Re: Apple's new line of commercials..

["Nama" <lord_philip@mac.com>]

Ok, ok...I admit I'm in a bad mood and being intentionally
confrontational.
I hope no one minds as I'm going to disagree with some of your
comments.

>As far as I'm concerned, Macs are overpriced, and over proprietary. And now
> that they are Intel based, they are no different than every other PC out
> there.

Firstly, there was NEVER really any difference between Mac and PC's
in terms of hardware and from an end users point of view. They both had
CPU's, they both have RAM and hard drives, and they both interface
with various things like mice, keyboards and monitors. The difference
is (as Mitchell already pointed out) is the OS. This is how the end
user interfaces with the machine, how it feels, how they interact with
it, and how it basically works for them. This is what makes Mac's
different (notice that I didn't say better, as that is a purely
subjective thing).
Now what's even cooler is that with the new breed of Intel Macs I
don't have to choose over a PC or a Mac any more. I can have both in
one.

>As far as mine is concerned, those commercials do nothing for me except turn
>me off even more toward the Mac. I've never had to re-start my PC. I've
>never had a virus harm my PC (though i've had infected files, McAfee has
>always caught them as soon as I tried to access them).

Terry's example maybe true, but the last time I looked a 1-year
license for McAfee is $50. For example, 4 years of paying for virus
protection sure bites into the overall cost of your system and makes
Terry's other comment about Macs being over priced (which I also do
not agree with) seem far less than true. Or am I missing something
here?

> The thing I've noticed about Mac commercials through the years is that THEY
> NEVER SHOW THE PRODUCT. Isn't this like advertising 101? How are people
> supposed to know what to buy if they don't see it?

So, please tell me again what product the new Apple commercials are
selling? iMac? MacBookPro? Or is it the G5 towers? Well, the truth is
'None of the above', or to be more precise 'all of the above'.
Apples new advertising is more in line with 'brand advertising',
which means it's not purely selling a specific product, it's
selling the 'Macintosh brand'. Now there's a piece of advertising
101 for ya.
Anyway, if you don't happen to blink for the last 3 seconds you do
actually see a full frontal shot of an iMac at the end of the
commercial, which pretty much makes your original comment defunct.
Don't believe me then check out the ads on Apples web page.

I for one wouldn't use a XP over OS X if you paid me to. And yes, I
have used XP. I even have a ThinkPad running XP gathering dust in the
corner of my room. It comes out on very rare occasions when I need to
run a piece of obscure software (which usually has something to do with
maintaining my vintage computer habit) that is only available on
windows. So I admit there are uses for XP on occasions for me.
However the biggest problem I find when using windows is the huge
amount of completely crap software that is available for it. If you
want something equivalent to say iPhoto, then you have the option of
maybe 15 different pieces of software. 14 of which are turds, and one
is good. I find myself wading through and installing up to 6 different
titles until I find the best one, and usually it is no better than
what's available on the Mac anyway. This is my humble opinion. I told
you I was in a confrontational mood.

Phil