The real truth of Apple vs everyone else

[smoledman]

Here’s another thing, Apple’s monster success with the iPhone has made the rest of the mobile industry crazy. So Nokia does the fake video stunt out of a sheer desperation to show how GREAT their new camera technology is instead of vetting everything making SURE it was ok. You see these missteps over and over again from Apple’s so-called mobile competition. Apple has literally made them crazy in that space.

Apple has also made Microsoft crazy in the tablet space. I mean look at Windows 8, you can't tell me that trying to force tablet + desktop paradigm is a great idea. If it were, why hasn't Apple done it? You think consumers won't be confused and frustrated when they are in desktop, hit the Windows key and they don't get their familiar Start Menu? Also the utter FAIL of hidden Charms bar. People shouldn't have to swipe around to get those. If you look at Windows Phone UI:

The charms bar is always visible at the bottom and they give you that "..." to get the text descriptions of what they are. This is helpful to the user. My guess is the Windows Group thought they were being really clever with the hidden Charms, and they were not. Or maybe they were afflicted with "Apple is making us insane" disease.

You can't innovate like Apple

 

[kdarling]

• Apple is being sued for making Siri look fast and foolproof in ads.
• Apple was forced to put "sequences shortened" in their ads.
• Apple used to repaint websites in their ads to hide missing Flash sections.
• Apple was sued over using "4G" in some countries.
• etc.

By your definition, such ad manipulation shows sheer desperation on the part of Apple.

 

[smoledman]

• Apple is being sued for making Siri look fast and foolproof in ads.
• Apple was forced to put "sequences shortened" in their ads.
• Apple used to repaint websites in their ads to hide missing Flash sections.
• Apple was sued over using "4G" in some countries.
• etc.

By your definition, such ad manipulation shows sheer desperation on the part of Apple.

You're missing the point. Apple had so much mindshare by that point, they could have 10 fake-ad scandals and it wouldn't hurt them. But Nokia, struggling for survival can't afford a SINGLE frak-up. This last one, along with the previous "beta test is over" just might be the final nail in the coffin.

 

[boss.king]

You're missing the point. Apple had so much mindshare by that point, they could have 10 fake-ad scandals and it wouldn't hurt them. But Nokia, struggling for survival can't afford a SINGLE frak-up. This last one, along with the previous "beta test is over" just might be the final nail in the coffin.

Except that Apples scandals did hurt them. You're ignoring the facts to try make a misguided point. They were doing better at the time, so the extent of the hurt was not as great, but it did happen.

 

[kdarling]

I think that history has shown us that people and companies are generally forgiven if they acknowledge screwups and do something about them.

E.g. Apple's price drop with the first iPhone. Or giving into third party apps. Or yes, the Nokia video goof. Apple even got by with Antennagate, although trying to blame users and bringing in other phones was widely seen as not a very classy move.

I disagree that Nokia is a situation where a single misstep is the end for them. Especially for their agency goofing up that video ad, which will be forgotten in a few days with more interesting news.

 

[smoledman]

I think that history has shown us that people and companies are generally forgiven if they acknowledge screwups and do something about them.

E.g. Apple's price drop with the first iPhone. Or giving into third party apps. Or yes, the Nokia video goof. Apple even got by with Antennagate, although trying to blame users and bringing in other phones was widely seen as not a very classy move.

I disagree that Nokia is a situation where a single misstep is the end for them. Especially for their agency goofing up that video ad, which will be forgotten in a few days with more interesting news.

Wrong, it's only intensifying.

 

[kdarling]

The Nokia ad thing is over with because it was instantly acknowledged and fixed. This is unlike with, say Siri, whose lawsuits will continue to make headlines over the next year.

The only reason it's still being talked about on some new sites is because it's been a slow weekend leading up to Sept 12. That's already changing.

Heck, even The Verge (who led the chest beating over finding the error) has switched its headlines to now be about tests of the camera with Nokia along.

 

[charlieegan3]

If it were, why hasn't Apple done it?

So apple are the only ones that can come up with good ideas?/do the right thing in terms of the next big move?

 

[smoledman]

So apple are the only ones that can come up with good ideas?/do the right thing in terms of the next big move?

Just read the writers over at ZdNet and many other blogs. They think Windows 8 is an unmitigated disaster in terms of UX.

 

[boss.king]

Just read the writers over at ZdNet and many other blogs. They think Windows 8 is an unmitigated disaster in terms of UX.

Just read the writers over at The Verge and many other blogs. They think Windows 8 is brilliant in terms of UX. Guess what, opinions are subjective.

 

[samcraig]

Just read the writers over at ZdNet and many other blogs. They think Windows 8 is an unmitigated disaster in terms of UX.

Writers don't determine the success of an OS. Users do. Time will be the biggest arbiter of whether or not it's a success. Not you. Not me. And not bloggers.

 

[tbrinkma]

• Apple is being sued for making Siri look fast and foolproof in ads.
• Apple was forced to put "sequences shortened" in their ads.
• Apple used to repaint websites in their ads to hide missing Flash sections.
• Apple was sued over using "4G" in some countries.
• etc.

By your definition, such ad manipulation shows sheer desperation on the part of Apple.

Siri works about as well for me as it does in the ads. It's not as fast, but the whole 'sequences shortened' thing is *normal* in ads. If you've got 30 seconds to show off something, shortening the wait time is the easiest (and most accurate) way to fit it into that short time slot.

I'm pretty sure they used to (and still do) 'repaint' websites in their adds to remove other advertisements as well. Nothing wrong with that in my mind. That 'repaint' could, just as easily, just have been a mock-up, or even early access to a site revision. (It's been quite a while since that was a concern, and I wasn't following it then either, so I don't know all the details there.)

The whole '4G' mess is tricky, because the current iPad *does* have '4G', and they did expressly state where it was available. It turns out that in a few places that was deemed to not be enough, but trying to comply with a world's worth of laws is tough, so I'll cut anybody some slack there.

 

[samcraig]

Siri works about as well for me as it does in the ads. It's not as fast, but the whole 'sequences shortened' thing is *normal* in ads. If you've got 30 seconds to show off something, shortening the wait time is the easiest (and most accurate) way to fit it into that short time slot.

I'm pretty sure they used to (and still do) 'repaint' websites in their adds to remove other advertisements as well. Nothing wrong with that in my mind. That 'repaint' could, just as easily, just have been a mock-up, or even early access to a site revision. (It's been quite a while since that was a concern, and I wasn't following it then either, so I don't know all the details there.)

The whole '4G' mess is tricky, because the current iPad *does* have '4G', and they did expressly state where it was available. It turns out that in a few places that was deemed to not be enough, but trying to comply with a world's worth of laws is tough, so I'll cut anybody some slack there.

So what I'm seeing you write is - for Apple - you're happy to move the goalpost. Got it.

 

[KnightWRX]

It's not as fast, but the whole 'sequences shortened' thing is *normal* in ads.

Thank god the courts don't agree with you and ruled against Apple on that, forcing them to include the disclaimer in the first place following a class action lawsuit based precisely on this deceptive practice.

 

[kdarling]

Siri works about as well for me as it does in the ads. It's not as fast, but the whole 'sequences shortened' thing is *normal* in ads.

Interestingly, even the notice isn't enough sometimes. In the UK, an Apple ad about downloading apps was pulled even though it had the small notice, "Steps removed and sequence shortened. Network speeds may vary."

Basically, the disclaimer was seen as too broad, since the ad's intent was to show how quick and easy buying an app was, and with steps removed, it wasn't true to life even if sped up.

I'm pretty sure they used to (and still do) 'repaint' websites in their adds to remove other advertisements as well.

It'd be understandable if it were ads. Instead, the missing sections were embedded news videos (NY Times) and site menus (National Geographic) that were modified to remove the Flash notice. Even fansites were astonished at Apple's audacity (faked page vs real page, and magnification at bottom):



To me, this is where "intent" comes into play.

Before Apple embraced not having Flash, they deliberately modified major websites in order to hide their lack of Flash support, just so they could make their "real Internet" claim, AND to claim their browser being faster. Jobs also used such modified sites in his presentations. It was a deliberate, ongoing, corporate-backed intent to misrepresent real life.

I think that's quite different from cases of shortened sequences or assistant laziness or just plain advertising goofs.

 

[roadbloc]

Wrong, it's only intensifying.

What? I haven't heard of it since it happened. Nobody cares. Time to move on. Companies make false claims in ads all the time. Including Apple. This isn't the cause for Nokia's problems at the moment.

 

[tbrinkma]

So what I'm seeing you write is - for Apple - you're happy to move the goalpost. Got it.

No. What I said is that my goalposts (apparently) don't match yours. They never did, and aren't specific to Apple at all.

But go ahead and wail away at that straw-man all you like.

 

[tbrinkma]

Interestingly, even the notice isn't enough sometimes. In the UK, an Apple ad about downloading apps was pulled even though it had the small notice, "Steps removed and sequence shortened. Network speeds may vary."

Basically, the disclaimer was seen as too broad, since the ad's intent was to show how quick and easy buying an app was, and with steps removed, it wasn't true to life even if sped up.

And, as you point out, with that example, the issue wasn't the 'sequences shortened'. There is, unfortunately, no legal 'bright line' for advertising, which makes it fool-proof to determine which bits are ok to trim, tweak, or dramatize, and which aren't. The ruling will depend on the particular ad and how it is viewed by the judge/enforcement body at that time. There's general rules, but even following those doesn't always result in the same decisions. (Much less consistent decisions across countries.) Apparently, with that decision, had they kept all of the steps, they would have been fine. It may not have fit properly into a commercial-slot with their desired lead-in and lead-out.

 

[Renzatic]

Siri works about as well for me as it does in the ads. It's not as fast, but the whole 'sequences shortened' thing is *normal* in ads. If you've got 30 seconds to show off something, shortening the wait time is the easiest (and most accurate) way to fit it into that short time slot.

That's a lame excuse. If I have a product that takes at least 10 seconds to perform an action, and my commercial shows it working at the push of a button, complete with people smiling, being amazed, and looking generally happier than they would in real life is it not false advertising because I only had so much time to fit it into a commercial?

Siri is fairly slow. Apple's "hey, look at me holding a deeply engrossing vis-a-vis conversation with my phone" adverts are just as much false advertising as Nokia's "the wonders of taking perfectly clear pictures while riding a bike...as shown by this shot taken by a guy riding alongside a chick in a truck using an SLR on a tripod". One isn't more forgivable than the other just because. They're both making their products look a lot better than what they actually are.

 

[tbrinkma]

That's a lame excuse. If I have a product that takes at least 10 seconds to perform an action, and my commercial shows it working at the push of a button, complete with people smiling, being amazed, and looking generally happier than they would in real life is it not false advertising because I only had so much time to fit it into a commercial?

Siri is fairly slow. Apple's "hey, look at me holding a deeply engrossing vis-a-vis conversation with my phone" adverts are just as much false advertising as Nokia's "the wonders of taking perfectly clear pictures while riding a bike...as shown by this shot taken by a guy riding alongside a chick in a truck using an SLR on a tripod". One isn't more forgivable than the other just because. They're both making their products look a lot better than what they actually are.

You can argue that the Siri commercials are 'false advertising' based on whatever definition you want, but you'll have trouble arguing that they are "just as much false advertising" as the Nokia example.

The Siri commercials have been replicated by people in the real world using real phones and the same voice (recorded from TV). It's touchy, since most people's phones aren't associated with someone else's voice profile on Apple's servers, but it can be done. (And, in addition to the disclaimer that 'sequences have been shortened', they show that additional time has passed in other ways across the various cuts in the commercials.)

The Nokia commercial (being web-only, IIRC) set up a situation where their product *COULDN'T* do what was being shown, and set it up in such a way as to clearly imply that their product *was* being used to produce those results. It wasn't a matter of "it'll take a bit longer, but you can do it", or "ok, maybe it doesn't work well enough to do it on a bike, but we used it from the van". It was a matter of, the product actually can't do what was depicted.

Maybe according to your personal definition of 'false advertising', they both fit it, but unless your definition is a completely Boolean, "it must absolutely depict reality exactly in every minute way with no shortcuts taken, and even one means it's completely wrong", then the Nokia example was significantly worse.

 

[smoledman]

That's a lame excuse. If I have a product that takes at least 10 seconds to perform an action, and my commercial shows it working at the push of a button, complete with people smiling, being amazed, and looking generally happier than they would in real life is it not false advertising because I only had so much time to fit it into a commercial?

Siri is fairly slow. Apple's "hey, look at me holding a deeply engrossing vis-a-vis conversation with my phone" adverts are just as much false advertising as Nokia's "the wonders of taking perfectly clear pictures while riding a bike...as shown by this shot taken by a guy riding alongside a chick in a truck using an SLR on a tripod". One isn't more forgivable than the other just because. They're both making their products look a lot better than what they actually are.

Agreed, Apple's Siri ads are just as fake as the Nokia one.

 

[Renzatic]

snip

We haven't seen any pics or videos of Pureviews image stabilization in action yet, right? How can you say they were demonstrating something it can't do when we haven't even seen what it can do yet?

Though it is pretty likely that whatever we end up getting won't work nearly as well as it does in that video. So even if it does work almost-but-not-quite as good as shown, does that mean it's still false advertising? Kinda, I guess. I'd say more overly glorifying than anything. Which is what all commercials do. So I guess all commercials are false advertising when it comes right down to it.

In the end, all this would've been avoided if Nokia had the forethought to slap an "image simulated" disclaimer in small text at the bottom of the screen. The whole thing is a much ado over nothing tempest in a tea cup pithy cliche affair.

 

[tbrinkma]

We haven't seen any pics or videos of Pureviews image stabilization in action yet, right? How can you say they were demonstrating something it can't do when we haven't even seen what it can do yet?

Um. You obviously haven't been following it at all. Nokia *admitted* that the phone can't do what was shown in the footage. In fact, they also had to admit that even the *stills* which were presented as examples taken with the phone's camera were taken with DSLRs.

They presented a different video, actually taken with the phone's camera, consisting of two shots of someone walking down a boardwalk (taken from the walker's perspective, obviously), and the image stabilization, while not *bad* is *nothing* like what was shown in the bike footage.