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PCs and Macs. And smartphones.

  • 아티클

Having had a go at Google, I suppose it's time to look at Apple. Odd as it may sound Microsoft people don't dislike Apple. iPod's market penetration among Microsoft employees is probably higher than the population as a whole. Ask many of us what hardware we'd choose to run Vista on and a lot would prefer Apple to Dell, HP, Toshiba and the rest. Apple's industrial design is some of the very best out there.

Apple punch above their weight, and nowhere more so than in their advertising. 23 years after it aired the "1984" commercial for the launch of the Mac is still seen as one of the great commercials. I've quoted a piece in the Guardian about the current "I'm a PC"/ "and I'm a Mac" ads - here in the UK they star David Mitchell (PC) and Robert Webb (Mac). A favourite bit reads

[Mitchell and Webb] are best known for the television series Peep Show... .. in which Mitchell plays a repressed, neurotic underdog, and Webb plays a selfish, self-regarding poseur. So when you see the ads, you think, "PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers." In other words, it is a devastatingly accurate campaign.

Dell have responded in kind;  and now so have PC pro (PC pro's Tim Danton has a good piece on the subject, too). Their "32 ways that PCs are better than Macs makes a good read"

A couple of times recently my new smartphone has come into its own. Last night, getting off the plane home I picked up a mail which said "was [this] meant to be in a blog post you made". It wasn't, and the web browser on the smartphone let me onto the blog site to make the correction before I got to front of the passport queue. A couple of times I've found myself using the camera as a way of grabbing a note of something - as distinct from taking a photograph. One example was PC-Pro on the Mac adverts... If you want to know what their 32 reasons are you'll have to get your own copy.

Technorati tags: Apple, Advertising

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Ben, you were the person who enaged me in a really long diatribe about how fantastic Google applications are. Now you're telling me that how great Apple's propaganda is - even though some of it's main tennets are untrue. You should be able to see why I might wonder if you're engaging robustly (fine) or a troll (waste of time). Perhaps I shouldn't have wondered out loud. To clarify, a computer running the Mac OS is a Mac. A computer running Windows is a PC. If the best benchmarks for a PC turn up on one made by Apple rather than Dell, HP etc that isn't a surprise. I don't beleive that anyone makes a claim that to do a collection of normal tasks either OS is markedly quicker than the other.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    And at Dell, and at PC pro magazine and ... you see Apple with (as the register article gives it) 3% market share is actually being pretty rude to the rest of us. As the that article quotes Bill as saying. "I don't think the over 90 per cent of the [population] who use Windows PCs think of themselves as dullards, or the kind of klutzes that somebody is trying to say they are."

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    For most people, Google is a search company pure and simple. For most people Apple is an Music player company. Less pure and not as simple. I told people to read the article, not what was in it. But you had to point out that they allowed the Mac side to put their case, keep hammering on about how Microsoft don't enjoy having themselves, their partners portrayed as "Dullards and Klutzes". You know we get sick of the "Evil Empire" stuff too. See http://blogs.technet.com/jamesone/archive/2007/04/10/we-aten-t-dead.aspx

  • Anonymous
    May 17, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 17, 2007
    Since you're quoting the PC Pro article, perhaps I should balance it by saying that they also have 10 reasons why Mac's are better than PCs.  Stuff like them being faster, more stable, cheaper, more secure etc.  You know, it's nice to have a bit of balance. Like Dell installing Ubuntu; the world is a richer place for a bit of variation. Anyway, you guys at Microsoft should lighten up over these Mac adverts... I find them funny, original, simple, clever and you have to admit they are hugely popular.  The Microsoft 'Devil wears Prada' advert - 2.3k views on YouTube today.  The Dell Mac parody you link has 41k.  I know which advertising company I'd hire.

  • Anonymous
    May 17, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 18, 2007
    I 'post the other side here a lot'?! I've made a handful of posts to your blog; I think you'd have to be stretching it to say that at a guesstimate <10 times was a lot!   Also, I've no idea what the fantasy talk of trolls is about!  I'm not trying to find some elusive drawn lines either.  Like I said, I was just trying to intelligently engage with you over your posts on your blog.  I've tried to make well thought out and explained arguments to your posts.  If you don't want to engage, then fine, don't.   Anyway, despite the trolls, I.  Two posts ago, you didn't believe the 'mac was faster' bit.  Now it 'doesn't surprise' you.  Small, but progress... Like I already said the rest of the stuff (crashing glass etc) weren't my points and I'm not that interested; they were in the magazine that started this thread. If you want to take them up with the editor then go for it.  

  • Anonymous
    May 18, 2007
    My 'diatribe' (though I'd hardly call it that) about Google was in reference to your quote that all Google amounted to was search.  I say it's more but I couln't get you to see that.  I think the Google apps are great. Anyway, my point in THIS thread was that the PC Pro article also contained reasons why the Mac was better than the PC.  Thats it, that was the point. As for Macs 'propaganda' or as I'd call them, adverts, there is a saying 'any publicity is good publicity'.  They have you, me and even Bill Gates commenting on them - even if they are all based on a lie, it's all adding oxygen to their publicity flame.

  • Anonymous
    May 18, 2007
    The comment has been removed