What's with these Mac and PC ads from Apple?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Verto
I don't like them. They are at least trying to get good points across, like Office for Mac, and at least are trying to make sure everyone knows the connection between iPod and Apple/Mac, but...bleh.

I don't like them much either.

The last ones I liked were the Jeff Goldblum ones. I guess Apple's ads are better than other computer companies ads, but that's like being the tallest guy trapped in a septic tank.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Yeah, who the **** gets viruses?

Orgy attendees?

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by Agathon
What's wrong with that? Do you have a problem with plain English?

Just because I might occasionally RTFM doesn't mean everyone else will. Just because you might read Sartre or Socrates or Søren doesn't mean everyone else will.

No means no. Or are you the date rape type?

Actually, where I went to Uni, it was all the philosophers and humanities who did that sort of thing. The Science/Math/Econ geeks were too weird and ****ed up to ever try and approach the opposite gender.

I wasn't a philosopher.

In other words, does it not do what most users couldn't care less about, and does it do something that allows Apple to offer a music store along with it?

So, just because Windows doesn't have bundled a full fledged video-editing program, which most users couldn't care less about... or that most cars don't have side-impact airbags, which most users don't really think about...

...does that make them a good idea? Is it good for the consumer? Is it good for choice?

Heck, the other mp3 players don't format themselves on plugging into a blank WinAmp or WMP library. The other mp3 players plug in easily and don't usually come back with a read/write error (unless they're completely børked...).

It's probably less hassle to format it for different computers. I guess I could buy a Powermac and plug my Windows formatted drive into it and see how far I get.

It is and it isn't. Everybody has access to FAT32, which they could have used, which flash drives generally use; if not that, Apple, with its insistence on being so different and so unique, could have simply had it so that the onboard file system is different from both chosen formats for the OSes, and gone with an interface layer.

Flash drives--and most non-iPod players--work across both Mac and Windows universes. They're plug-and-play.

The iPod cannot. It's not as plug-and-play as they'd like to claim.

People are used to flash drives and removable hard disks that work across universes now. It's intuitive that when you have something marked plug-and-play, it just works.

The iPod does not. It's not as intuitive as they'd like to claim.

Also, if you're going for the less hassle argument: it's less hassle for philosophers (and engineers) to not bathe in the morning. Doesn't make it a good idea.

===

You really must do better. Usually your resistance is much stiffer than this. But please continue, for my amusement if nothing else...

All I'm saying is while the ads are amusing, all they do are perpetuate myths, many of which are easily disproven and/or are flat-out deceptive.

If you can't see why/how many of them are myths, then by all means, continue to drink the Kool-Aid. I won't stop you.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Actually, where I went to Uni, it was all the philosophers and humanities who did that sort of thing. The Science/Math/Econ geeks were too weird and ****ed up to ever try and approach the opposite gender.

I wasn't a philosopher.

I must applaud this sidelong attack. Absolute genius.

[-Jrabbit]

This thread devolved into the usual boring Mac-PC rants by the fifth post. And Asher is nowhere to be seen. In this case, it was Q3 who couldn't resist going off topic.

I'm impressed.

[Q Classic]

I'm not off-topic. I simply responded to a needle by Agathon, while maintaining my rather valid points about the ads doing nothing but perpetuating many myths and/or being rather deceptive.

That said, I don't mind the ads at all. They're nothing superfun, not like the Ellen Feiss ones, or the Jeff Goldblum ones, but... Hodgeman and Long, I like that duo.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
I'm not off-topic. I simply responded to a needle by Agathon, while maintaining my rather valid points about the ads doing nothing but perpetuating many myths and/or being rather deceptive.

Your point was silly.

If you plug your iPod into another computer, a warning dialog pops up asking you if you want to replace all of the songs on it with the ones from the new computer.

IIRC the default selection is "No".

If you click "no" it just starts charging and nothing happens.

WTF is complicated about that? Is it too much to expect users to be able to read simple English sentences?


Your argument is about as good as Asher's one about how people would naturally confuse the 48x48 bright green Excel icon with the 8x8 dull grey close window icon.

I make a point of telling computer science people I meet about that one... it always gets a laugh.

[Gatekeeper]

PCs suck! Apples suck!

Typewriters rock! Let's all go back to typewriters!

[Q Classic]

Typewriters suck.

At least, generic ones like those bloody Olivettis.

IBM SELECTRICS OR DEATH!

===

If you plug your iPod into another computer, a warning dialog pops up asking you if you want to replace all of the songs on it with the ones from the new computer.

Yes, the warning pops up. And yet, I keep hearing from all sorts of people that they've accidentally erased their entire collection.

Anecdotal evidence, yes. But often enough that it raises an eyebrow.

Just one eyebrow.

Incidentally, I don't have to worry at all, because I have a Creative player.

WTF is complicated about that? Is it too much to expect users to be able to read simple English sentences?

If users could read simple English sentences, I guarantee that upwards of 85% of all Windows problems would not occur.

Your argument is about as good as Asher's one about how people would naturally confuse the 48x48 bright green Excel icon with the 8x8 dull grey close window icon.

Icons are a whole 'nother ballgame. I can't see why anybody would confuse the two--on the other hand, you cannot expect end users to RTFM or actually pay attention to dialogue boxes. If they did, computers wouldn't be thought of as demons and pain in the necks or some such by the vast majority.

[-Jrabbit]

I was referring to Post #5, prior to Agathon's entry into the fray. Let's rview the post in question...

Originally posted by Q Cubed
It's called spin.

OK, on topic.

Not to mention that "Plug and Play" with non-first party hardware manufacturers appeared with Microsoft and Windows before it ever did on Apple...

Off topic. Marginally, kinda-sorta near-topic.

Oh, and the fact that a friend tried to plug his Windows-formatted iPod and couldn't read it on his girlfriend's Apple machine...

Not remotely on topic.

[Q Classic]

See this, -JRabbit?

.

That's the world's smallest mambo band giving a damn about the state of PC-Mac discussion on these boards.

[-Jrabbit]

...and yet you persist...

[Q Classic]

...for ****s and giggles...

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
And you add yourself to the rampant speculators club.

Nobody really knows why there are no OS X viruses.

Yes, we do. I've told you this many times, logically it makes sense, and all of the security experts in the field say it as well. MacOS isn't targeted due to insignificant marketshare.

It's the same reason terrorists don't intentionally crash hijacked airplanes into a remote cottage in Nebraska.

[Asher]

On a side note, the BF was using my iPod the other day and was looking where the random song option was. Apple, rather brilliantly, has "Shuffle songs" on the main menu -- not under "Music" where most people go to look for it. It's the little things that make using Apple products painful, but the Apple faithful are so used to it that they don't get it.

Then there's the really, really annoying bug that's been on the iPod since I got it through three firmware updates still, where about half the time when you hold down the Stop button to turn the thing off, it doesn't do anything. I need to navigate to a different menu, pause the song, etc. to get it to turn off.