Apple Demands Microsoft Pull Laptop Hunter Ads

[Damballah]

I'm no advertising or legal guru, but since the entire Mac lineup of laptops got revamped a few weeks ago, and some made cheaper, could the Laptop Hunter ads be construed as false advertising? I mean that in a legal sense. Some of them do quote a price on the Macs.

If in fact the call did go down, it was probably more like "stop running those false ads or we will sue you over it."

Here's how Im thinking of it. Imagine if McDonalds ran a commercial telling people that a Whopper cost 20 bucks. I got a funny feeling that would be a problem.

 

[DougB541]

And those UAC prompts are sometimes exactly what makes it so vulnerable. New users get irritated by the UAC then either ignores the message and click "agree" or "yes" or they just disable the UAC completely



Is this where I should bring in the statistics?

Windows 7 UAC is MUCH less intrusive than Vista. You have a bar that you can set to different levels. When I had Vista, I turned it off....with Windows 7, I have it on the lowest level currently.

But to what you said...that's more consumer ignorance. I have many friends that should really be leaving the UAC on.

 

[DougB541]

I'm no advertising or legal guru, but since the entire Mac lineup of laptops got revamped a few weeks ago, and some made cheaper, could the Laptop Hunter ads be construed as false advertising? I mean that in a legal sense. Some of them do quote a price on the Macs.

If in fact the call did go down, it was probably more like "stop running those false ads or we will sue you over it."

Here's how Im thinking of it. Imagine if McDonalds ran a commercial telling people that a Whopper cost 20 bucks. I got a funny feeling that would be a problem.

You should probably watch all of the ads before you have an opinoin on the topic...no offense.

Apple ads are far more "false advertising" than the Laptop Hunter ads are.

 

[ddTaylor]

Dear Apple,
Good luck with that.
Did MS ask for the I'm a Mac ads to be pulled?

I love you comment and your signature is even better - although I have been on the receiving end of both (in you sig line) - and I MUCH prefer the later!

Anyway - I have a hard time believing that ANYONE at Apple would actually CALL MS and ask that the ad my pulled on price only because Apple lowered the cost. They COULD (but still misguided) have asked MS to pull the ads because they are incorrect and simply silly as you cannot compare the cost of notebooks without like components, OS and support. They would still be two type of stupid if they actually called MS for ANY REASON regarding the laptop hunters ads...

D

 

[Wikinerd]

*-snip-*

I believe he's talking about Standards Compliance. IE is the main thing that prevents CSS to be used properly. Developers, and indirectly consumers, are suffering because they have to make/receive two versions of the same website just to make sure it looks right on IE.

Oh, by the way, congrats, to IE for finally passing Acid2 earlier this year (March 19th, 2009). Too bad you're 3 and a half years behind Safari... Oh wait, there's a new Acid test—looks like you'll have to catch up, Webkit browsers (incl. Safari, Iris, Chromium) are already fully compliant, Presto following closely behind...

Windows 7 UAC is MUCH less intrusive than Vista. You have a bar that you can set to different levels. When I had Vista, I turned it off....with Windows 7, I have it on the lowest level currently.

Well his point was that Vista (and subsequently 7) is more secure for the "normal" and "new" users *because* of the UAC. I need to show that this is not always the case.

But to what you said...that's more consumer ignorance. I have many friends that should really be leaving the UAC on.

Agreed. Even though UAC might be a good concept (or based on one), Microsoft just applied it badly; now not many people likes it, and just turn it off completely.

 

[krye]

Apple wants Microsoft to stop putting out the commercials for the same reasons you and I want to stop seeing them. It's because they pull the wool over users' eyes by selling them on cheap hardware and totally hides the fact that it comes with the world's worst OS in the history of modern computing. Vista is so bad, that Microsoft stopped advertising it, they instead advertise the computer. Nice move, you think you got a good deal on a cheap computer and you get it out of the box and find out how crippled you are because your OS is a joke.

I don't want any PC user out there to think that they somehow, magically, got a good deal on a PC. Or that the guy at Best Buy "really hooked me up." No, you got exactly what you paid for.

 

[salientstimulus]

If this is actually true, I'd be a little bit disappointed with Apple -- if you can dish it out (the mac vs PC ads), you should be able to take it. Both campaigns make reasonable points. MS knows that their principle competitive strong point is price, and it'd be foolish not to market based on that. It's like if the only two car companies were Hyundai and BMW -- the marketing is basically price vs quality.

I really don't understand why this whole mac vs windows thing gets so emotional. I think you get what you pay for with an Apple machine in terms of stability, hardware, etc, but some people want a cheaper option, and there's nothing wrong with that. I went mac, can't imagine ever going back, but I'm not going to begrudge someone for buying a PC.

 

[pianojoe]

If apple legal really did this they are stupid. What do they think MS would say?

I don't believe this story. Apple are a little bit on the sparkish side when it comes to Apple vs. MS, so admitting that MS's ads hurt would be out of character.

 

[Damballah]

You should probably watch all of the ads before you have an opinoin on the topic...no offense.

Apple ads are far more "false advertising" than the Laptop Hunter ads are.

I've seen them all multiple times. Some do quote price and specs.

I don't have any problem with ads myself, I thought they were pretty ineffective. If their entire argument boils down to "cheap" then they have a problem.

Mostly I was just wondering from a legal standpoint.

 

[coleridge78]

From http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941, to which someone here linked:

It’s really simple. Safari on the Mac is easier to exploit. The things that Windows do to make it harder (for an exploit to work), Macs don’t do. Hacking into Macs is so much easier. You don’t have to jump through hoops and deal with all the anti-exploit mitigations you’d find in Windows.

For the amount of time he spent to do what he did on IE and Firefox, he could have found and exploited five or 10 Safari bugs.

So who is basing what on a lie, exactly?
Mac OS X is by far the least secure of all the mainstream OS:s, and the only reason there's so little malware for it is that no-one gives a rat's a$$ about it due to it's miniscule market penetration. Apple hasn't added any of the anti-exploit mechanisms that MS utilizes in their OS, so calling Mac OS X secure just because people are ignoring it, *IS* basing things on a lie!

You must have not followed that story very closely. Charlie Miller was revealed in subsequent interviews to be a bit of a FUDster. See for example: http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/appleaday/blog/2009/03/more_from_pwn2own_winner_charl.html where he claims that Windows is impervious and OS X is easy to exploit because Windows has address randomization and non-executable heap bit... which, in fact, OS X had at the time of his exploit.

Those things had nothing to do with the exploit, which in fact originated in a JavaScript regex library and was remotely exploitable via inducing a user to click on a link in any WebKit browser on OS X, Linux, or Windows.

Macs are by no means immune, but these "anti-exploit" mechanisms that you're talking about are in fact there. And no reputable security researcher in history has called OS X the "least secure" OS. Some say it's no better than others, some say it's middle of the pack ranking somewhat above XP, about the same as Vista, and below some special-purpose OSs.

In short: you're easily duped. Wise up and do your own reading.

 

[Eidorian]

And those UAC prompts are sometimes exactly what makes it so vulnerable. New users get irritated by the UAC then either ignores the message and click "agree" or "yes" or they just disable the UAC completely

Most users tend to ignore challenge prompts in general.

You'll commonly get a support request and they've be in an endless loop with a dialog box. They never read what the information in the box in the first place which had relevant, plain text information on what the problem was.

Doctors, professors, students, receptionists...

 

[jebbe]

See, I cant believe not one person so far has mentioned the Mac uni-body, the 8 hour battery, the standard LED back lit screens, the standard DDR3 ram, Glass track pad with multi-touch...etc. These are just a FEW of the things you can't get with the 700.00 plastic walmart PC. The Mac price is justified, and the old adage is still true, "you get what you pay for". Please STOP regurgitating that "Macs are more", and "The hardware is the same expect for the OS". While the OS is enough of a reason to "pay more", it's not the only thing that makes a Mac more than worth the price! As someone said earlier, pound for pound there is NO price difference. Anyone with logic and a calculator can figure this out. It is the the vitriol of the MS fan boys (who don't even know enough about Apple or a Mac to begin with) that and end up stating, "Macs are overpriced", "Apple Tax", etc. The 90's talking points are getting old as well.

You say standard, like there's no other PC out there with these specs. As someone else said, any higher end PC Laptop can have similar specs and similar price tags.

So once again, the only difference is the OS.

 

[tmoore049]

im not the biggest fan of "get a mac" ads; however, at least with respect to laws here in alberta (and i imagine they are similar throughout other areas) it is an offense to knowingly mislead consumers about any product. im also curious about this article, as this bafoon from MS is holding himself out as actually taking the call from apple legal. obviously i dont know the particulars, but i genuinely doubt that this is a 'first hand account' of the conversation, in which case anything said is (wait for it) hearsay! ha.
MS should be the last corporation that finds reactionary business techniques comical...

 

[nwassault]

Apple hasn't added any of the anti-exploit mechanisms that MS utilizes in their OS, so calling Mac OS X secure just because people are ignoring it, *IS* basing things on a lie!

Complete crock of bull. Leopard has adopted several anti-exploit mechanisms, including memory randomization, and the belief is that Snow Leopard will likely introduce even more.

I wonder if it is exactly wise to debate this though. It's a known fact in the gaming community that Microsoft uses some pretty low handed techniques in advertising, such as posting viral advertising on video game sites. This was particularly noticeable immediately after the NATAL announcement. It's not too much of a stretch to think that Microsoft might be paying viral advertisers to start flame wars on Apple fan sites.

 

[kidtronix]

Lawyers don't call - they send letters. Either this guy is just lying or was pranked by an Apple fanboy.

Either way, if an MS ad says a Mac is $2000 when it costs $1800 - they're lying and that is not legal. Otherwise, competitors could make up anything about each other.

Imagine an Apple ad saying: "Buy a Mac, because 9 out of 10 windows PCs catch on fire and burn your house down."

This is very true. I work with litigations like this and they definitely have a case. You can't say that a competitors product is this and this, if those things are not correct. Now MS got a huge huge warchest for their lawyers so in the event going through with it, Apple would have most to lose when it comes to legal fees.

 

[kernkraft]

Shame on you, Apple!

That picture must be the worst advertisement for Apple EVER! I'm pretty sure that Microsoft would pay big bucks for using that photo in a new campaign. It says pretty much everything about the term 'fanboy'.

By the way, I think Apple is a big nasty bully.

Instead of litigation, they should have tried proper product development and testing. All my MacBooks have some form of defect. Air-CPU whine, constant fan and high pitch noise. unibody MacBook - misaligned keyboard, keys falling out, constant noise (I don't even know where it's coming from). Various annoyances with HDD clicking.

Dear Microsoft! Even without giving me a laptop or money, I am more than delighted to contribute towards any anti-Apple sentiment. I'm not a PC and not a Mac. I'm a human being, who happens to use macs, but feels that is not being treated properly by Apple.

 

[chaosconan]

Make Comparision Ads Illegal

I personally believe ads should be heavily regulated. They need to take out all references to their competitors.

In short the only thing ads should be allowed to do is present their products or services. This forces the end user to compare, contrast and do some research on their own or go to other sources of information like tech magazines to get an opinion. Companies that's selling the products should not be providing any metric comparisons, cost comparisons or opinions. That should be left to the consumers or others sources of information.

1. Those Apple ads "get a mac" would be illegal under this new regulation
2. Those Microsoft ads would be illegal as well.

If they want to show prices in ads, they can, but only on their products and not their competitors.

The whole idea around this regulation is to allow for more competition, fairness, and prevent one company destroying smaller ones because of their buying power to dominate the media and let the consumers to think more and have them do more research on the products or services they want. This would also prevent the company from twisting the truth.

This also applies to politics. Republicans should present their ideas and the democrats should present their ideas and let the public compare, contrast and make the decision. I hate watching those ads from both sides where they spoon feed you each others programs "we do this but they do not" and how they twist the truth around.

Its time for ad regulation!

 

[BJB Productions]

Apple-YOU JUST DID WHAT MS WAS WAITING FOR!!!

 

[karpich1]

Only ever had a few problems w/ the commericals

I don't mind the commercials. They're a relatively late fire-back from the "I'm a Mac" commercials.

That was when the woman wanted a laptop to do professional video editing and made a face when the Apple ONLY came with 2GB of Ram for the price. Firstly 2GB is quite a bit of RAM. Second, that disgusted look on her face! That was just... very annoying.

Beyond that, didn't have a problem with them. Sure, the actors would say "To me Macs are more about looking nice than actual function" but that's a an opinion so it's all good.

The one thing I did agree with the commercials on, was when the mother and kid find a PC with BluRay... something I don't see in Apples yet.

 

[Anuba]

Accuracy isn't the point of advertising.

That's right, but that didn't stop thousands of Apple fans attacking the MS ads based on the fact that they weren't bona fide documentaries.

The main problem they had with them was that they were "staged" (duh!). Technically, Microsoft's ad agency CP+B actually did recruit "real" people who were looking to buy a laptop (they found them by posing as a no-name market research firm on Craigslist). One of them was an actress -- who didn't know she had landed an acting gig until way into the process -- the others were not. But because the ads weren't 100% truthful documentaries, Apple fans pronounced Microsoft "PWNED".

I guess I missed the part where they examined the utter realism and authenticity of Apple's ads, but I'm sure they interrogated Ellen Feiss thoroughly on her outrageous claims of a PC that went "beep beep beep beep" and "devoured half her paper".

 

[mygoldens]

The TRUTH hurts!

The TRUTH hurts, huh Apple!!

You need to rethink your strategy!!!

HIGHER prices are not always the way to go, just look at what happened to M$!!

Now they are paying the price for going after the $!!!

Apple, you will too!!!

 

[kinto]

Umm...

So why exactly is microsloth celebrating a call from apple to begin with?

*Ballmer shrieks with the glee of a teenage girl*

"He called me! He called me!"

err, ok.

 

[doohsun]

Not a smart move on Apple's part

Let's face it, anybody that uses a computer on a daily bases would know the difference. Someone in specialize field such as video editing, sound editing, design etc... would know the difference. At the end of the day it's the Apple OS that dominates over windows for many reasons better security, no virus, no trojans etc....so why are they so worried about the MS ad they're a joke to begin with. First off, MS is only an operating system they don't make any machines, secondly companies like HP, Dell, Toshiba, acer etc.. are a joke no matter what they do with their machine they still can't compete with apple when it comes to design I'm sorry but if I'm paying that much money for a computer it better at least look nice not just cheap plastic put together. At the end of the day everyone uses Intel, Ati and Nvida it's not like anyone makes their own hardware. People need to realize when you're dealing with Windows it's a constant battle everyday not knowing what your computer is infected with because your computer all of a sudden just slowed down, crashed, etc... I'm not being bias by any means i use both Mac and Pc the only true benefit of PC to be quite honest more games supported otherwise it's just totally useless. So until the rest of the software manufactures wake up and release that MS is no longer the dominate operating system Apple will never surpass MS unfortunately. If apple was smart they would make another laptop line up to shut their mouth with cheaper price make it so simple that it's design to handle all the basic needs minus the ability to do video editing and sound editing cause most people that use a computer only needs it for internet and word processing. if they made one that is price point at 699-799.99 i can guarantee MS will be hurting big time!

P.S When i saw MS ads where they have kids saying how easy it is to use windows I wonder how many times they practice trying to figure out how to really make it work. It's a joke!


Just my Thought

In regards to problems such as defects with machine people have to realize there's no company that doesn't have that issue defects are caused by mass production there's always going to be a problem from hardware to the casing of the machine. If you think that HP, Dell, Toshiba, acer, lenovo don't have problems of their own with product defect there must be something wrong with you it's really no different from a car. The real difference is how they handle the warranty i think by far i have the best success when dealing with warranty issue with apple. Other manufacture will make you go through so much steps before they even replace anything believe i've been through quite a few of them. I don't know about you when it comes to problems with PC you're dealing with 2 Companies if you think about MS and which ever company you buy the computer from. In most cause they tend to blame each other make the customer calling back and fourth because nobody wants to take any responsibility with the issues with apple it's a bonus they make the machine and it's their OS so really they are responsible for both who are they going to blame MS?

 

[genovelle]

Sorry I don't want to sound rude but you can't use people who click on every flashing box or install every app they can download to bash windows... It's been awhile since I owned a mac but there is the correct & incorrect to run both windows & osx..

The laptop hunters ads were misleading, but the "I'm a mac, I'm a PC" ads were VERY misleading as well. My windows computer hasn't crashed in over 5 years and it's possible to do "fun" things on it etc. And the ads completely ignore the fact that "a pc" could be running linux as well.

As a mac user who was forced to use windows for work. I don't believe that for a minute. If you call Microsoft technical support and tell them that they will laugh out loud if you tell them you never had a crash in 5 years. Try it. They will hire you as a spokesperson and pay you loads of cash.

At my job they replaced my aging PC with a brand new Dell tower. We have Office on it, but maybe used it 10 times, its mainly used to access two websites. One handled our customer leads and the other linked to our manufacturer. Most other sites were blocked so there no one even bothered trying to use it for anything else. After 5 weeks of use it started crashing. If you didn't restart it at least once a week it would slow to a crawl then crash.

I have never heard anyone including Microsoft make that claim. They know Windows is flawed.

 

[coleridge78]

That's right, but that didn't stop thousands of Apple fans attacking the MS ads based on the fact that they weren't bona fide documentaries.

The main problem they had with them was that they were "staged" (duh!). Technically, Microsoft's ad agency CP+B actually did recruit "real" people who were looking to buy a laptop (they found them by posing as a no-name market research firm on Craigslist). One of them was an actress -- who didn't know she had landed an acting gig until way into the process -- the others were not. But because the ads weren't 100% truthful documentaries, Apple fans pronounced Microsoft "PWNED".

I guess I missed the part where they examined the utter realism and authenticity of Apple's ads, but I'm sure they interrogated Ellen Feiss thoroughly on her outrageous claims of a PC that went "beep beep beep beep" and "devoured half her paper".

Not outrageous at all. A little googling will show you that Word had a very well known set of bugs until about 2003 which could cause the following:

1. Spontaneous data corruption with no apparent cause.
2. Data corruption after encountering printer drivers it didn't like.
3. Data corruption correlated to attempts at user action during file opening or saving.
4. Data corruption after opening (not saving) a file in a different point-version of Word.
5. Inserting breaks (line, page, and document) randomly, which sometimes showed up only in print and sometimes on display. In certain cases, this meant that while all the data was still in the file, only (eg) the first 40 lines would display or print.

Word still has more spontaneous data corruption bugs than any other commonly used software package, but it's gotten much better in the last five years. The Ellen Feiss ad didn't come out of nowhere; that was a period of great pressure on MS, mostly from businesses, to make Word and Outlook quit destroying data. It was a major problem and much-talked about.

Edit to add: While 3.5" floppies were trashy and unreliable in general, there were also a number of well-known IO driver bugs in Windows 3.1x and 95 which would cause head drag damage and irrecoverably destroy floppies on initial read, or saves that were encroaching on using the full space on the disk. This would cause precisely the BEEP BEEP BEEP (and probably "whirrrrr grind") and POOF data loss scenario.