Filed under: Apple
Apple airs two new Get a Mac ads: "Surprise" and "Top of the Line"
With all of the other Apple news surrounding Snow Leopard yesterday, Apple starting airing two new "Get a Mac" ads last night on TV and has also posted them on the company website.
The first ad, "Surprise," shows a woman talking to Mac; she wants to purchase a "great computer", but Mac seems to be recommending something unexpected.
The other ad, "Top of the Line," shows another another woman wanting a "great computer" -- and PC introduces her to a fine high-end PC played by Seinfeld alum Patrick Warburton.
Thanks Ethan for sending this in!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Paul Mensah said 12:54AM on 8-25-2009
Ok honestly if I was the CEO of Apple the main thing I would focus our ads on would be bootcamp and the Mac's ability to run Windows because seriously why buy a Windows PC when you can have both Mac and Windows on one machine?
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John said 1:18AM on 8-25-2009
Sorry, but if that's your advertising angle, I'm glad you'll never be the CEO of Apple. Highlighting the fact that Macs can run Windows just makes them one more computer manufacturer in a crowded market. Big deal. The Mac experience is a lot more special and unique than that.
Even Microsoft knows that it's laptop hunter ads have to focus on price, because until October rolls around, Windows isn't a selling point-- it's advertising poison.
Jordan said 9:25AM on 8-25-2009
"The Mac Experience"....Mac users need to get off of that, it just makes them sound really lame. It's a computer people - there is no experience about it. I for one find "the mac experience" to be very annoying and cumbersome. It takes me twice as long to do work on a Mac than a PC solely because I have to use all the gimmicky, flashy crap Apple throws at you. Fast multi-window switching between programs from the dock?
johnmc said 11:41AM on 8-25-2009
At the risk of feeding a troll:
@Jordan Why aren't you using Cmd+Tab or Expose?
puhsitch said 12:54PM on 8-25-2009
And for completeness sake: Cmd+` for moving between windows within an application
Jordan said 7:40PM on 8-25-2009
Why should I have to remember yet another key sequence? Windows has been able to differentiate between windows on the taskbar since 95. 14 years ago for those of you who can't do the math..
Peter said 11:58PM on 8-25-2009
Another person who don't quite understand Mac & Apple...
I used to be a hardcore Windows user (and I still use Windows on one of my computer at home, nothing from Apple can beat Media Center from Microsoft)... but ever since switching over to Mac about a year ago, I realize Mac OS X are indeed superior to Windows (all version)... for those who think you can work faster on a Windows, I bet the differ... In fact I see a productivity increase by using an Apple computer (ok, to be fair, the first week or so, I am slower as I am getting used to the system and new OS)... But this might be a personal thing, so unless you go ahead and really try using a Apple computer, you will never quite understand it.
Jordan said 12:18AM on 8-26-2009
I own a Mac as well, I use it every day, and unless you do basic word documents there is no way that a Mac is faster and more productive. I'm sorry, but it's just not true.
Crash Gordon said 3:36AM on 8-27-2009
@Jordan
Wait, so your bitching about your lack of productivity but your unwilling to learn some hotkeys? If you want to really be productive in OS X you need to learn the hotkeys, and how is spaces gimmicky? Thats probably been one of the most useful features added in leopard. In my opinion, I'll admit that I do use a few extra apps and tweaks to help, but I have 1000x more productive on OS X than I have ever been on Windows, hell, when I use windows now for work I constantly feel like I'm trapped in small restricted box. I'm just saying, if you are having a problem being more productive in OS X its just because you are being overly stubborn.
Michael Khalili said 12:57AM on 8-25-2009
When did Macs stop being PCs?
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d-man said 11:03AM on 8-25-2009
I know! that's what bothers me the most about these ads.
brian said 12:04PM on 8-25-2009
Jeez, this again? It happened about twenty years ago. Yes, technically, "PC" means "personal computer" and all early PCs from Apple, Tandy, Commodore, etc. were known as "PCs" for a while but then a little company called IBM released a product named "the IBM PC" that became very popular, and due to a funny little thing that happened, many companies were allowed to make computers that acted just like it that were also compatible with it. Around this time, two things happened: 1) most non-IBM-PC-COMPATIBLE text-based personal computers died out (including non-Macintosh products from Apple) and 2) Apple introduced the Macintosh, which a) looked night-and-day different from the text-only PCs everyone else was making and b) was 100% NON-compatible with IBM PC clones, which were known as "IBM PC compatibles" or "PCs" for short. So you wound up with 1) a large family of compatible computers known as PCs, and 2) a computer that looked different, acted different, and was not called a PC by its maker or anyone else.
There. Happy? Can you get on with your life now? If you run around yelling "Macs are personal computers, therefore they're PCs" you'll just come off as a pedantic ass.
That said, back on topic: "Some say I'm *too* fast"--LOLOL! :-) Sly.
Jordan said 1:53AM on 8-26-2009
@Brian: Except...don't Macs now use the same processor architecture as PCs use? And didn't the processor they used before that have the word "PC" in it? They are PCs. You can buy into the Apple naming things makes it special hype, but Mac is just another word for PC.
digitalsedition said 1:08AM on 8-25-2009
Sadly, these commercials are very reactionary and not well thought out nor compelling. WHile I find the Mac/PC commercial war to be more humorous than anything else, these 2 commercials are well below par for the course.
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justin said 1:11AM on 8-25-2009
Apple needs stronger selling points than the virus thing.
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stoleyrbike said 1:50AM on 8-25-2009
why have you kept this to yourself until now? SOMEBODY GET PHIL SCHILLER ON THE PHONE.
PiperSon said 1:52AM on 8-25-2009
Do they? To the tech community perhaps, but that's not their target audience with these ads. Most non technical Windows users I know have had a virus at some stage and in most cases just buy a new PC instead of fixing it (crazy!). Don't underestimate the importance of 'virus-free' to the general consumer.
Liquidmark said 7:40AM on 8-25-2009
There are more problems associated with PC's than just Viruses. They didn't say viruses, they said problems. Viruses are a problem, but not the ONLY problem.
Tacoman said 8:50AM on 8-25-2009
Yah, what if they talked about Unix or iLife. Common people are going to ask "What is a Unix?" That is why they stick to viruses. Most people don't know what viruses are or how to get rid of them, but they know that they are bad and that they should be avoided. Think about it, us nerds already know the differences between Mac & Windows. We learn from the Internet. Most common 30+ year olds get a lot of info from the TV.
Jordan said 9:32AM on 8-25-2009
I couldn't agree more. The virus problem...isn't so much of a problem nowdays. As long as you have good UPDATED protection and don't click on every stupid thing you see on the internet you are completely fine. For every little thing that goes wrong with a computer, people blame it on a virus.
Mac users..yeah there aren't so many viruses, but when something goes wrong they take it to an Apple store where they think they get grand service because the problem was fixed. The same could be said about a PC, but people don't fix them - why? Because it's got to be a virus, right? When in all actually it was just complete ignorance on the users part and the problem could have been fixed just as easily as if it were a Mac.
All in all, Apple is still advertising on basis of what Windows was 10-15 years ago, and not what it is today. They need to stop doing this. They also need to stop doing commercials like these. Yeah they were funny at first...5 years ago. Now they just look like complete pathetic desperate attempts to try to re-capture why they had in the beginning. It's not going to happen. Their commercials don't even make sense anymore.