New Get a Mac ad
There's a new Get a Mac ad. Just assume that this post has gone through the necessary preliminaries to posting a new Get a Mac ad: a lede inoculating the post against criticism by admitting that it's not funny, followed by a finger-steeply remark about how Apple's homing in on Vista, and finally some self-conscious mumbling about Hodgman.
I like the puppy.
the latest
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Vista: the best argument yet for Linux.
These commercials are so old. For a company that is seen as edgy and innovative they really REALLY don't want to let this one go.
Don't worry they will let it go eventually, but only after they spin it into a sitcom...
Speaking of TV, has anyone noticed all the iPhone product placements lately?
Obama's got an iPhone! I saw it on Fake Steve.
Is Apple uncool yet?
TechnoGeek is right. Regardless of how f'd up Vista is why would I ever buy into an overpriced proprietary system. I'll run XP into the ground and switch to Linux if nothing improves. As long as PC's can be built from scratch for a few hundred bucks then run on what amounts to freeware anywhere in the world who cares. Some rich people in the US buy a few units while millions are building PC's around the world. These adds do more to increase the smugness factor of the choir than drum up new business. Open-source is the way and everyone knows it but Jobs and his friends at Sony, Universal, AT&T, etc.
Thanks for the heads up on an ad I'll see at least a hundred times while it runs on TV.
I guess I just don't 'get' posting TV ads on the web.
You buy an overpriced (actually, it's not, you know, ever since they switched to Intel) proprietary (Um, runs UNIX) system because you don't want to go to Vista, XP is really showing its age, and Linux is a joke that very few actual real people can get to work or, if they can (for the record, I can), it doesn't support any of the software they need (as in, the actual software, not FOSS knockoffs of it).
So they swallow their pride and buy a Mac.
And find that they love it.
At least, that's what happened to me recently.
You know, 10.5 "Leopard" hasn't exactly been bug-free either. People in glass houses should be careful about throwing stones.
(...and where the hell are the ZFS and resolution independence features?)
"These adds do more to increase the smugness factor of the choir than drum up new business"
Yeah, I saw a Chevrolet ad yesterday where they compared themselves to Toyota. Smug bastards...
Let's look at this, business is never going to switch to Apple in significant numbers if at all. Many consumers will continue to use PC's because their IT dept. will only allow them to work from home on a PC. For the average user, the ones targeted by these adds, they want to read e-mail, shop, listen to music, store some photos, and online bank. So, do they want to spend twice as much for a machine that is for all practicable purposes proprietary? The average buyer getting an Apple is essentially married to Apple for the life of the machine. I especially love the Apple products without user replaceable batteries. Also, while the old complaint of limited software for Apples is past there is still no comparison to the cornucopia of freeware available for PC's. Everyone knows Apple makes a great product hard and soft, but this ain't about which is better. So, the average user will soon be using Vista and Vista, barring improvements, is going to spur development and acceptance of competing OS's. Apple will continue to win a few wealthy converts in developed countries, while millions continue building PC's, using bootleg copies of Windows or some ver. of Linux such as Ubuntu, browsing with Firefox, and listening to DRM free, free music with VLC, etc.
Every once in a while I decide to stop flaming about Apple. Then I see an ad like this.
Of course, the whole paradigm of "IT departments" is an extremely poor encapsulation of division of labor. Computer literacy has been coined as such because it's a cross-cutting concern. Just as a chemistry laboratory wouldn't hire chemists who couldn't also read or do maths, businesses need to learn to demand that all employees be computer savvy (at least to the so-called "power user" level).
This also happens to be where Apple excels. Generally they provide low maintenance servers and laptops -- at a premium price. However, computer hardware is always cheaper than human salaries; better to be able to eliminate the entire IT department, outfit with premium Apple hardware, and insist on all other employes understanding what "renewing a DHCP lease for an IP address" means. This is already how most small "creative" / design firms operate.
Nice article, which seems to confirm my opinion that Jobs and Apple are not interested in business customers at this time, not enough profit. Retail is Job's market where Coolness rules. Apple is not interested in building a new company to target and support corporate buyers at this time, maybe never. They don't need to do so. Apple supplanting PC's, allowing companies to close IT Dept's sounds a lot like nuclear power not needing a meter. In fact the opposite would be true. As market share grows Apple will fall victim to the same problems with which MS has become relatively adept, security.
For all their faults, and there are many, MS still has the lowest zero-day vulnerability. These days the biggest security problem is customers running without keeping all their software updated. Knock on wood, but in twenty plus years I've had a grand total of 1 problem, which was easily fixed. Jobs being a smart man will think long and hard before he commits Apple to the expensive infrastructure MS maintains. The very fact that Apple is now making Apple PC's confirms the need to run open-source and non-Apple software on Mac's. Apple is smartly admitting their new customers want cool, expensive Apple hardware while retaining familiar PC software. There is an undeniable cache with pulling out an iPhone, iPod, or Macbook Air.
PC's are not the problem, software has always lagged far behind hardware. The question is what does MS do to fix Vista or does Vista turn into another Windows ME while we wait and hope for the next XP, Windows 7 and how many people just give up waiting on MS. Besides all this is probably a moot point in the long term as computing moves from the desktop to the online virtual desktop. One small personal device and rented space accessible from any place in the world. The terminal returns, long live the terminal!