New Apple Campaign Target PC Flaws 819
sodul writes"Apple just started a new campaign to emphasize the advantages of Mac versus a regular tasteless PC. The ads represent a young cool looking man (Mac) and a white collar in his 40's (not cool, PC).
In one of the ads the PC repeat itself several times because it had to reboot. In an other one (and maybe the most aggressive of all) PC is sick because of a virus, while Mac is healthy.
You can watch the new spots on Apple's site "
ah... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This comment target lack of proof-reading. (Score:2, Interesting)
Message from MS - you're a dinosaur (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is Apple on the offensive (Score:3, Interesting)
So from where I'm standing, it looks like Unix geeks are switching to OS X on Apple hardware for home use. At work, in a surprising turn of events, we're looking at buying a bunch of Apple's Xserve gear to build our SAN. Don't know if it'll happen, but the fact that it's being considered is pretty darn exciting.
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:2, Interesting)
Mac OS is great because it's looks better and feels better than Windows. Just like a Mercedes is better than an Chevy. But send a Chevy driver on a test drive in a Mercedes that has a joystick instead of a steering wheel, and a the gas and brake pedals reversed, and it will not be a happy test drive.
If Apple wants Windows users to switch, they have to stop sticking to their guns on the "Apple way" of doing things -- Command-C instead of Ctrl-C is a perfect example -- and at least offer new users the option of choosing Windows-style key combinations. It's a simple matter of appealing to the pre-conditioned users they want to sell to.
As for the start menu -- Apple did user-switching better than Windows, Apple could do a Start Menu better than windows -- I would *love* for Apple to make a better "start menu" than sits as the left-most Dock icon, or maybe a Dashboard widget. Just because it's in Windows doesn't mean it isn't useful -- and it shouldn't be hard for those Apple geniuses to do it one better.
a) Right-clicking should work the same as ctrl-clicking.
Not always. I right-click on stuff all the time, but don't get the pop-up -- have to ctrl-click. Don't have an example cause I'm not in front of my Mac right now, but there's definate inconsistencies there.
b) MacOS doesn't have "windows-style "uninstall" functionality" because uninstalling is trivial.
Whhoooww! Hold on there chief. It most certainly is NOT! I installed Parallel and Adobe Creative Suite CS 2 on my new Mac, and unintalling was a nightmare! I had to run UNIX commands and hunt down configuration files all over the place to clean that stuff on my Mac.
Many non-trivial applications install system stuff and create directories all over the place. Real "uninstall" support would provide a wizard/assistant that would remove those things for you. Mac software is *surprisely* deficient in this respect.
Still love my Mac,
boxlight
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:4, Interesting)
At least in the past they did: http://www.architosh.com/news/1999-08/0831-supper
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:3, Interesting)
My mother had been using Windows for years. Two years ago, she was looking for a new computer for her email and internet usage, because her Win2k box was virtually dead from virii and spyware. I told her she ought to get a Mac, she was convinced by a salesman to buy a Linux box for $300. She plugged that in and used it twice before giving up. She then went out and got a Mac Mini. At first, she was a little confused by it, but that only lasted a few days. Now, she really, really likes the application folder, because the "stupid menu doesn't go away if accidentally click in the wrong place." She never used keyboard shortcuts in the first place, and likes the menus across the top more than right-clicking. While this is only anecdotal, my mother is a ludite, and didn't get her first computer until 2000 or 2001. She seems to hate all things computer related, yet doesn't hate the Mac nearly as much as her Windows box.
Yes, this is anecdotal. No, it is not statistically valid or significant. In that vein, let me add one more story:
I work in an elementary school, running the computer lab, and maintaining the computers on campus. This year, many of the teachers were switched from Win98 to WinXP. This was hard for them. Icons were not in the same place. Certain behaviours were different. The OS looks different. I think that these people had as hard a time switching to XP as they would have to Mac. Again, I think that the issues that you raise are relatively trivial, and are the cost of switching from any one OS to any other.
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:2, Interesting)
No hunting for drivers? I lost days trying to get a Minolta Color printer to work. I still can't get a cheap webcam I've got to work, and the motor on my iFeel mouse doesn't work (although thats a feature). All of them worked on XP after following the same routine you use for all XP devices: insert CD, follow instructions, plug in device.
Next years OS today? There are a lot of feature in OS X that I like, but the fact remains that it runs on the dog slow Mach kernel (not all progress is good) and silly little things like Finder hanging if you loose a connection to a network resource, a problem that was solved many years ago in other OSs. Is it better than XP? Depends what you're doing (my answer is 'yes' YMMV)
114,000 Viruses on XP! There is nothing about OS X that makes it inherantly immune from viruses. Yes, it has a firewall, yes, it requires user intervention to install Applications, no it doesn't let you run macros directly from email application, and no, the web browswer isn't bolted onto the kernel but its still built on C and vulnerable to buffer overruns, and all macs tend to be used by the greatest threat to user data: end users. Its all about pay load and kudos to script kiddies and black hats. 3% market share just doesn't do it for them - who knows 5% might.
Awesome out of the box? Yeah, I was chuffed to bits when I had to handover £20 to watch movies in full screen mode... but I guess thats been fixed now with Front Row. Questions that I've seen people ask when they get a Mac are:
How do I cut and paste (because people use the toolbar icons and right click in windows (not keyboard short cuts, or the menu)).
Where are my applications? A valid question. Clicking on Macintosh HD, followed by Applications or pressing Cmd-Shift-A are less intuitive for noobs than hitting the start button. I normally stick a link to the Applitions folder in the Dock for noobs.
How do I make things full screen? Trying to explain to somebody that Apple HIG state that zooming is better than full screen tends to fall on deaf ears.
Thats not awesome out the box, thats frickin scary.
Let he who has no sin cast the first stone. I love my Mac, and I regularly recommend them to anyone who will listen, but I am not afraid to admit that they are less than perfect, and for the most part it makes no difference which system you use if all you do is email and web. Negative advertising like this leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:3, Interesting)
These people are deluded. All the files are just *hidden* in folders you'd never guess.
I just bought a new IMac, and I am not so impresse (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not buying "XP is stable" (Score:3, Interesting)
This is anecdotal, but this "XP is stable now" is something I'm not buying. Here goes:
I have four boxes here in my office, a six-month-old, high-end Dell Windows box, my Powerbook, a Dell 2800 running VMware ESX Server, and a Dell 2800 running Ubuntu (crazy, I know, but the 2800 was what was available).
Windows XP may have eliminated the BSOD that we all love to mock, but "stable" it isn't, IME.
Re:Cmd-C, V came first (Score:4, Interesting)
With a few exceptions, I can be guaranteed that any Mac app can have it's window closed with Command-W, quit by Command-Q, a new window created with Command-N, and hidden using Command-H. There are a ton of others, I could go on and on.
On my Windows machine, I've never bothered to learn the shortcuts because they're mostly too complicated to save much time. (Except for the applications that have adopted Mac-like shortcuts, only replacing the Command key with Control, there are quite a few of these now.) I know of a bunch of programs that use Alt+F4 to close a window -- who the hell ever thought that was a good idea? I have to move my entire arm to do that.
It's definitely Windows that could use some serious reconsideration of its shortcuts, dump a whole lot of cruft, and maybe get on par with what the MacOS has had for a while now.
I could accept Apple perhaps offering an option in System Preferences somewhere to reverse the behavior of the Command and Control keys, for Windows users that really can't stand using their thumb to use hotkeys, but I think ultimately Apple has a strength in its use of hotkeys, and they realize this.
Maybe the solution would just be to have keyboards that have a little switch on them for "PC compatibility mode" that swapped the keys (my KVMP switch does this, I use it to make my Linux machine more Mac-like, although I could probably do the same thing in software somewhere).
Re:Virus writing is a business (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a pretty astonishing theory, and I don't believe it. We've already seen spyware that attacks Firefox, and it started at the about the 10% boundary. I see no reasons why virus writers, who as you say are in it for the money, would pass up the opportunity to get on up on their competitors by ignoring the Mac.
I also don't see anything in the Mac that makes it technically more resistant to viruses than Windows. You don't need administrator access to do many of the things viruses/bots usually do, and the security system it inherited from FreeBSD is basically all they've got.
Given that stock Linux, MacOS X and Windows are all equally crappy when it comes to security, all with "bolt-on" security systems designed in the 70s for a totally different threat model, I would be very hesitant with making any claims that Macs are more secure than PCs (which basically means MacOS is more secure than Windows). Right now they ALL suck! Apple have had more than their fair share of stupid exploits, often ones which worked in the same way as Windows exploits released months or years before.
I'm putting my hopes in MAC security frameworks like SELinux and AppArmor ... I'm itching to get some spare time so I can experiment with hardening a system against malware/viruses/spyware threat profiles using them. My dissertation was on security, there's a whole lot more work that needs to be done before yet.
I think this idiotic campaign will come back and them on the arse. Just like they used to claim Mac hardware was sooooooo "superior" and now basically sell PCs with a different OS and a different box, unless they come out with radical changes to MacOS and radical new research results they'll have to backpedal pretty badly in future.