I had this Apple rant about those new commercials. I wrote it a few weeks ago and then I was going to edit it some more, but I forgot to do that. Now I don't even see those commercials on TV, so I guess they stopped playing them. I really missed the boat on this, but here's my rant anyway. Pretend like I posted this at a time when it would be more relevant. Maybe the commercials are still being played somewhere.
I really, really hate those new Mac commercials. Who is Apple really targeting? Most people who want Macs already have them. Then there's the people who aren't sure if they want Macs, or they don't want to take the plunge. That's why they should be targeting the influential nerdy kids who you get your computer advice from. You know, like me. If Apple were to send me a free Mac, and I liked it better than Windows, then I would tell my family and friends that they all need to get one. But since that's not happening, we're sticking with Windows.
Those commercials are just so wrong that it makes me angry. They're bringing up past problems like the often rebooting, remember that? Way back in Windows ME and before. I really don't think rebooting is as much of a problem any more that it should even be considered. The virus commercial is dumb too. The number of viruses is based mostly on the popularity of the system. So once all these ads convince everyone to switch to Macs, the virus writers will write more Mac viruses. In fact, I hope more people write viruses for Macs now just to stop that arrogant attitude. It's just like the logic with terrorism, terrorists and virus writers aren't going to pick small targets. They want to cause the most fear and damage. There may actually be Mac viruses out there, but no one knows about them because they don't get news play. They don't get news play because they affect probably 5% of the population. I personally don't even think viruses are such a major issue any more now that spyware is the big threat these days.
Apple is playing to its base. The people who would relate to those ads are the people who already have Macs. I don't even think all Mac users would relate to that either. I guess maybe Apple could attract some people who are having their mid life crisis and want to be more creative and hip, instead of businessy and productive.
These commercials would be a lot more relevant in 2000, and that must be where the marketing people got their research from. That's back when we Windows users actually were complaining about viruses and rebooting and how our cameras wouldn't talk to our PCs.
I'm not even a Mac hater. I would write the same thing about any other stupid commercials that I have to repeatedly watch. I'm entirely willing to try out a Mac (but not pay any money before trying it). I think it's cool that OSX is based on Unix and has some nerd features like scripts. But is Apple really going to make people want to switch after they to treat Windows users like boring business people who make spreadsheets, while Apple users are portrayed as being the fun, cool kids with photos and movies? It's just like Apple's commercials promoting Intel chips in Macs when they basically said that Intel chips were previously used for boring tasks.
I suppose Apple is targeting those people who are still running Windows 98 and haven't updated their antivirus program since 2002 and open up every single email that looks like it came from eBay or Paypal. Those people are probably the ones still plagued by the viruses and reboots and their digital cameras not working.
This is a little unrelated, but I'm pretty sure that by now Windows has caught up to Macs in terms of graphics and video applications. If not, I'm sure there will be some point in the future where they will be equal. How different are Photoshop and Premiere on each platform?
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