"The ads are adapted from a near-identical American campaign - the only difference is the use of Mitchell and Webb. They are a logical choice in one sense (everyone likes them), but a curious choice in another, since they are best known for the television series Peep Show - probably the best sitcom of the past five years - in which Mitchell plays a repressed, neurotic underdog, and Webb plays a selfish, self-regarding poseur. So when you see the ads, you think, "PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers." In other words, it is a devastatingly accurate campaign.
I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui."
They're for people who want pretty furniture rather than a computer. At least this advertising campaign has finally put the "Macs are great for some work - look at desktop publishing" lie to bed. They're used for desktop publishing because journalists are an image conscious bunch and assume they need Macs to be cool. If Macs were really so good for genuine applications why is Apple advertising them as being for "music and pictures" rather than work. Honestly, who would buy a computer just for music and pictures? Get a stereo and a good photo printer which can talk to your digital camera and save yourself a huge pot of money. Or, better still, buy yourself a PC and do something productive.
Also, I think the "PCs crash all the time" shtick is a bit out of date. I'm not sure that my current PC has ever crashed. Sometimes individual pieces of software, games in particular, lock but that's largely a price you pay for having a greater variety of software at your disposal. The common system crashes were a thing of the earlier versions of Windows but largely died out with XP, an excellent piece of software. I haven't used Vista yet.
3 comments:
They're used for desktop publishing because journalists are an image conscious bunch and assume they need Macs to be cool.
No, Matt; Macs are good for DTP because they have built-in Postscript, the language that laser-imagesetters (for professional litho-printing) use. They also have a far better range of font managers (I have over 8,000 typefaces and need a decent manager).
Macs, of course, started off being best for DTP because DTP didn't exist on Windows. The DTP companies (Adobe and the now-defunct Aldus) were started by ex-Apple employees.
If Macs were really so good for genuine applications why is Apple advertising them as being for "music and pictures" rather than work.
Because, Matt, those of us who are actually in the industries concerned don't need to be persuaded. It's called diversification; you know, appealing to a broader market base.
Honestly, who would buy a computer just for music and pictures?
Very few people. But you may also have noticed that the ads also highlight that Macs run MS Office, a fact that all too many punters are woefully unaware of.
Or, better still, buy yourself a PC and do something productive.
People do also worry about viruses and, people being people, they do tend to do stupid things that get them infected.
There really are no viruses in the wild for Mac OS X; you can keep saying that that's because Apple's market share is so small, but that doesn't alter the fact that... well... there aren't any viruses.
DK
P.S. BTW, I'm not a big fan of the ads either, mind you; it just annoys me that people are still spouting ignorant crap about Macs.
I have gripes with Apple (shifting to cheaper components such as ATA drives, etc.) but at least Macs are now less than half the price that they were when I first bought one in 1997.
DK
P.P.S. Thinking about it again, I do think that "brilliant" should only be attributed to articles that get all of their facts right, something that Brooker sigificantly fails to do...
DK
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