Motorola Xoom ad 'inspired' by Apple's classic 1984 ad
Motorola has just released a commercial for its Xoom tablet that seems to draw heavy inspiration from Apple's classic 1984 ad. In Motorola's spot, a single Xoom user roams through a sterile environment populated with hundreds of people clothed in the same monochrome, drab garments. Everyone except the Xoom user trudges along placidly with blank expressions and white earbuds dangling from their ears. Upon seeing a Xoom in action ("all screen images simulated" of course), a woman's expression brightens, and she removes her earbuds.
Oh, ha ha, Motorola. Ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking. Henry Blodget puts it in perspective.
Just like most of the other "me-too" tablets that have come out over the past couple months, the Motorola Xoom pretty clearly drew design inspiration from the iPad, so it's not particularly surprising that the company's commercial is also drawing "inspiration" from Apple's iconic 1984 ad. The real question here is whether anyone will care. The Motorola Xoom is US$799 for a 3G-enabled tablet with 32 GB of storage, only $30 less than an iPad with twice as much storage and access to far more applications than are currently available on the Android platform. As Engadget noted with a Best Buy ad leak earlier tonight and some of our commenters have reiterated, you can't even enable Wi-Fi on the Xoom without chipping in for at least a month of 3G service.
Even so, I'm sure the Android Army will be happy to tell me why the Xoom is inherently "better" than the iPad. Here's the thing, though: just like all the other tablets out there, the Xoom is competing against last year's iPad, and it's competing based on specs rather than user experience. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that not a whole lot of people are going to be ditching their white hoodies and iPads for a snazzy sweater vest and a Xoom.
Check out the video below, then hurry to your nearest Best Buy to get in front of what I'm sure will be insanely long lines* for Motorola's device.
[via Engadget]
*lines may not actually be insanely long
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Motorola has just released a commercial for its Xoom tablet that seems to draw heavy inspiration from Apple's classic 1984 ad. In...
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I tried the Xoom at BestBuy today for about half an hour. What an awful tablet. Counter intuitive.
Apple has absolutely nothing to worry about, especially since the price of this monster is $800.
din´t anyone notice the manila envelope the girl is holding?
February 10 2011 at 5:47 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyOk in all these comments I see two points of consensus: most of us like our iDevices, and those white hoodies are cool.
For the release of the iPad 2 all Apple Store representatives are to be issued white hoodies and must wear them with the hoods up for that entire first day of sales.
So, this is a commercial about how conformity is bad, which I get. But it's advertising a product that is a copy of the thing you'd be a conformist if you bought. So doesn't that mean that buying one of these would make you a knockoff conformist? (Or would it just make you an idiot?)
BTW, $800? For a 32GB with 3G? That's $70 more than a 32GB iPad with 3G. I thought cheap knockoffs were supposed to be, you know, cheap.
No one in my family could figure out what they were even advertising in this ad. When I pointed out that they were poking fun at Apple, the response was "oh, really?"
Apparently that ad really drove the point home. Good job. ;)
Interesting an interesting mention of this article http://thechurchofapple.com/2011/02/07/motorola-xoom-anti-apple-commercial/
I think even Motorola fans will laugh at this cheap knock-off of a commercial
I thought it was an iPad commercial at first, the thing looks identical from across the room. It was only the head phones that gave it away.
On a side note, apple should totally market white hoodies in their stores.
It's articles like this that can make TUAW painful to read.
While it is a great source of apple news, these Apple Evangelist articles make me grind my teeth.
So a new company wants to make a tablet? Fine, let them have a go.
Bashing the ad, calling it a "me too" device and generally sending a "how dare they" message to anyone who attempts something apple has done, does not shed TUAW, or indeed Apple users as a whole, in good light.
Long story short, this is not Apple news. This isn't even news, it's just bullying, and it makes me sad to see other people who are pointing these articles out, are having their comments voted down or deleted.
Please TUAW, let's stick to Apple news.
This isn't a news site. If it was, we'd call it TUANS, The Unofficial Apple News Site.
This is a weblog, which means that instead of sterile, opinion-free news reporting, we inject our own analysis into the writing. Part of that means some of our readers are in danger of being exposed to opinions they disagree with.
First of all a tablet computer was not that revolutionary nor was it the specific brain child of apple... ( if anyone here has a memory longer than 2 weeks you will remember that introduction of the ipad was plainly expected and one of the worst kept secrets from Apple - aside from the ridiculous name of the device - we all pretty much knew it was going to be giant iphone ) so please spare us the innovation bit! The ipad was as lame ( innovation wise ) as adding a 5th razor blade to a mens razor...
So as far as slagging MOTO for being a rip off - please - its a linear innovation.
Most of you commenting here, are in fact drones of the "apple come latley" variety ( exactly as shown on the MOTO ad ) ... Not to brag- but I have been an apple owner since the 80's and welcome ANY and all innovation.
I will note that Apple has always been a totalitarian company and Jobs is admittedly, a dictator... The literary reference to 1984 actually fits quite well with APPLES well documented iron fist rule... That's not to say that Iron fist rule does not work... For Apple it clearly does...
The ipad lacks connectivity and there is no way to tether to the iphone - which I would say was a rather lame move by Apple to make people sign up separate contracts...
I would welcome ANY device that makes it easier for the consumer to connect to his already existing phone data plan... Any competitor that jumps on that bandwagon will see the quick adoption of their platform... Continued lockdown of connectivity will be the downfall of ANYONE ( apple included ) in the tablet market.
Apple got killed in the 80's for being too totalitarian in its approach ( thank Jobs ) It stands to make similar mistakes because ( Jobs is still a dictator ) - everything will balance out in the end... Without competition there is no innovation so we should thank those that are trying to learn and compete with APPLE - including any small and smart start ups out there ;)
I still love apple products but I liked MOTO's Ad... The best attempt I have seen so far at taking on Apple, and it was not cheesy at all!
"Apple got killed in the 80's for being too totalitarian in its approach..."
No, it got killed in the '90s for a number of reasons - poor licensing decisions, poor inventory management, poor marketing decisions, directionless management, and also suffered from the residual effects of not having the same corporate culture lock-in that IBM/Microsoft enjoyed back in the '80s, among many reasons.
It didn't have huge market share in the '80s, true - but they were profitable and doing nicely up through the ouster of Jobs. It really wasn't until the early '90s at the end of Sculley's timeframe that we seriously saw Apple floundering. They were flying pretty high while Jobs was there.
(One could even make a convincing argument that the highly iconographic current face of Jobs-as-Apple and perceived total control is reaping HIGHER rewards than the previous form of the company back when he was there - I don't know that I'd go to that same conclusion, but it's worth thinking about.)
But go ahead and half-ass your look at history if it makes you feel better.
Noah - yer so funny... Not too nice though... Apparently your one of those apple evangelical types, so a response is not really necessary other than to say I personally liked the moto ad and continue to think that the totalitarian approach of apple has its strengths and weaknesses...
I think we will see these weaknesses exposed over time in much the same way they they manifested in the past, which is why irony exposed in the MOTO commercial is so damn great...
Steve had to leave apple once before, and looks like he may be checking out again soon!!
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