i'm a pc

first and foremost I should make clear that, in many ways, I'm a huge Apple fan:  I love the elegant industrial design of the Mac, the cohesive user experience and the attention to detail in the bundled apps that come with every Mac. 

but like many MS employees I've been running Vista for months now and I must say that I absolutely love it:  Like Office 2007, once you get used to the new interface it is great, and it's now a tad painful to return to Windows XP or Windows 2003.  I think Vista is a huge advance for Windows PCs in many respects... yes, it is very similar to OSX in some ways, more advanced in others, but for many users it is a significant upgrade and better experience.

So (like Bill) I was really chapped to see these Apple "I'm a PC" ads portraying the 90% or so of us who use PCs as 'dullards', and the sophisto-Mac user as a relaxed, with-it, hipster.  The ads are very funny, no doubt, but:

• It's really bad form for Apple to piss on Microsoft's launch with infantile attack ads... is that really the best they can do?
• They're all about Vista -- but not about Mac features i.e. Apple is trying to define themselves by what they are *not* rather than talking about what they *are*.  Could it be that some of OS X's core benefits are now also available to Windows users?

But my real problem with it is that the ads are fundamentally dishonest.  The truth of the matter is that more music, video / {creative stuff} is made using PCs than all the stuff created on Macs put together.  That's because the big, messy PC ecosystem provides many inexpensive rigs (often costing hundreds, not thousands, of dollars) that lets your average kid-in-a-bedroom get started with creating whatever it is they want to create.  If Microsoft controlled the hardware and software like Apple does, we'd also control the end-user experience more tightly (and prevent things like driver dialogs from popping up in your face) but that is the price of providing a platform for other companies to develop their products.  The Mac will never be a platform in the way that the PC is (and I'd include linux in that definition of PC, not just Windows).

I can't say it better than Charlie Booker did in The Guardian, so I'll just quote him:

Ultimately the campaign's biggest flaw is that it perpetuates the notion that consumers somehow "define themselves" with the technology they choose. If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe - but not a personality. Of course, that hasn't stopped me slagging off Mac owners, with a series of sweeping generalisations, for the past 900 words, but that is what the ads do to PCs. Besides, that's what we PC owners are like - unreliable, idiosyncratic and gleefully unfair. And if you'll excuse me now, I feel an unexpected crash coming.

Comments

[alpabarot]

Hi Misha,

Came across your blog while browsing around…cool stuff u have going on here. Also I thought I’d tell u about something I came across, thought u might find it useful, bcoz ur in Technology…it’s this site called Myndnet…u should check it out..the link is here http://www.myndnet.com/login.jsp?referral=alpa83&channel=YN

It’s this cool place where u get paid for responding to queries…very cool stuff!! http://www.myndnet.com/login.jsp?referral=alpa83&channel=YN

Sign up n lemme know what u think…my mail id is [email protected]

Cheers
Alpa

[Richard Banks]

Hear hear. It also pisses me off how simplistic some of the ads messages are. One of the UK ones, for example, implies that PCs don't just work out of the box. That you have to download drivers first and that Macs come with iLife that just lets you get on. I have two Macs in my home, both of which require regular downloads of software to update drivers and iLife. Vista comes with good photo, music and video software that competes well with iLife. The only thing it doesn't have is a website application (but we also don't offer a web hosting deal that you have to pay for out of the box like .Mac). So there's a lot of subtleties and untruths there.

Another one that bothers me is the ad that says Macs are better because they have less viruses. We all know that's only because PCs have a larger market share and make a more appealing target for hackers. Microsoft is pretty responsive to vulnerabilites though. More so then Apply. Symantec just released a report saying Windows was more secure then the Mac.

Their ads remind me a little of the early AOL ads that just focussed on repeating how easy they were to use. Over and over again.