“Oh dear. Just when we thought Microsoft might have gotten over its misleading Surface tablet ads attacking the iPad (and iPad mini), it has run three new ones, each attacking the MacBook Air,” Ben Lovejoy writes for 9to5Mac.
“Microsoft’s decision to go on the offensive is perhaps understandable: while Apple can run a MacBook Air ad simply observing that it’s “the notebook people love,” poor sales of the Surface despite high marketing costs have so far resulted in Microsoft losing $1.7B on the device,” Lovejoy writes. “The ads claim the Surface is as powerful as a MacBook Air while championing the the Surface’s touchscreen, pen and detachable keyboard that allow it to be both a tablet and a laptop – the very ‘worst of both worlds’ experience that resulted in such poor reviews.”
Two more misleading Microsoft Surface ads in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Pfft.
get real.
They think they are real.
It worked so well with the iPad, they are convinced they will replace the MBAir next!
Surface is a device in search for a reason to exist. 99% or more of humanity doesn’t want or need a stylus pen. Neither do we need a Star Trek TNG style detachable saucer section. All-In-One POS are just that – compromised POS.
The only option I would like to see in a new portable is the ability to have wireless cell data ability but of course your iPhone or iPad can create the WiFi hotspot anyway.
You can take the Ballmer out of Microsoft, but you can’t remove the stupid.
Priceless. 🙂
More like overpriced – see posts that follow!
Ballmer’s “DNA” has become infused in Microsoft… 🙂
Microsoft seriously needs to clean itself with bleach.
——RM
Hey MS…
It’s not the target of your ad that is the problem… Your product is the problem.
Surface Pro 3: i7, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB Storage + Keyboard = $2130
13″ MacBook Air: i7, 8 GB Ram, 512 GB Storage and integrated Keyboard = $1749
11″ MacBook Air as above = $1649
When I chose the config above with type keyboard, it came to roughly $2078 before discount (expires 9/3/14) and tax…..which is still plain crazy. There’s also some required adapter (see note 4 at bottom of Surface web page) that is sold separately. And someone should tell folks that laptops got their name through the ability to fully use them on your laps instead of needing a desk. This isn’t a laptop at all…………..hybrid or otherwise…
Statler: The question is, “What is a surface?”
Waldorf: The questions is: “Who cares?!”
Huhuhuhuhu
When the Surface image is expanded, it’s not in sync with the finger movement.
The actor did it on a green screen. They added the video later.
My guess.
Our IT department is handing out Surface Pro’s to highly effective managers. I guess they need to get them to slow down a little. Watched my boss trying to use one during a meeting. Fumble, grumble, stumble… but he says he LOVES it!
As usual, no taste.
What about those “Cortana” (Microsoft’s Siri) ads, for Windows Phone? An iPhone (Siri) is sitting next to a Nokia phone (Cortana). The commercial is a running commentary, in Siri’s voice, about (alleged) things Cortana can do that Siri cannot.
I’m thinking, (fake) Siri is doing a real-time assessment of the situation and offering up this unsolicited commentary. So Siri appears to be self-aware, while Cortana is just a robotic “drone.” In this ad, Siri is the TRUE “smart” (AI) phone.
Typical dumb Microsoft ad… Plus “Cortana”? Who comes up with these names for Microsoft? I’d be embarrassed addressing my phone as “Cortana.”
ken1w, Cortana is a famous character from the Halo series of video games, an Artificial Intelligence with an attractive holographic representation.
Not so “famous,” apparently… 🙂
What’s “Halo?”
Sorry, I’m not a gamer, couldn’t give a shit about games, but even I know about Halo, and some of its iconography.
High Altitude Low Opening parachute jump.
Oh, it’s also a video-game series of some sort. 🙂
——RM
Apple played the voice control card, and the die was cast; all our channels of communication are diverting to simulated intelligence attentive to our biological senses. Siri, Google Now, and Cortana are the voices of our future, natural interfaces between us and our species’ collective knowledge. Learn more about Cortana in this article at The Verge.
Ah, can’t wait to have a tablet that is bloated with desktop and tablet software and still requires anti-virus. Since there are TWO Internet Explorers (one for each OS), do I need Avast twice as well?
The Microsoft Virablet®! 😛
Hail to the new triumvirats Gates, Ballmer and of course Nutella.
You don’t even need to play that for that opening still is enough to make anyone laugh at the thought of using that toy in place of an Air for a not dissimilar price when bought with that Disney keyboard.
Smeary fingerprints on my laptop screen? Not. In. A. Million. Years.
Proof that even Microsoft can’t figure out what niche it fits.
Let’s see the part of the commercial when both of them try to use their machines as a laptop, typing with the devices in their actual laps.
Too bad there’s no real software to run on Apple’s machines. Such a disappointment.
Just…..stop…..
Haaaa so you are the small group of people these Ms surface add are aimed towards. So, even when MS Make adds like this for their surface for you to buy… You still come to an apple forum to prove a point.Lol… You’re cute in a aid’s way.
Apple continues to diss surface pro 3 by actually selling iPads and MacBook airs and not have them take up space in a warehouse in Mexico
Microsoft’s commercials seem to be geared towards:
– keeping its current user base more than growing it (it’s highly unlikely that Mac users would switch to Windows)
– those who want as little change as possible
– those who are regularly (as though intentionally) under-informed
– those who just plain hate Apple
and last, but not least:
– those who just don’t understand that things are more than just the sum of their parts…specs don’t determine equality…………………
Sad…just sad…
“The Notebook People Love” vs. “The OS People Detest”.
Not much of a contest.
——RM