The Postal Service is supposedly unhappy with Apple and the directing duo that created both the group’s music video for their song “Such Great Heights” and Apple’s new Intel televison advertisement:
It has recently come to our attention that Apple Computers’ new television commercial for the Intel chip features a shot-for-shot recreation of our video for ‘Such Great Heights’ made by the same filmmakers responsible for the original. We did not approve this commercialization and are extremely disappointed with both parties that this was executed without our consultation or consent. -Ben Gibbard, The Postal Service
http://www.postalservicemusic.net/
[Apple’s new Intel ad looks similar to The Postal Service’s music video because both were both made by the directing duo of Josh Melnick and Xander Charity, whose working name is Josh & Xander. See related article linked below.]
Yeah, right, Gibbard is “extremely disappointed” while he’s loving life drowning in free publicity. The fact is, Apple’s Intel ad is by far the best thing that ever happened to The Postal Service. More people have heard of The Postal Service and at least one of their songs since this story broke a few days ago than all the people that ever heard them – or heard of them – before the debut of Apple’s Intel ad.
The “extremely disappointed” comment by Gibbard is most probably a smart ploy designed to generate another spate of articles, including this one, and a few more days of free publicity for The Postal Service. The usual next step is for somebody’s lawyer to send out a press release stating that their client is “considering a lawsuit” against somebody else over this “controversy.” That “story” will run in all of the usual places and likely here, too. Nothing will ever go to court and then the whole thing will die out, but by then many more people will know “The Postal Service” for making music and videos instead of mistaking them for letter carriers. Mission accomplished.
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Related articles:
Apple offers The Postal Service’s ‘Such Great Heights’ music video via iTunes Music Store – January 19, 2006
Meet the directing duo behind both Apple’s ‘Intel’ ad and The Postal Service’s music video – January 17, 2006
Apple’s ‘Intel’ ad strikingly similar to ‘Such Great Heights’ music video – January 17, 2006
It appears that the dual core G5 Powermac is faster than the dual core Intel iMac. I compared Macworld’s benchmark results for the one test that can be compared fairly between both Macs, which was iTunes 6. The dual core G5’s time was 58 seconds while the dual core Intel iMac took 1:14 both running at 2Ghz. So, at least in terms of pure computational power, it looks like the dual G5 is faster than a dual Intel.
So I guess the only real advantage the Intel chips have is power consumption. So my question is, why put these dual core Intels into desktop machines like the iMac? Why not just stick with G5’s for desktops until Intel can match the performance of G5’s on Macs? I was expecting the switch to Intel would enable Apple to finally market a “3Ghz” machine, but that hasn’t even happened yet. So, why bother?
Processor volume (Intel) and retribution (at IBM)
Processors can’t be made to go any faster, this is why they are doubling up and making dual cores.
Since most programs are single threaded (A has to be done before B) there is not going to be much real world performance gain with duo cores.
This is why the MacWorld results were so disappointing.
Only apps that can be multi-threaded (not many) can successfully take advantage of multi-cores.
Multi-thread means Processor B can be doing this while Processor A is doing that. or Processor A hands off a unfinished job to Processor B which then passes the result on further (to the GPU for instance) and not back to Processor A, freeing up A to do the next thing.
Not many programs can do this and if A has to wait for the results from B too often, then this is a substancial performance loss. It would be faster to just let A do all the work.
Duo cores give the advantage of running the OS on the other processor, and in some things, like the sound (in UT2004) is on the other processor.
The Core Duo iMacTel is a bit faster in some real world tests mostly because the OS is on the other core.
who really cares, Apple should focus more on selling the OS then copying ads.
Thanks for all the hit traffic guys.
Noticed we took the high band version of our song “Such Great Heights” off our site so the maximum amount of abusers… er users, can hear our rather ratty song.
We also fully expect the song to appear next Tuesday as a free download option in iTunes to further abuse your sensitive ears.
My name is Ben and you all can eat my shorts.
-Ben
“Since most programs are single threaded (A has to be done before B) there is not going to be much real world performance gain with duo cores.”
MacDude, so, can you explain to me why my Dual Processor 533 Mhz G4 tower is faster and more powerful than my 1Ghz G4 Powerbook with more RAM and better video card – at EVERYTHING! Not just Photoshop.
Hello. My name is Ford Mustang. I am extremely upset that a subset of crabby ungulates has chosen to call themselves by my name without permission. Furthermore, oats rhymes with goats, and that leaves me feeling a tad sheepish (patent pending).
Ugh, and to add: MacDude, geez, get a hobby. What is your incessant bitching going to change? Hold off. If things aren’t better in 6 months, THEN crab all you want.
Your “premature evaluations” leave me wanting more. Just not from you.
Yeah, I have never even heard The Postal Service band before this whole thing.
They should be grateful that now people are looking into their music.
MDN, STFU.
the postal service is a side project for two well-established musicians who are pretty much at the zenith of their own respective genres.
neither of them need the publicity. ben gibbard was on saturday night live last week, for god’s sake.
perhaps they really do think that their video is important enough not to be infringed on. its three years old, after all.
weak.
So all of you people in here that are talking about and complaing how VISTA is a complete rip off of Tiger are actually complementing M$ for giving Apple so much exposer?
I never heard of this band before the Apple ad.
comparing Apple’s ad agency borrowing from a 3 yr. old music video to make a 30 second commercial with Microsoft’s theft of parts of an OS does not compute. TPS needs to take a chill pill, and enjoy the free publicity.
davida,
TPS are enjoying the free publicity. That’s why they’re ginning up even more.
Davida,
What doesn’t compute? Now 95% of the computing world that has never heard of Apple (outside of the iPod)or the Mac now will.
I was thinking about starting a band myself. I was going to call it Manson Marilyn. We would be a kinda shock goth type band. But I was afraid it would seem like a rip.
Guess you don’t.
I liked the music in the ad. However I thought that the message in the ad was weak; it should have been directed to selling new Macs, not some artsy-fartsy high brow stuff.
But I did like the music.
“Death cab for cutie” – beatles song? Which song? I’d love to know. It’s bizarre.
The Postal Service is a fantastic group, and the album ´Give up´was one of my top 5 albums for 2005 . And by the way the last picture I saw of Ben Gibbard was in Wired, and on his lap ; an iBook 12″…
this MDN take is ridiclous. The postal service has a song on a Civic comerical, and Iron & Wine covers the song in despute here on an M&Ms; commercial. They also have a song on the popular Garden State soundtrack, and an amazing debut CD to their name, and are by no means in need of free publicity. This CD sold 300,000 copies on Sub Pop records, and as such, the band probably made more money then if they had sold 3,000,000 on a major record label like Universal or Sony.
Even if the band sucked, and they had no success what so ever, they still would be justified in being pissed off because their music video was ripped off without their consent. It may not be Apple’s fault, but they she have the right to be mad at someone.
furthermore, such great heights is a good song song, and the postal service is a good band.
clearly all you people you think the band is unkown, you’ve never seen the movie “Garden State”
…. I heard it was good…
what ever, watch scrubs.
STFU!!!
This is the biggest break the bank could ask for, 99% of us have never even heard of the band until everyone started carrying this story.
The just part of this story is, they will fade into obscurity just as fast.
Gibbard who?
Regardless of USPS’s so-called disappointment and potential benefit from the copycat ad, I would have expected more originality from Apple considering originality is the main cornerstone of their success. It’s a bit embarrassing if you ask me, which, of course, no one did.
Just because someone should say something…
I’d heard of the band well before this issue, and I quite enjoy several of their songs… Such Great Heights is one of the ones I don’t like.
Boo-Freakin’-Hoo
I don’t know if this is posted anywhere else, but just for your information, the video may be a ‘The Postal Service’ rip off, but the song is:
Moby – God Moving Over the Face of the Waters
also available on the iTunes Music Store.
Chiat/Day obviously knew all about Josh & Xander’s work for The Postal Service, why else do you think they would have hired them to make this ad?
Apple Computer, Inc. had nothing to do with it. If you people are pissed, be pissed at the guilty parties, which are Chiat/Day and Josh & Xander.
Is anyone else still pissed about how Apple ripped off George Orwell’s “1984”? Or am I the only one?