to get another one…eventually.)
Macs don’t suck. They are (IMO) easier to troubleshoot, and they make it MUCH easier to instsall hardware (and software.
Macs have plenty of software—at least the kind of software that matters to me; the “Big Name” stuff that is what I use all the time anyway. I hardly turn on my PC at all anymore. If I need it (if there is some software that I MUST use, that only runs on a PC) my PC is right there, ready and waiting. But I don’t hardly ever turn it on. Why is that? Because my Mac has all that I need; it has enough software. Not as much of a selection as PCs have but so what? So much of the PC software is redundant crapola anyway. I wouldn’t buy it for my PC, (and I do have that choice, since I do own a PC).
Speaking as a person who uses both Macs and PCs (and started out on a PC), I am personally mystified that more people have PCs. They don’t suck, (I don’t hate my PC, or anything) but they are not so ultimately superior to Macs. Macs have a lot of great things going for them, and I think that OS X is pretty promising too.
Heh…so that’s why you said this in the OP? Okay…
PC’s look pretty craptastic as well, but I still own one. A man is allowed to express his opinion regarding the regergitated-ass looks of the new I-mac, no?
No arguments against the technology inside the I-mac, just the nasty looking shell it is crammed into. I saw one at the store the other day; The base is way bigger then I expected. I like the ‘old’ I-Mac looks. Keep it all in one neat package.
Ah, the pivotal reply - where the OP is completely abandonded and is replaced by mac vs pc cliches.
The new iMac is absolutely gorgeous, and the asthetics are even better when you use it… having a screen that you can effortlessly move to accomodate how you are sitting or standing to use the computer, and not having to contort yourself to get the best view of the display, is ergonomically so superior that I loathe using my 19" Dell (especailly since the Dell doesn’t have any of the software I most like using).
Also, people, learn to spell. There’s no such thing as an I-Mac or an E-Mac, or an IMac or an EMac or an Imac or an Emac. It’s iMac and eMac.
Kirk