Comments on: Microsoft ad's 'average consumer' is an actress

Ad star Lauren isn't told, when she applies for the gig on Craigslist, that she might be shooting a Microsoft ad. What a break for her acting career.

[Gennx30]

when you add up the costs over time for repairs-downtime, cheap crappy parts-the Mac is on the same level or less expensive than a PC ie: a Wall street firm, Macys, Home Depot-a Major city when they are put out of commission because of the worm of the week or patches of patches to a patch fpr some gltich
when the nation is brought to its knees because of one of several hundred Windows flaws-or the latest worm that APPLE doenst even bother to sniff at-remember CORPORATE DOWNTIME COSTS BIG MONEY-AND MICROSOFT OWES AMERICA BILLIONS
and why people are dumb enough to put up with worm of the week/patch of the week/ patch for the patch of the week/bug of the week and then PAY for the priviledge, while MS is laughing behind their backs at you "suckers' all the way to the bank...

[dennis_the_bug]

I am sure your brain is in your knees. Mac is good as a desktop or aa a standalone system. It is not good for enterprise work. Check the facts. You cannot make mac as a server and run time-critical applications on it. BTW, most of Retail systems are IBM (which run either windows or linux). Talk some sense here.

[1363nd0f1337]

OK, first of all, Apple buys their parts from the same suppliers that many manufacturers of Windows machines do, so they have the same parts and unless Intel and nVidia have a back-room deal where they only supply cruddy parts to Windows machine manufacturers and good parts to Apple computers, they're going to be very comparable in terms of performance and reliability. What will differ is the drivers and such. Oh, and correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Apple put out security updates?

[62Sparkplug]

It would be interesting to find out if the "actress" was able to connect and still run all her peripheral devices with the $700 HP laptop she bought or if she had to uninstall VISTA and then install Windows XP again.

I'm sure the "actress" wouldn't have any problem doing that at all or maybe she could just use the $300 she saved and have the Geek Squad come out and do it for her.

[ejblrats]

Yeah and I'm sure she wouldn't have any problem getting any existing Windows software to run on OSX. Try explaining Boot Camp to the "average" user. Not only that, have you ever tried walking someone through using a Mac for the first time?? It's a nightmare.

[baconstang]

A Chevy can beat a BMW, if you spend enough money and time tinkering with it. But if you just want to drive a good car, the BMW might work out better for you. I don't want to learn how to repair/build computers. That's why I buy Macs. I just have to learn the application I chose to use, not how to make it work on my computer. If you like to tinker, the PC probably is the way to go.

[1363nd0f1337]

The car thing doesn't really apply. The differences between a Mac and Windows machine, not a PC, which is a personal computer, Macs fall into that category too, is the software. The difference between a Chevy and a BMW is the components, the hardware. Macs and Windows machines (at least a larger portion of Windows machines) use Intel and nVidia chips and therefore are on pretty much THE SAME FREAKING HARDWARE. And while a large number Windows machines seem to need tinkering, it can more than likely be attributed to the large number of them out there, the more there are, the more common things breaking down will seem, the world is flooded with Windows machines and therefore more problems in the terms of straight numbers. I bet that the proportions are at least close when compared percentage wise the number of problems on both sides. I mean, macfixit.com wouldn't exist if Macs didn't have problems too.

[seven7dust]

@1363nd0f1337
actually the car analogy is perfect
when you buy a BMW wat do you get
Do you get the fastest car on the market or price point ?
do you get the car with the most horse power on the market ?
or the Car with the largest Interiors on the market ?
far from it many other brands can beat the BMW in terms of performance for cheaper
but wat makes the BMW wat it tis it's all the extra benefits
this is wat people forget to mention when comparing a Mac and a PC !
just like BMW is not the fastest car at it's price point Macs arent either
unfortunately everyone is brainwashed into thinking that the Processors and Ram
r the only things that matter
but here's wat really matters usability and user experience
and here's how Apple provides a better user Experience -:
the most important component is OSX which is a luxury O.S compared to windows
not because it's does more or does less but because it does it's job better
and in a less time saving manner than the other
this better job buisness is a perception meaning
you need to own it before you make statements
or atleast people r buying it for this purpose alone !
others include better keyboard better touchpad better battery life
low noise low heat better screen better build quality better styling etc etc.
far fewer problems overall better customer support
all this adds to the cost of the Mac and hence the mac comes of as a Luxury brand
and the best way to get this point across is via these car analogies !

the best way to check for quality/luxury is resale value
check out the resale value of Macs and Pcs
and compare them to BMWs and Chevys
again I rest my case you get wat you pay for with a Mac

I challenge you or n e body to mention your Machine of choice and compare it's resale value to a Mac and we'll see who comes out on top !
which is why Macs r the BMW of Computing simple fact !
if it does compare it probably was the same price as well
and even that computer will be deemed a luxury brand then !

[1363nd0f1337]

OK, seven7dust, 1. use your grammar correctly. 2. No, the car analogy is completely flawed. BMW and Chevy use nowhere near the same quality PARTS as each other. Windows based machines and Macs use the same quality parts. And yes, speed is a crucial part of the user's experience. Please, boot up a Mac Classic and see what it's like. You can't run nearly any of the modern programs that users run today. CPU speed, amount of RAM, GPU and all of those components make the user's experience much better. A computer with 8GB of RAM will not have as hard of a time writing large-dimension images in Photoshop (yeah, we Windows users have that too) for example and will complete the task faster, thus taking up less of the user's time. Styling has no effect on the end result. And many of the things you listed are subjective. Better keyboards and touchpads are a subjective thing. People will prefer one way or the other there based off of their experiences. And apparently your Mac didn't come with that great of a keyboard seeing as you seem to be missing keys and are therefore unable to spell words in their entirety. Also, most Windows users don't have to resell their machines, they can upgrade it and breathe new life into it or they will run the machine until it gives out. That is admittedly much harder on laptops, but you can buy a new processor and put one in there. And yes, you do get good customer support on Windows based machines. About 2-300 bucks and you have next day service, at least with Dell (I don't know much about the other companies as I've never had a reason not to buy from Dell). And the main reason Windows machines have problems is the user. Windows allows users to configure the software flexibly and inexperienced users can cause all kinds of hell. No, I would call OS X the "name brand" item. It has status associated with it because somebody, somewhere decided that hey, they charge more for it so therefore it must be cooler and higher quality. And why is it higher quality, because they charge more for it. That right there is circular reasoning.

[1363nd0f1337]

Now, don't get me wrong. I do like OS X. What I dislike, however, are the half-truths and falsities that some true fanboys spread as though they were the word of God. OS X does some things much better than Windows. It's basic audio and video editing tools are much better. Each has their place in the ecosystem. But this debate over luxury is BS. Apple machines are an amalgamation of hardware (yes, generic hardware these days) and software. The two are inseparable and you cannot, should Apple have its way and shut down Psystar, you can't get them separate. Microsoft only deals the software. OS X is totally connected to the hardware that Apple designates it be connected to.

Now, let me dispel some common Windows falsities for you:

1. Not every Windows machine has viruses. Yes, they are more prevalent on Windows machines and as we all know an overwhelming majority of malicious software is coded for Windows. However, keeping up with the security updates and AV definitions leads to a secure computer. However, the user can screw this up. They can use things like LimeWire and pull in viruses. The AV can't do anything about this as the user told the computer to run this. It can alert to the viruses but it cannot prevent the user from clicking on the installation button. But, proper usage of a computer and not doing things like pirating or downloading massive amounts of pornography usually means that the computer is safe. Children do tend to screw this up and they do not often connect the random links they see and the possible dangers of allowing malicious code to execute on the machine or downloading something from a website that they don't really know to the viruses that they end up with. It doesn't take a tweaker or Windows genius to figure this out.

2. Not everyone has to tweak Windows to get it to work. Just about every OS these days "just works", be it XP, Vista, OS X or something like Ubuntu. Operating systems, especially consumer operating systems, are designed to work out of the box. My Windows XP machine boots just as reliably as I'm sure you OS X machine does. I have little daily maintenance work on either of my machines. If my mother can run a Windows machine and not have problems then just about anyone can.

3. The suppliers of hardware for Apple OS X based computers are usually the same suppliers that provide hardware for preconfigured Windows machines. And Microsoft doesn't have much to do with the hardware other than checking to ensure that the drivers supplied by the third party hardware company don't cause a massive clusterf**k with the Widnows Hardware Quality Lab testing (WHQL). Every gamer who's installed beta drivers for their video card knows that Windows will recommend against that but allow you to continue should you so wish. The downside to that freedom is that sometimes there are bugs in the drivers that haven't been ironed out yet as they're still in beta and can cause the OS to try and access the hardware in an unusual way and cause a crash. Fortunately, this doesn't happen as much as people like to believe it does. How many hours a day, every day do schools, libraries, companies and so on run their Windows machines with a large majority of them not crashing despite everything the person who's stuck in the cubicle does to cause issues like trying that new flash game that he just got emailed from "Ted", who he assumes is in another department.

I'm fine with people not liking Windows as that is very much a preference type of deal, but if you're going to point out flaws, at least point out REAL flaws and not BS. Saying that all Windows computers have tons of viruses would be like me saying that all Mac users smoke and hang out in Starbucks all day. It's not true now is it?

[Angmarr]

lol mac fanboys ... trying to find excuses

[seven7dust]

not really just trying to tell you why we like macs better !

[Angmarr]

wow, thats actually not a bad response = )

[gengeek]

The ad is great. I can relate to this much better than the "I am an apple, I am a PC" ads, which try to imply PC's are for plump nerds & Apples for popular trendy guys. If you fall for that, you are gullible & naive buy a computer to make you popular/attractive.
Not that an HP, ACER, SONY, DELL, SAMSUNG, TOSHIBA, LENOVO, ALIENWARE couldn't make you popular & attractive (or at least smart).

[AppleRules]

That's just silly. People watch the Mac ads because they enjoy watching John Hodgkins (the PC guy) because he's funny. Witness his appearances on the Daily Show and Baby Mama. The man's a gifted comedian, not a "plump nerd." Justin Long's Mac guy is smarmy but the ads are accurate. You can bring the price of the PC down to zero but it's still not a bargain because MicroSoft has never fixed the problems with Vista yet. If they're going to abandon Vista, what makes anyone so sure that Windows 7 will be any better?

[rapier1]

Actually I'm a mac owner and I hate those ads. They're like nails on a chalk board to me and I hate that I give any money to a company that is subjecting me to those ads.

[62Sparkplug]

I wonder how soon after she got connected to the internet that she got infected by the Conficker worm?

Looking forward to April Fool's Day, M$ Fanboys?

[JaegerBaeger]

Has to be staged, check out this link. It's kind of funny...
http://www.techflash.com/microsoft/How_real_is_real_life_Windows_ad_Apple_sidewalk_scene_is_fishy_42033192.html

On the plus side, the 17" HP at Best Buy now sells for $649

[Astrophil]

I bought my rebuilt macbook for 800 dollars in August. The power source went wonky in January, and it cost me 45 bucks to fix it-- and the technician showed me how to do some stuff myself.

If you want real streetcred, buy mac off of Craigslist and you'll know you'll have a product that is going to last. I wouldn't buy a used PC laptop for more than a hundred bucks.

[dennis_the_bug]

I am not sure who buys a laptop every year. I bought mine 3 years with intel core 2 duo, 120GB HDD, 2GB RAM and vista business (dell - $879). Its running pretty stable. No virus even though i have anti-virus installed but it has not detected any virus on my laptop in last 3 years. Before this laptop, I had an HP for 5 years which still runs good on Windows XP but it has P4 processors which is the real toaster (it heats up even with linux). I use Photoshop or Gimp and other image editing software on my vista. I don't see why I should buy a mac to do my photo editing.

[dennis_the_bug]

For number crunching I use Microsoft office (Excel) as it is superior to iWorks in terms of functionality. I can write macros in it and automate lot of functionality (Best software is MATLAB, but it is expensive).

[macthegoalie31]

I'm sick of people bringing in old facts that don't apply anymore. Yes, Apple computers used to come with one-button mice. There was no need for two-button mice. Now, however, any Mac you get comes with a two-button mouse. It LOOKS like a one-button mouse, but it's not. Educate yourself.

Also, I'm sick of hearing about "smug" Apple users. Well there is a such thing as a smug Windows user, who is as much and sometimes more obnoxious. As soon as one of these people hears about me being a Mac user, I get attacked. "Why would you used it? Macs are stupid! Why won't you use Windows?" blah blah blah. I loathe having to defend myself to Windows users. If they can't look past their lacking OS and AT LEAST look into something like Linux, they have no right to bash my Mac usage after I never so much as provoked them.

I use both Linux and Mac and while Linux is fun to use, it still doesn't compare to the Mac. I do NOT, however, go up to people I don't even know and start attacking them for using Windows. So they should show me the same courtesy so as not to come off as ignorant jerks even furthering my dislike for the "PC" community.

[DickeySingh]

I am hoping these ads would drive down the prices of the apple 17" macbook pro!!

[toosday]

Apple users on the defensive about a Microsoft ad. Who'd have thought this day would've happened three years ago. In fact, it should've happened three years ago, but that's another story for another time.

Microsoft sure touched a nerve!

[AppleRules]

From AOL Online:

"To shoot the ads, Microsoft's agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, recruited unwitting subjects by posing as a market research firm studying laptop purchasing decisions."

Boy, that says something. Like the Mojave Experiment before, it seems MicroSoft's big strategy is to try and trick people into choosing Windows and a PC to run it on. Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell people what they're doing instead of working under false pretense? Yeah, I would trust this company.

[rapier1]

Because they wanted real reactions without people trying to 'act' for the commercial. They didn't want to sway or otherwise influence the way that these people made their purchasing decisions. That's why.

[AppleRules]

Well, looks like they missed the market on the first one since they DID use an actor. Oops.

[tlj505s]

Several years ago, apple was close to going out of business. They were an afterthought in the computer world. Then suddenly, like a phoenix they rose from the ashes! What brought about this rebirth for apple? Was it dependability? Was its powerful graphics ability the factor? No, it was because apple started making their computers with COLORED MONITORS! Yes, it was the IMAGE of an apple that brought them back to life. It was a very smart move by them, but most people that said they wanted an apple did so because they were cooler or prettier looking. Today you see apple product placement in tv and movies everywhere. Nothing about the computers working better, just the cool CSI detective or doctor using the Mac to check his/her email, kind of like a nike swoosh on your shoes, the apple icon on the outside is there to sell an image. And hey, it is working for them. Same for the Ipod. Is an Ipod really better than a MP3 player of half the price? No, but a Creative Labs MP3 player is just not as cool now is it? But for people to come out and get pompous about their macs working better, I call bs. Let me run down a quick list.
1. They last longer so you don't have to buy a new pc every year. --- no one unless they are ate up with gaming buys a new pc every year. They last years if you want them to. Thing is, many people like to update every 3 years or so. And for the price, you can afford to.
2. Viruses hit PC's worse. ---- Well yes, because there are 90% more pc's out there. You seriously do not think viruses could be made for the mac if there was a desire to do so? Keep telling yourself that lie if you want to believe it.
3. PC's crash every 5 minutes? --- This is just stupid. My PC at work has never crashed. Never. Right now I am even using the evil Vista on my laptop and I run just fine on a $500 Dell laptop. Have been for over a year now.
4. This commercial is smart. Think about how many companies are being advertised here and probably helped pay for the spot. Windows, HP, Bestbuy, possibly even VW. And btw, the girl in the spot is cute. I am glad to hear she is an actress, maybe I will see her in something else someday.

[AppleRules]

Ah yes, the old market share argument. Nearly 100% of the kids I teach use iPods, not Zunes, not Creative Zens, but iPods. If market share makes a company vulnerable, then why haven't they created worms and viruses for iPods yet? They plug into PC's too. Why are the computers vulnerable to viruses but not the the iPods that plug into them? The only MP3 player hit by anything that I've heard of was the 30GB Zunes that crashed for a day on December 31, manufactured by, that's right, our good old friends at MicroSoft.

Why not just use this money spent on ads to actually fix MicroSoft's software problems? I mean, it's not really the hardware in PC's that's the problem; it's Windows, and in particular, Windows Vista.

[1363nd0f1337]

That was a coding issue on behalf of Microsoft, not an attack. No one attacks MP3 players because they stand to profit little to nothing from it. People attack computers because they can make money off of it by stealing private data and gaining access to funds.

[AppleRules]

And what? You don't think you could get this information from an iPhone or iPod Touch? They can also surf the web, as can many other smartphones. Anything where you need your passwords has the potential to be vulnerable. Are the hackers just getting lazy?

[ssampier]

I am a PC user, very happy with Windows XP. I disagree with Ipod criticism. I own 2 ipods and a Sansa Clip. I bought my ipods because they easy and fun to manage my music through it. The Clip is as fun as dishwasher, it does what it's designed to and nothing more. In short I choose the Ipod the reason why you'd buy a car--or anything--for $20k or $30k when you can buy a Chevy Aveo for $12k

3. Vista isn't evil, just bloated and slow. To run Vista on your $500 Dell you only run one app at once right? Of course with XP you could easily run 3 or 4 apps with the same specs.

[AppleRules]

Here's another thing that ought to be taken into consideration. $1000 is the price point, is it? Well, as part of the September Mac-to-school special I was able to purchase a MacBook ($1149 MSRP) , an iPod Touch ($319 value at that time) and a Canon printer ($99) for only $1049. This included a $100 discount for educators and students, as well as a free (by rebate) iPod Touch and printer. The difference between Best Buy and Apple as far as I can tell is that Apple actually honors their rebates. Such a deal we ended up buying two of them. That's about $3000 worth of goods for about $2100. I certainly don't think a sub-$1000 PC notebook prone to every virus on the market would have been a better deal. And all this stuff I got for only $49 more than the price point in this ad.

[b_dubb]

i thought Bill Gates was hysterical filling up the above ground pool with a garden house. Seinfeld wasn't nearly as funny

[AppleRules]

I thought Bill Gates was great too. But the commercial itself was pointless because it gave no meaningful information about the product it was attempting to sell, except in some kind of cryptic in-joke sort of way. Even now, the information that PC's are generally less expensive could be conveyed in about three seconds. There's not much need for a back story. What MS fails to mention is that with a Mac, you can run two operating systems at the same time, Mac OS X and Windows. Two for the price of one (although you would still need to "acquire") a copy of Windows. PC-makers cannot make this same claim, so the cost is really not that cut-and-dried a question.

Similarly, iPods can all run on HP, Lenovo, Acer, Dells, or any other Windows machine. Can MicroSoft make the same claim about Zunes? Can they run on Apple systems?

[1363nd0f1337]

Have you ever heard of VMWare? I can run a Red Hat Enterprise Linux machine, 5 Server 2008 machines for school and still have (just barely though) enough RAM leftover to listen to music and surf the Internet on my laptop. Yeah, that's right, I'm running those on my laptop. Oh, and with a bit of tinkering with OS X you can get a Zune on a Mac.

http://www.todaywasawesome.com/2008/02/02/zune-for-mac/

[1363nd0f1337]

Or what about Virtualbox? That can be run on Windows, Linux, or OS X. It's a free download from www.virtualbox.org and is open source.

[Allen750]

I hate Best Buy for selling me a "high-end laptop..." Running Vista?!? You're kidding me! I would have brought a Mac, who care about the screen size?

[1363nd0f1337]

I absolutely hate the preconfigured models sold in retail chains. That's why you buy online and tailor the hardware to your needs.

[gisabun]

I don't think her being an actress is an issue. The fact are that Apple systems do cost more than a PC for the same hardware. Isn't the two guys on the Mac vs PC commercials actors? Yes. So what's the difference?

Misleading? Maybe. Maybe not. Apple ads in the UK were pulled because they were misleading. They showed someone surfing with an iPhone and everything was instantaneously - even downloading music.