Rotten Apple

I have been meaning to post on this for a while, I just keep forgetting. Not unusual for me.

Anyway, most folks have seen the latest ads on the telly by Apple. I guess these are version 2.0 of their famous “Switch” ads from a couple years ago. If you haven’t seen them and you are absolutely dying to know what I am talking about, then by all means go and visit the Apple web site and watch them all. I’ll patiently wait here. I got nothing better to do.

Okay, if you are reading this far, you have seen one or left and actually came back! (Thanks)

So, what did you think? How do these ads speak to you? I mean, other than the fact they want you to switch and use a Mac instead of a PC… cuz they said that, right? Did the slacker kid from NBC’s underrated series Ed — wait, wait… you are probably more familiar with his role in Dodgeball — convince you to buy a Mac? You don’t want to be that dork with the specs, right? Just cuz you rock an iPod, like the majority of MP3 player owners, doesn’t mean you are cool unless you have a Mac too, right?

I’ll tell you what I get from these ads and see if you agree. Apple is telling me that the Everyman uses a PC and that only the cool kids, college or otherwise, use a Mac. You know what? They are right. How exactly are you getting the Everyman to switch? Certainly not by playing up how easy it is to work with your music library or write a blog because these people don’t care. Browsing the Internet, writing e-mail and working with your video, music and pornphotos is as easy on the PC as the Mac. Granted, the Mac has some slightly newer applications to do this kind of thing with and yes, they are more secure at the moment, but that will soon change with the next version of Windows (named Vista) due at the turn of the year.

Whoa… I’m going to digress into a Mac and PC debate and that is so not my point. My point is simply that Apple is merely pandering to the audience they already hold. They are not likely to pull many PC users to the Mac fold with these ads. Almost every blogger famous blogger brags that they design and blog on a Mac. Okay, maybe the Scobble guy (no link love here… he doesn’t need it, but Google if you must) doesn’t because he’s probably the third most famous Microsoftie, but everyone else does. Oh, and if you are a web designer or art type, then you use a Mac and I still don’t understand why because Photoshop seems to work pretty well on my PC and all the web design and development tools work the same on both platforms. It’s probably just because the hardware is cool looking and I don’t dispute that.

Damn… starting down the debate path again. Focus OB!

So, what reminded me to rant on this was reading that Gisele is up for round two… or is that three? Whatever it is, is a Victoria’s Secret catalog cover girl and #1 (of 25) in E!’s Sexiest: Supermodels (I was up late the other night, so late and bored I even sat thru The Soup, so sue me) going to convince you to switch? Nah, not me, she’s got a horse-face thing going on and so not deserving of #1 (she edged out The Klum if you are curious), but more to the point, having her pitch a Mac will not convince the Everyman to switch. Get a freakin Everyman to convince you to switch, but I guess they already did that a couple years ago and it actually worked somewhat! What, what, what? Yeah, it worked.

Feh, enough of this. I’d never switch completely, but I may consider picking up one if they ever compete better on price. Yes, you get a great hardware design, but the fact is a Mac costs nearly twice as much as a similarly equipped PC and nice industrial design isn’t enough to justify that, but a smaller premium could be justified. So, maybe I will own one some day now that they have Boot Camp, but I certainly don’t need one now.

Longest rant ever. I should have just posted this cartoon. Sums up all this word garbage I typed, but with an obvious Windows/PC slant. Then this one goes along with the X-Men movie review… sorta.

Oh, you want video spoofs, well then try this, this and this courtesy of some bloke and YouTube.

Next up, I try to avoid a debate about curly braces…

…yeah, you have to be a code ninja to understand that one. That’s going to be the next rant I do write and none of my five regular readers will give a shite about reading that one either…