Ben to Apple: Enough with the "Mac vs. PC" ads!

Tue Apr 21, 2009 12:46PM EDT

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Yes, I'm a Machead. I own a MacBook Pro, an old PowerBook G4, an Apple Airport Extreme Wi-Fi base station, an Apple TV, and an iPhone—and my wife has an iPhone, too. But if I see one more of those smug, squirm-inducing "Mac vs. PC" ads on TV, I'm gonna toss my HDTV out the window.

The final straw was last night, after watching one of the latest ads, entitled "Stacks." (Apple has all the ads—a few dozen, from the looks of it, dating back to 2006—enshrined right here, for obsessive Mac fanboys to endlessly fawn over.)

As usual, the ever-cool Justin Long ("I'm a Mac!") asks the perpetually stiff and uptight PC stand-in John Hodgeman why he's (in this case) "having a very difficult time finding pictures of my friends!"

"Wait," Long asks quizzically, "so you're just going to look through your thousands of photos until you find the right one?"

Hodgeman, as is his habit, looks at Long like he's an idiot. "Yes, one by one, what other way is there?"

At which point Long sympathetically telling Hodgeman—sorry, I meant "PC"—about a "cool new feature" in iPhoto: "Faces," which let you just "tag a face once, and iphoto automatically find other pictures of that person for you!"

Hodgeman protests that it "sounds expensive," but Long cheerfully replies that iPhoto "comes free on every new Mac." ("New" is the key word here; I paid $79 for my copy of the iLife '09 suite, which includes the new iPhoto.)

PC then purses his lips, admits that "I guess I could refine my search method," hands a stack of snapshots over to Mac and barks, "You do it."

Funny right? Well, no actually—instead, at the end of the ad, I found myself shouting "Arghh! Faces does not find all your friends automatically!!!"

How do I know this? Only after hours of pointing and click on iPhoto, telling "Faces" that no, that portrait up on the wall of that restaurant is not my Uncle Jim, and that perfectly focused and lit "unknown face" right there? That's my wife, for Pete's sake, the exact same wife I've tagged like, dozens of times in iPhoto by now!

Hey, I recognize that face-recognition technology is never perfect, but please—don't sit there (or stand there in my TV, for that matter) and tell me that a Mac will sort though "thousands" of photos and "automatically" tag all your friends and family, after you've tagged someone just "once." At least, it didn't for me.

This new "Mac vs. PC" ad reminds me of an earlier generation of Apple commercials, which was only slightly less annoying: The testimonials from "real" users about how easy their Macs were to use.

One of them in particular comes to mind: A charming young woman who was delighted that she could plug her printer into her new Mac, and it "just worked"—unlike PCs, which require these annoying things called printer drivers.

That ad stuck in my craw a bit, because  … well, I'd just unwrapped a new HP photo printer for Christmas, and when I tried plugging it into my iBook G3, guess what? It didn't "just work." I had to visit HP's Web site, search for my model number, and ... yes, download a driver.

Don't get me wrong: I love my Mac. I love my iPhone. I'm not giving them up. But I really, really hate these ads (and I find it amusing that so many diehard Mac apologists are totally up in arms over a few low-key "Lauren" ads after Apple's three-year parade of "Mac vs. PC" spots). They're smug, insufferable, embarrassing—and sometimes, flat-out wrong.

C'mon, Apple—enough is enough. You're better than this.

Comments on Ben to Apple: Enough with the "Mac vs. PC" ads!

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  • 26 Posted by aje2998 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:48PM EDT Report Abuse

    Free Games at ROBLOX . Check out what I have been building lately !

  • 27 Posted by mblaha2003 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:12PM EDT Report Abuse

    @throwthelongball I thought everything on MACs "Just Work" with no figuring out needed?

  • 28 Posted by jeff_cj5 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:32PM EDT Report Abuse

    Ben, thank you very much, I always thought you bashed PC's and then you write this, again thank you! Oh and by the way, I have a PC and have not had to download any drivers other than updates.

  • 29 Posted by sarac2 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:04PM EDT Report Abuse

    Well, I'm a PC. I gave my iPhone away because I hated it, but I do own an iPod Touch and a Shuffle. But I can't wait for the next Mac ad and will rewind to watch them over. I think they're some of the best ads

  • 30 Posted by firstwardo on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:00PM EDT Report Abuse

    i dont care... i think they are somewhat entertaining

  • 31 Posted by boxerdogorama@rocketmail.com on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:12PM EDT Report Abuse

    Try this one I have a PC my boyfriend has a MAC....he is alwalys telling me how much Mac rules...but I still have to come look and see why stuff won't work...like his printer which the box no where says that it is Mac compatible. He wanted to look at some pics I had taken with my Nikon and he said we'll just plug it in to the Mac...no sir didn't work his MAC would not open my camera.... Maybe I'm set in my ways--if you like one over the other fine..but don't boast about your machine being better than another....I have never said that my PC rocks..while it does...to ME. I love my PC that's all there is.

  • 33 Posted by mindkandy2001 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:21PM EDT Report Abuse

    It's continually fascinating how touchy Windows users get when Microsoft still owns over 90% of the PC market. Those Apple ads manage to put the vast majority on the defensive. That's a terrific result for Apple's marketers. As for Mr. Patterson's column: the next time you write a poor sentence, I hope you don't declare, "Enough is enough," and give up on your profession.

  • 34 Posted by somebodys_here on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:32PM EDT Report Abuse

    I will quote a friend of mine: "I love Apple products... BUT, I F***king hate Apple fanboys!" Simple, effective. I agree- Apple makes good hardware (I've had 3 different generation iPods- one had a hard drive failure, but that's Toshiba's fault), but they keep perpetuating the belief that moving to a Mac will solve all of your computing problems... Sorry, if you're a noob on a PC, you'll be a noob on a Mac, too.

  • 35 Posted by wscheipe on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:51PM EDT Report Abuse

    Apple has run a very effective marketing effort, trading on the fact that, in the early years, no one would use or buy their junk and they had to GIVE away millions and millions of computers, to an audience that can't say no - schools. And that was just to get people using their inferior stuff. Then, with marketing that's EXACTLY like Abercrombie (or pick any other teen-mall store), they push to, primarily, disaffected, artsy, boarder-types who want to be exactly the opposite of their pc-using daddys. But they have to go to their pc-using daddys to pay for this junk. When Jobs goes to sleep, this company does to.

  • 36 Posted by shadowlink77 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:15PM EDT Report Abuse

    Nyahaha. Oh the people out there. The ads and the fanpeople. Oh it's wonderful. I use Windows and will continue to use windows until the next innovation in IT tech has come out. Despite what people say my copy of Vista has had 2 problems over the course of 2 1/2 years. One of which was partially my hard drives fault. Mac's are far too expensive for what you get. For $1,500 you could a top of the line PC with a nice screen and maybe a few extra fun things to go with it. I use macs for Final Cut Pro but other then that I like my PC too much to care about "Face Matching". :D Jyaa ne...

  • 37 Posted by embry1123 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:54PM EDT Report Abuse

    I personally use both, PC and MAC. I prefer my Mac.

  • 38 Posted by mbbcgrl on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:12PM EDT Report Abuse

    I quite like those 'smug' ads...guess it's because I agree with Mac! Why are all you PC users so angry all the time? Oh, I remember. Perhaps because of all the crashes, freezes, and viruses your PC's experience?

  • 39 Posted by benmater on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:05PM EDT Report Abuse

    Whatever. Cause you have to install a driver for a, what, 6 year old computer, you have to whine about it? Lame.

  • 40 Posted by kikel98 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:50PM EDT Report Abuse

    I totally agree with the statement. I have a Mac Book Pro, a Mac Mini, a Time Machine an Apple TV and a HP at my home, and I work with Windows at my office. I had enough from this commercials that insult other names or systems. For me both work OK. As a matter of fact I love to work with both in paralel. It is interesting to see what you can achieve working both systems together. In one I do all my pics and videos. In the other I love the Excel, Visual Basic programming. Both have interesting resources and applications. I will love to see them work more closely. And stop insulting the customers, that we purchase one or the other or both.

  • 42 Posted by britishmoose@sbcglobal.net on Sat May 9, 2009 3:01PM EDT Report Abuse

    well macs may be 'cute' and 'fun' and 'easy to use', but as long as you cant run any real applications on them, theyre just a hunk of overpriced silicon in my opinion, mac users want to justify spending about 1.5x the money on a computer with the same specs

  • 43 Posted by britishmoose@sbcglobal.net on Sat May 9, 2009 3:05PM EDT Report Abuse

    and ipods too, instead of getting a 16gb ipod touch w/ a 3.3 inch 320x240 screen, get a 60gb archos 5 w/ 4.8 inch 800x480 screen, FOR THE SAME PRICE (has a better web browser too, built in flash)

  • 44 Posted by liam_ke on Mon May 18, 2009 1:38AM EDT Report Abuse

    I don't know why, but his I'am a PC man reminds me Bill Gates, with some extra pounds... And yes, they are funny... and yes, some times apple users are a little arrogant, and yes, windows sometimes has problems.

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