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habubauza

macrumors regular
Aug 1, 2008
106
0
I'm thankful for the MS ads, because if it wasn't for them, I doubt we would have seen SD card reader, or return of firewire to the 13" in the latest macbook updates.
 

upinflames900

macrumors 6502a
May 20, 2009
603
0
I want to understand, perhaps my thinking is warped, please help me understand.
higher end?
how so?

Okay...your thinking is not warped this is just my opinion on the matter. So you walk into a store and you are going to buy a computer. If you see the MBP you are going to say wow thats a lot of money. Then if you go to the Windows section you will say hmm...these are cheeper. But why is that? In my opinion, the MBP is a higher end machine than the laptop the person walks out of the store with. Apple doesn't really make a "low end" computer, which right or wrong is in a way being exploited by Microsoft. It isn't so much the price difference between a comparable PC and Mac, it is the price difference between the average PC and the average Mac. Hopefully that makes sense... It is like arguing that cadillac must be a bad brand because the average cadillac costs more than the average honda. But if I compared a lexus with a cadillac there might be some difference but not like what they portray on the commercial.
 

jaw04005

macrumors 601
Aug 19, 2003
4,571
561
AR
Kevin Turner sure does sound like a tool.

I'm surprised he's making such comments as the COO. Comments like that are usually reserved for the snotty public relations or marketing department.

Personally, I find Turner's comments a bit bizarre. Why would Apple's legal department contact the COO? In all likelihood, Turner received a phone call from Microsoft's legal department regarding the manner. His entire story seems a bit odd.

By the way, this is also the same guy who made the comment about Microsoft building their stores next to Apple stores.
 

hd1972

macrumors newbie
Jul 15, 2009
1
0
The specs were wrong!

You guys are missing the point -- the recent commercials were quoting specs/prices/whatever about Macs *before* the latest refresh. They were misrepresenting the current line of Macbooks.

Some friends and I had seen the commercial recently and thought the same thing -- "Microsoft is talking about OLD Apple Macbooks?! Not cool!"
 

Small White Car

macrumors G4
Aug 29, 2006
10,972
1,468
Washington DC
The more I re-read this story, the more I think the headline of the article should end with a "?"

It REALLY sounds embellished. Like, maybe Apple called and said "you said x in the ad, now it's y." And this guy turns that into "Apple said to stop airing the ads!"

Dunno. I look forward to seeing how this turns out.
 

Bravo

macrumors newbie
Nov 24, 2007
7
0
I can't (Edit: DON'T) believe Apple would call MS and ask them to stop airing a commercial.

I also can't believe those commercials actually work. They're so stupid.

I'm a PC guy: Macs are all about aesthetics and less about computing power.

Really? Just about every benchmark I've seen disagrees, even when the Mac is booting Windows.
 

Peace

Cancelled
Apr 1, 2005
19,546
4,557
Space The Only Frontier
I'm surprised he's making such comments as the COO. Comments like that are usually reserved for the snotty public relations or marketing department.

Personally, I find Turner's comments a bit bizarre. Why would Apple's legal department contact the COO? In all likelihood, Turner received a phone call from Microsoft's legal department regarding the manner. His entire story seems a bit odd.

By the way, this is also the same guy who made the comment about Microsoft building their stores next to Apple stores.

I seriously doubt even Apple legal called MS legal much less the COO..

Legal things are done legally.
 

i4k20c

macrumors 6502a
Sep 10, 2005
874
126
I hope this isn't true, because the apple back in the day would've welcomed more competition.

and apple has taken many more keen stabs at MS.
 

mac jones

macrumors 68040
Apr 6, 2006
3,257
2
A sign of the times.

Obviously it's going to work now. But this El-cheapo campaign will go south if the economy goes north.
 

benjohnson

macrumors newbie
Sep 15, 2008
6
0
This is, without question, a way for Microsoft to get more press. It's bait that they want Apple to take. Apple would be smart to just ignore it all together. Because if they can get this all over the media, like they have so far, it puts them in a good light. It shows that Apple is frustrated and that there might be some truth in the Microsoft commercials. Which is the complete opposite of reality. It's way to get traction and make way for their retail stores.

Whether you like Microsoft or not, I don't think you can argue that Microsoft is a pretty smart company when its comes to being tricky and slimy. All that you have to do is look at their past.
 

bruinsrme

macrumors 604
Oct 26, 2008
7,197
3,063
When I was looking at MBP the 15 inch was going to run me about $2300.
So I bought a Dell for $1600 with a bumper to bumper warranty, more ram faster processor, blu-ray, higher resolution than the mac but the same piece of sheet nvidia 8600T video card. The same video cards that have plagued macs with problems as well as PC's.

Macs are a great machine but come with a premium, at least to my bottom line. The commericals provide information that is true but not so true.

Please don't think Apple gets special chips from Intel because they don't. I worked there and saw all the product codes for the chips sets and processors. They all come off the same wafers, same steppers, same etch tools, same diffusion furnances and implanters. Sure some have a skew, shift or different reticle plate for STR and PLY layers but those are usually associated with speed bumps and L2 cache improvements.


Mac have a very clean design and with that they can charge a premium.
 

nozebleed

macrumors 6502
Jul 30, 2008
328
46
sounds like the commercials in fact are not working, so they needed to drum up a little more bs. now they are playing dirty
 

ipoddin

macrumors 65816
Jan 6, 2004
1,138
200
Los Angeles
First of all, will a legal department from big companies call you? Highly unlikely. Most of them will contact you via fax/letter. So I smell publicity stunts. MS, could you just put Ballmer jumping around again? That is more entertaining.

I work for a major media company. A letter would be sent, not a phone call. It's what's called "ceast and desist" and it comes in the form of a letter first, not a phone call.

And what the commercials also fail to tell you is the software you need to buy with the PC to get it to the same level as the software that comes with the Mac.
 

MacManiac76

macrumors 68000
Apr 21, 2007
1,875
715
Arizona
Maybe MS should actually air a commercial comparing products that both offer. It's easy for them to ridicule a product (a computer system) that they don't produce and don't rely on for direct revenue. MS doesn't have a direct product in the commercials for Apple to respond to other than Windows. Funny how MS doesn't have their commercials comparing OS X to Vista. :rolleyes: Maybe they will when Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are both released. Though I don't see them doing this even then.
 

Krizoitz

macrumors 68000
Apr 26, 2003
1,809
2,258
Tokyo, Japan
Generally, a Mac does cost more for similar hardware, relative to a PC.

Um, no, no they don't. Numerous comparisons have been done that demonstrate similarly specced PC and Mac's cost about the same price.

PC's are only cheaper than Mac's when you take the cheapest PC and compare it to the cheapest Mac. Of course feature-wise they are no where near similar.

What IS accurate would be to say that you can find PC's that are cheaper than Mac's, and for some people thats fine, but its an outright lie to claim that Mac's are overpriced, when they compare feature for feature, because they aren't. The laptop hunter ads skirt this truth as closely as they can, and I find them incredibly distasteful. Why isn't Microsoft talking about WINDOWS the product they actually make?
 

JBaker122586

macrumors 65816
Jun 21, 2007
1,378
83
If there was some part where they said "A Mac costs $x" then I'd believe it, but I don't remember hearing that in any of the ads.

They do.

THAT'S exactly what this is about.

There is one ad where they look at MBPs and say, "The cheapest one is $2,000."

Considering that same model is $1,600 now, I can see why Apple would want that changed, because it is inaccurate.

And doesn't this guy get it? By making these ads in the first place, they are admitting that Apple has gotten to them... Seems a bit hypocritical given his reaction.

Also, Microsoft STILL doesn't make computers.
 

apfhex

macrumors 68030
Aug 8, 2006
2,670
5
Northern California
thats the WHOLE point of the commercials, macs are MORE expensive than pc notebooks.
No. There are SOME PC laptops (albeit a large SUM - see what I did there?) that are cheaper than Mac laptops. There are also some that are as much or more. The commercials are saying you can get "checklist of features x/y/z for less than the Mac", which is true. Anyone who knows Apple knows their products aren't about having feature x/y/z.

BUT, if Apple really did ask MS to stop airing the ads, that's just really stupid.
 

str1f3

macrumors 68000
Aug 24, 2008
1,859
0
As much as I despise Microsoft, Apple has not right to dictate MS what it can air on the ad front. Apple aired "Get a Mac" ads, and they were great. No MS is striking back. All Apple can do is watch and innovate on a new advertising method.

I can call the strike back questionable at best since many of those cheap PCs have no exact comparison to the Mac equivalent being compared. So they don't exactly tell the truth.

However, the ads work on less tech savy people. Its marketing. Apple took advantage of it, anyone can.

What Apple should really be doing is start changing their "Get a Mac" campaign ads and focus on something new and catchy; more so than "Laptop Hunters"

how do you know if this is even true? That same executive in that same speech also said the Laptop Hunter ads were completely unscripted. This has been proven to be a complete lie.
 
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