“Welcome to the ‘Mojave Experiment,'” states Microsoft’s Windows Vista rehab site.
Microsoft asks, “What do people think of Windows Vista when they don’t know it’s Windows Vista?”
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft has defeated their effort immediately simply because they have chosen the very least tech knowledgeable people to try to fool. People who can’t even recognize WIndows Vista. You won’t find a Mac OS X user in the bunch. That would defeat the purpose, because Mac OS X users are among the most tech knowledgeable people on the planet. Mac users have made conscious technology choice and are therefore better informed. We didn’t write that last sentence; Paul Thurrott of Windows Vista Secrets, Windows IT Pro Magazine, Windows Weekly, SuperSite for Windows, etc. did.
Microsoft’s Windows Vista rehab site continues, “We disguised Windows Vista codename ‘Mojave,’ the ‘next Microsoft OS,’ so regular people who’ve never used Windows Vista could see what it can do – and decide for themselves.”
Finally, Microsoft’s Windows Vista rehab site demands, “Now decide for yourself.”
The site houses a bunch of videos, which, in typical Microsoft fashion, feature ass-backwards operation: The “Play” triangle pauses each video and the “Pause” button plays them. As MacDailyNews Reader “Wingsy” wrote us, it’s “exactly opposite” of how every other video device on the planet works. “I guess it comes from thinking that ‘Start’ means Shut Down.”
Microsoft’s Adobe Flash — not Microsoft Silverlight-based — Windows Vista rehab site is here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: It’s sad, and telling, that Microsoft has stooped to using the least tech knowledgeable people, Windows XP and earlier users, to fool. This is like taking people who’ve lived all their lives in tar paper shacks to a trailer park filled with double-wides and asking them “Gee, isn’t this great?” Without, of course, ever showing them, or even mentioning, the beautiful mansions on the other side of town. Where the Mac users live.
And, by the way, these tech illiterates were shown a “demo” of Vista. Not let loose with the thing, not allowed to touch things on their own or, God forbid, try to install it and use it on their own PC. “Mojave Experiment?” “Rigged Experiment” is more like it.
So, Microsoft is going to try a $500 million ad campaign designed to convince to their long-suffering XP and earlier sufferers who’ve never used Mac OS X* (or else they’d be totally unimpressed with Vista disguised as “Mojave”) that even though 10,000 reviewers ran Windows Vista through extensive reviews and found it generally to be a derivative, bloated, hardware-taxing, incompatible, falsely-advertised, overpriced pile of crap that they were wrong. Everybody was wrong: the majority of corporate IT people who will not upgrade to Windows Vista, the Windows-centric and Windows-dependent reviewers, the Windows “power users,” everybody. Because Microsoft thinks they’re smarter than you and smarter than everybody. And you and everyone else made exactly the wrong choice by buying those iPods and now those iPhones and for even thinking about – much less actually – dumping Microsoft’s magnificent Windows for Macs in droves.
Bottom line: Microsoft is planning on spending $500 million to tell each person on the planet 50 times per week, “You’re just an ignorant fool and you’re stupid for not liking Windows Vista.”
Just try to keep them out of the Apple Stores, Microsoft, or your ruse is doomed.
* Microsoft’s Windows Vista rehab site does state that 22% of those duped were “Apple OS” users at one time or another, we assume – which, we guess, means: Apple DOS users back in the 1980s! Nice try, Microsoft, you weasels.
MacDailyNews’ Recommended Reading: Wil Shipley’s (Delicious Monster) excellent essay: “The Mojave Experiment:” Bad Science, Bad Marketing
I use VISTA on a daily basis. Contrary to popular belief, it is no worse than Windows XP, and in most ways much better.
Windows VISTA has undergone the most bizarre systematic assassination in the media I’ve seen since the old “Beleaguered Apple” days.
I can only say that most of the readers of MDN are intelligent people and you should not judge by the minority of vocal readers on this site.
Keep in mind, VISTA requires power. Don’t install VISTA on a 3 or 4 year old computer.
When you use it, you will be surprised that it’s not the be all end all of all things evil in the computer world, the way it’s been made to seem.
As much as you know the media lies about computers and technology, this is no exception. They just echo each other ad nauseam. Once the big fat ball of generally accepted opinion is rolling from one media outlet to another, all serious investigation ceases and everyone just signs on.
Would I trade Mac OS X for VISTA, no. Mac OS X is my primary computing platform. Is Mac OS X better than Vista? Overall, I’d say yes, but it doesn’t mean VISTA is all wrong.
Above all else, remember that STUPIDITY IS VIRAL, and the vast majority of people are easily infected.
NASCAR: The fact is that Apple HAS SPONSORED a NASCAR auto. I’ve seen it myself.
Look closely and you’ll see it in the Pixar movie “Cars”. As I recall, it’s a white car with a black Apple logo on the hood.
theloniousMac,
“I can only say that most of the readers of MDN are intelligent people …”
How long you been comin’ here Mac?
“VISTA requires power.”
And that is one of the main issues. I’m running Leopard on a four year old 1.2 GHz iBook and it just works. I have a fairly powerful homebuilt gaming PC that MS says will only accept the stripped down Vista Home version.
I’m sure the service pack helps and Vista will improve with time, but the underlying structure is crap. Windows 7 just promises more, piled on the same crap.
I agree that the ‘mass’ media are a bunch of ignorant puppets, but the tech people are not. If you had been reading the scathing reports by magazines like PC Mag, PC World, Maximum PC, etc. you would see that this wasn’t simply made up.
I’m glad it works for you, and maybe someday I’ll install it.
Hell, probably someday I will HAVE to install it.
Not long ago, Apple’s “Switcher” ads showed ordinary folks saying, “Mac is working great for me. I’m so glad I switched.”
MS has ordinary folks responding to a presentation from an MS company rep, “I liked what you showed me.”
One of those approaches is a little lame.
———————
The MS Mojave Experiment expresses characteristic Microsoftian condescension this way: “See, you shouldn’t believe all that negative stuff you’ve been hearing from people you know and sources you trust. We’ve showed you some great stuff, didn’t we?”
Goodness, even the word “experiment” is bogus. This is not science, it is a set of responses from people who have said what the demonstrator/facilitator clearly wants and expects.
———————
“Decide for yourself.” At what cost?
No one in any of these mojave videos is actually using Vista, they’re just watching a carefully staged demo of Vista and then reacting to the demo.
I have a 4+ year old G4 running leopard and it is running like a champ. My sister in law has a 1 – 2 year old HP notebook running vista. The vista OS is DOG Slow – I brought up windows exploder and it took about 2 minutes to come up and an additional minute to actually show the directory structure. When I clicked on the file it took about 30 seconds to actually select the file. Vista is a terd. At the same time its a God send. If MS continues to make crap like Vista apple will continue to creep up in market share…Long live Vista – and Vista’s children…
Coming soon to a bookstore near you — “The Mojave Experiment” — a recently unearthed and unpublished thriller by Robert Ludlum, author of “The Bourne Identity.”
Coming soon to an Apple store near you: Mac OS X Mojave.
As long as they pretend it’s the next version of Mac OS X, fanboys will line up around the block for it.
And those fanboys will find a bunch of wonderful enhancements, just what they’re expecting from the next Mac OS X version: A robust transaction tracked file system, true multi-core support, support for GPU computing, built in Windows compatibility, the list just goes on.
Apple sponsoring a racing outfit – are you completely mad!!!
Apple and Hi-Octane car racing, that would be an appalling idea.
However >>> An Apple liveried V8 Supercar running and winning at the greatest … and most ball breaking race track in the world – MT PANORAMA, BATHURST, Australia would be kinda kooky.
See – Hell Corner, Mountain Straight, Conrod Straight, Griffin’s Bend, the Cutting, the Dipper, the Esses, Forrest’s Elbow – with grades of up to 1 in 6.13 in this evocative video sets up the track from various drivers perspective.
This video shows the reality, Greg Murphy sets a lap time during qualifying in 2003 which still has not been beaten.
2 hot laps with Mark Skaife. –
A one lap race at Mount Panorama, Bathurst between a 1979 Holden A9X Torana, a 2004 standard street Holden VZ SS Commodore & a 2004 Holden VZ Commodore V8 Supercar. –
This very short clip clearly illustrates how the track DROPS through the Esses, the Dipper, a sharp left hand corner is the fourth in the sequence.
BUT the funny thing in this clip is the monumental blunder by the commentator, thinking of a word that rhymes with SHUNT-
, none of this relevant to Apple, I just like Aussie V8’s and Bathurst.
“A one lap race at Mount Panorama, Bathurst between a 1979 Holden A9X Torana, a 2004 standard street Holden VZ SS Commodore & a 2004 Holden VZ Commodore V8 Supercar. -“
What, no Nissan Skyline?