“By now you’ve seen, no doubt many times, Apple’s most recent Get a Mac commercial, in which poor PC can not get a word in (or out) without first clearing it (Cancel or allow?) through his grim, Secret-Service-style security agent. If for some reason you haven’t seen it… you should see it, because it’s the best of the series so far. This is no small compliment, given how consistently smart and funny and clever and creative they’ve been. But this one is pure perfection: a marvel of brisk pacing, crisp editing, and deft comic timing, showcasing yet again the subtle brilliance and hilarity of John Hodgman’s work as PC,” Chad Hermann blogs for The Huffington Post.
Apple’s ‘Get a Mac – Security’ ad:
Hermann writes, “Almost equally amazing is the inability — or perhaps the unwillingness — of someone as smart as Bill Gates to understand how the ads work. When asked, in a recent interview with Newsweek magazine, whether he was bothered by the commercial in which PC must undergo upgrade surgery to install Windows Vista, the Microsoft Chairman replied, I’ve never seen it. I don’t think over 90 percent of the [population] who use Windows PCs think of themselves as dullards, or the kind of klutzes that somebody is trying to say they are.“
Hermann writes, “PC is to Mac what Wile E. Coyote was to the Roadrunner: the poor, pitiful foil for whom we feel some strange sort of empathy, even as we can’t quite bring ourselves to identify with him. He won’t ever win, and he can’t even get his name in the title, but he’s the one who makes the stories worth watching. He makes them great…”
Hermann writes, “If Bill Gates understood this, or could at least bring himself to admit it, perhaps he would feel better about the ad campaign. Or perhaps not. Elsewhere in that same interview, when he’s saying silly and patently untrue things about Apple computers (Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally) or bragging about Vista features (the way the search lets you go through lots of things, including lots of photos… And then I might edit a high-definition movie and a make a little DVD that’s got photos) that have been possible on a Mac for months or even years, he sounds an awful lot like PC in those commercials: by turns boastful and dismissive, trying too hard and succeeding too little, clinging to the tenuous and increasingly unpleasant company of his own mistaken assumptions.”
Hermann writes, “Much has been made of the notion that, at first glance, Mac and PC bear a more than passing resemblance to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. And maybe that’s what really bugs Mr. Gates about the commercials. Maybe he’s not bothered by how they may hurt the feelings of 90 percent of computer users; maybe he’s bothered by how they hurt his own.”
More in the full article – highly recommended – here.
Related articles:
Bill Gates unhinged with Apple envy; Microsoft on path to become high profile casualty – February 06, 2007
Bill Gates has lost his mind: calls Apple liars, copiers; slams Mac OS X security vs. Windows – February 02, 2007
And whilst at Huffington Post, don’t forget to read some of the other blogs as well.
MW=problem
In other words, Bill’s been exhibiting a few lately
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Im at work using a late 90’s pc, and as soon as i clicked on this news ad i got a message asking me is i wanted to debug.
life imitates art…
> pitiful foil for whom we feel some strange sort of empathy
An apt description of Zune Tang!
I love how in the same article he says he never saw the ads but then later describes them…. hmmm. He is a busy man does he have someone take the time to tell him what they think of the ad’s so he can dismiss them in public or does he take 10 minutes to watch everyone of them.
So Huffington Post is a progressive blog in the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt who started the progressive party (aka “Bull Moose” party”) after abandoning the Republicans. And Huffington was a repub herself, but split from the party when her husband, a republican, was outed as a homosexual? So, Teddy switched (parties.) Arianna switched (parties.) Rush switched (platforms.)
I can’t follow this soap opera. But the article is good. As are the commercials.
“Know your audience,” and “Love what you do.”
Chad Hermann
A fully qualified man to offer critique, it would seem. Hermann teaches communications at Carnegie Mellon University. He’s also greatly admired by his students, apparently.
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/sep2006/bs20060919_195233.htm?chan=bschools_undergrad+–+favorite+professors_favorite+professors
Yes, that is a brilliant ad. It really makes me laugh.
The only wow I’m hearing in my head is “Wow, that stings!” Nice going.
Bill has just been “school”ed.
Yeah, except that John Hodgman is endearingly cute, while Bill Gates is simply an offense to the eyes. I’d say Bill is being generously flattered in the ads.
But what else could Bill G say when asked about the PC/Mac adds? Really, what could he say…. “Oh, I think they are pretty good” or “Yeah the adds are cute but they are not representing the truth”? He just about had to say that he has not seen them. That is the only way that he would be able to not have to comment on them.
Great commercials. Huffington-not so great.
Huffington post-Maher said one of the most disgraceful and irresponsible things uttered on a major television program since Bush was elected.
In a nutshell, the host said the world would be a safer place if the Cheney assassination attempt succeeded. And, he even had the nerve to reiterate it. Here’s the deplorable sequence of events for those that have the stomach for it.
Maher: What about the people who got onto the Huffington Post – and these weren’t even the bloggers, these were just the comments section – who said they, they expressed regret that the attack on Dick Cheney failed.
Libs-Libs-Libs
MW-freedom
“…So Huffington Post is a progressive blog…”
When did “liberal” get replaced with “progressive”?
“In a nutshell, the host said the world would be a safer place if the Cheney assassination attempt succeeded”
The thing wasn’t a Cheney assassination attempt. He wasn’t anywhere near the explosion. The media just spun it that way to create more drama from none.
I don’t call it a media conspiracy, just a weak ass attempt to boost ratings. Although if it was a conspiracy it would fall right in line with typical Rove tactics where he makes his candidate appear to be the victim in some way to garner sympathy and support.
A dullard is the last person to know he is one.
d.
The world WOULD be a safer… and SANER.. place without Cheney polluting it with his existence.
What would have happened if Bill Clinton shot an old man in the face,
If a blow job rates impeachment?
Ron,
As opposed to Ann Coulter espousing the assassination of members of the Federal judiciary or arguing that the offices of a newspaper should be bombed.
Or are those facts an inconvenient truth that you can just ignore because your prejudices lean that way.
ron . . .
Are you equally willing to condemn violent hate speech that comes out of Ann Couter’s, Sean Hannity’s, Rush Limaugh’s, Jerry Falwell’s, Pat Robertson’s (and many more right wing hatemonger’s) mouths ? ?
If so , you have a valid point. If not, then you are a hyopocrite.
Respectfully
I would like to know if Hodgman and Long are Mac users, and if they are (as I suppose) were they before the gig
With Bill Gates making 4 million dollars a day in interest…
I don’t think he really cares about anything and that’s exactly the advantage Apple needs.
Mr. Reeee,
Clinton was not impeached because of getting a blow job. He was impeached for lying about it.
Did Cheney lie about the gun accident?
I have always been amazed at how the general public (that includes you Mr. Reeee) cannot follow a story line and keep facts straight. Always gotta bend it to fit their own agenda.
Ron, you clearly haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.
Arianna Huffington removed comments from the comments section of her site expressed regret that Dick Cheney wasn’t killed. Bill Maher, on Friday night on his show, which I watched, and you evidently didn’t, asked his panelists to discuss her hasty removal -i.e., was she stifling free speech, etc.
The quote you posted is just Bill bringing up the topic for discussion, giving the backstory to his panelists. Okay. Not at all controversial.
What I can see as controversial is that Bill Maher DID say that he believes for a fact, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that if Dick Cheney died today, fewer people would die as a result of his conquests in the future. And, while subjective, I think that’s sadly a statement that’s pretty hard to refute.
He had the nerve to state it and reiterate it because – if you believe this is Dick Cheney’s war – it IS true. In fact, I’d say it’s one of the most responsible things uttered on a major television program since Bush was elected.
(but I digress, Macs rule, Steve Jobs created the world and then the rest of us came along, yada yada yada).
John H. uses a mac
I’m a PC
@Mondale
Arrgh ….why did you mention Ann Coulter’s name….now I have to go puke. God I dislike that ignorant, self-centered, self-promoting, un-ethical, cold-blodded bit*h.
Cheney is a waste of life.
To have been given such an opportunity for service to one’s own country, and to squander it towards the benefit only of the powerful “elite” is a shame. He sends our sons to war for no good reason, he refuses to acknowledge the value of humanity which put him in office. We’d be better off without him. That’s not an endorsement for violence. But he and GWB should be impeached. Pelosi would be preferable than that bunch! They have shamed the GOP beyond repair.