Apple Demands Microsoft Pull Laptop Hunter Ads

[314631]

Pricing has always been Apple's achilles heal. It's about time Microsoft banged a few goals inside the open net. The ads are not even unfair. They don't deny the fact Apple machines are beautiful, cool and fashionable. They just emphasize the point if you're shopping on a budget you're likely to leave the Apple store disappointed and without any kind of computer.

Apple is vulnerable to attack for the first time in awhile. The bad economy weighing on purchasing decisions, and the fact Windows 7 is such a fantastic piece of work. I'm amazed how they have turned the Vista disaster around so quickly. Microsoft has every reason to be confident and to go after Apple in a variety of different ways.

Healthy competition is good for all of us who are not APPL shareholders.

 

[stagi]

I like this ad the best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbJSuduTrPs

 

[NinjaHERO]

Come on, no one can really believe this can they? They called and asked them to stop because they lowered their prices 100 bucks? Really? People believe Apple did that? I think a billion dollar company has more important things to do than call their competitor and ask them to stop making commercials.


Good for Microsoft though. Anything they can do to distract people from the low quality software they make.

 

[bigjohn]

life is just too short to be worrying about stupid crap like this. i recently had a friend call me with the following scenario:

"I'm on my way to Best Buy and I have $750 to spend on a laptop." I told her one last time to get a mac, it's worth it. She said she couldn't afford it, so I said "Figure out what you want, call me with the model # and I'll tell you if it's a good buy." She found a fairly decent Asus with good specs. I told her it was fine for the money.

Next day, I get a call. She went to a malicious site and is now getting bombarded with popups in IE8. Also, she told me that Best Buy is charging her $150 (plus hardware costs) to transfer data from her old laptop to an external drive.

Of course, I said that she could've spent that extra on a Mac & I would've done the transfer for free.

People are gonna buy/do what they want, all you can do is give them the information.

 

[upinflames900]

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?

I agree completely, but I think apple should be looking the other way and not arguing about this one. It can only make Microsoft more credible if Apple argues.

 

[Pilsburyfroboy]

If the MS ads say something that's no longer correct, they should change it.

But I'm not sure what they're talking about here. They don't mention an exact price for any Mac as far as I remember. Is there a version I haven't seen?

I kind of expect that by tomorrow morning this will turn out to be a hoax. 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.

If this is true it is very strange.

They show a close up of the price of a MBP to be $1999 for the base 15in. model, which as we know is no longer true.

It now cost $1699, and I think the laptop being $300 less is enough to call the commercial inaccurate.

I'm guessing Apple legal called MS to ask them to stop showing the incorrect price, *NOT* to ask them to stop showing the laptop hunter ads all together because they were afraid of them or anything. That dickhole MS guy probably thought he'd retell the story with a little embellishment ...

 

[djgamble]

Riiiight. If you seriously think this you need to take a step back 'cause you are seriously approaching Apple fan-boy territory

What's wrong with being a fan-boy? I'm a proud Apple fan-boy!

That said... I don't care about M$' ads. Ironically the whole reason they were made is because the "I'm a Mac" ads have worked so well.

The only reason I can see Apple would have called is if M$ is quoting Apple's prices, and they're since changed. Then that's legit because M$ is giving the wrong prices (even if it's only $100 different... although I believe it's a lot more.)

 

[bruinsrme]

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.

Yes I did see what you did there

I agree with your statements. My son's XPS1730 all pimped out was significantly more than a 17" MBP.

One of the things on the PC side is you can get a 17" notebook for $700 or $4000. Mac line is limited, selection of hardware is limited. PC large selection of brands and hardware line up. I am not going to foll myself and say that the person looking at a $700 notebook is going to know the real difference between Intel integrated graphics card or an NVidia 9600 GTX.
But for that person the $700 17" is right up their alley. It will do video editing, movies and whatever else but most likely not as well as a more expensive machine.

 

[Willis]

What I don't understand is why Microsoft are trying to sell computers for manufactures when they don't even make them. Sure, they get a license fee but surely they get that in advance anyway.

So Microsoft's whole point behind these ads are moot anyway.

 

[iEdd]

Um, hurray for unsubstantiated, perhaps exaggerated claims made by some M$ guy in an attempt to make Apple look hypocritical?

Let's have something more credible please.

 

[morrisman1]

The adverts are misleading, they compare a chinese rolex to a real one. One advert also shows the price of a MBP and refers it to a normal MB.

MS ignored that the mac was often more suitable for the person, I remember one advert wanted a laptop which had good battery life and was compact so they got an hp DV5 i think it was. It offers neither of those two characteristics!

The adverts have manipulated the facts to a huge degree in order to promote windows, in a fair advert i think half those adverts would end up recommending mac.

 

[beez1717]

apple has every right to go and talk to microsoft, and tell them that the prices that they are telling people that their computers is is wrong. I know that apple lowered their prices by 100 dollars, and I think that that shows a A WIN for apple because it shows that they are confident that they can get a better price for their products and get more technology squeezed into them

 

[jmingin]

Not because they working - because they are lies

The one that bugs me the most is that stupid graphic designer. First of all, she has no design style if she really bought that computer. I would love to interview her just not to hire her.

 

[macfan881]

Comments on Engadget are having a field day with it.

engadet is starting to P*SS me off its starting to really be a PC Fanboy zone 90 percent of apple fans make a solid point about apple is low ranked

anywhoo I can see where apple is asking them to stop. I mean if you were offered X amount of money to a PC would you go ahead and grab one yeah i problay would im sure bout 90 percent would probaly to the only people who wouldnt are die hard Apple fans who hate pcs with a passion .another point is you could clearly see severall of the people really wanted to buy a mac but since its a MS commercial you know how its gonna turn out. Heck if i was them i would go ahead and return the pc the next day and get a mac

 

[pdjudd]

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.

Exactly. Apple can have a letter or a legal document be certified by a delivery person or a legal cleric as delivering said C&D. That way, if it is ignored, a lawsuit can ensue. Phone calls are tougher because it's a he-said-she said matter if person X was actually spoken to or if any conversation took place.

Apple is well experienced with the C&D knows that they get sent directly by certified mail. A phone call would be used for a friendly request/officially complain and not a legal threat.

Something fishy here....

 

[bruinsrme]

The adverts are misleading, they compare a chinese rolex to a real one. One advert also shows the price of a MBP and refers it to a normal MB.

MS ignored that the mac was often more suitable for the person, I remember one advert wanted a laptop which had good battery life and was compact so they got an hp DV5 i think it was. It offers neither of those two characteristics!

The adverts have manipulated the facts to a huge degree in order to promote windows, in a fair advert i think half those adverts would end up recommending mac.

yeah we wouldn't want to confuse the chinese built PCs with the chinese built macs

 

[pika2000]

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.

Exactly, that was what I thought too. So this is just a publicity stunt, pretty poor one too. Microsoft, you can do better than this. What's next, a fake phone call from the EU begging MS to put IE back?

Like I said, sending Ballmer jumping around would be much better for MS. Or maybe, just maybe, cut the prices of Windows 7 retail, but oh that would be too easy huh.

 

[quagmire]

I am sure Apple did call MS to stop airing ads that stated the old prices for their laptops as those prices are not true anymore( starting prices which the ads were advertising at least and would stray to false advertising unless MS put a disclaimer on the ads in question stating prices have changed, etc). I am sure Apple didn't request MS to cease airing the laptop hunter ad entirely.

If they did, OMG this would be hilarious. " Apple tries to stop competition putting down Macs while they put down the competition."

 

[dscuber9000]

I think Microsoft should stop the ads, because as a console gamer, THEY BASH THEIR OWN GAMES DIVISION JUST AS MUCH AS THEY BASH APPLE IN THEM. They talk about how great Blu-Ray is, and how much more powerful PCs are, when in my opinion, Sony could run ads with the exact same content to promote PS3s over Xbox 360s.

Amazing how I use Mac for computer use and Xbox 360 for gaming. It's like Microsoft is trying to lose me as a customer...

 

[Eddyisgreat]

Pricing has always been Apple's achilles heal. It's about time Microsoft banged a few goals inside the open net. The ads are not even unfair. They don't deny the fact Apple machines are beautiful, cool and fashionable. They just emphasize the point if you're shopping on a budget you're likely to leave the Apple store disappointed and without any kind of computer.

Apple is vulnerable to attack for the first time in awhile. The bad economy weighing on purchasing decisions, and the fact Windows 7 is such a fantastic piece of work. I'm amazed how they have turned the Vista disaster around so quickly. Microsoft has every reason to be confident and to go after Apple in a variety of different ways.

Healthy competition is good for all of us who are not APPL shareholders.

I'm a MSFT shareholder ( selling all my shares within the month and staying liquid for a while ) but i've been grinding my teeth at the junk willy wonka, i mean Steve Ballmer has been peddiling so far ever since Bill left.

I don't know the legalities around false advertising, but its one thing to twist the truth and another to tell an outright lie, and with the price changes all of the commercials are moot in their legitimacy. You can't air commercials comparing todays products to yesterdays prices. They might as well have a Macintosh Classic (The 2MB Ram /40MB HD version retailed for $1499 in the 90's) and say that some crappy HP celeron machine that cost 299 bucks on black friday is a "bajillion" times faster than a comparable mac machine at a fraction of the cost.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend like the "Get a Mac" ads are any better. They aren't. But atleast their logic stands behind popular opinion and unrefutable user experiences; something that can change from user to user (as some people here claim they have had the ultimate vista experience while others say their boxes crash regularly). Comparing solely on price as MSFT is doing may be a great strategy but then you are dancing with facts that must be adhered to.

 

[LagunaSol]

Me, I'd love to know how this telephone call really went down...

 

[upinflames900]

I think Microsoft should stop the ads, because as a console gamer, THEY BASH THEIR OWN GAMES DIVISION JUST AS MUCH AS THEY BASH APPLE IN THEM. They talk about how great Blu-Ray is, and how much more powerful PCs are, when in my opinion, Sony could run ads with the exact same content to promote PS3s over Xbox 360s.

Amazing how I use Mac for computer use and Xbox 360 for gaming. It's like Microsoft is trying to lose me as a customer...

Funny actually isn't it. I still am stuck on how they are advocating for HP, Dell, etc because they don't make a single computer.

 

[quagmire]

I think Microsoft should stop the ads, because as a console gamer, THEY BASH THEIR OWN GAMES DIVISION JUST AS MUCH AS THEY BASH APPLE IN THEM. They talk about how great Blu-Ray is, and how much more powerful PCs are, when in my opinion, Sony could run ads with the exact same content to promote PS3s over Xbox 360s.

Amazing how I use Mac for computer use and Xbox 360 for gaming. It's like Microsoft is trying to lose me as a customer...

Uh what? The HD DVD vs Blu-Ray war is over and MS conceded defeat. So I don't see how hyping Blu-Ray would hurt the 360 sales......

How are they bashing the 360? It wasn't a PC vs gaming console ad, it is a PC vs Mac ad where PC games are more prevalent then Mac games.

 

[Bravo]

Like so many things in life, the more I think about this, the less I believe it.

 

[organicpixels]

For some reason, some thing in me doesn't buy the story from MS.