In a recent article on Slate.com, Seth Stevenson voiced his odd opinion on the new Apple commercials starring Justin Long and John Hodgman. First off, he has a problem with using Justin Long as the “Mac”, he thinks Long comes off as a “smug little twit”. But I think Long does a great job representing the casual Mac users. Mac users are just more relaxed about their computers, because like Long says, “everything just kinda of works with a Mac”.
This brings me to my second issue with Stevenson’s article. He takes offense as a PC user to accusations that most digital cameras won’t work right, and that the set up for a new PC is a long process. To that I say, are you nuts? For the past few years I have owned a Mac as my main computer, and a PC as an evil necessity (which by the way is no longer required thanks to Boot Camp and Parallel Workstation), so I have had the opportunity to try to hook up digital cameras, camcorders, and even external hard drives to both. I can’t think of a single issue I have ever had with a Mac hooking up with one of the devices. For example, after years of reliable service, my HP G85 OfficeJet died on me. I decided against a new all-in-one printer and opted instead for an Epson Inkjet and a seperate fax machine. I came home and plugged the Epson into the Mac, and like magic it worked. But I decided that I wanted to go one step further and print wirelessly. I plugged the USB from my printer to my Airport Extreme, and like even more impressive magic, it worked again.
I would love to see a video of a side by side comparison with Windows vs. Mac on this set up. Of course Windows users would shout that it wasn’t fair because Microsoft has no real control of the manufacturer of the wireless router. But that would be the point precisely. Apple maintains control over every aspect of their computers. When you hook Apple products up to a Mac, the just work. When you hook up an approved product to a Mac, they just work as well.
As for Stevenson’s last comment that these commercials will just irritate a PC users, it should. Go to the nearest Apple store, play with a Mac, try out some of the same software you use now, plug in your digital camera, update your iPod, hook up a printer to a wireless router, and if you don’t immediately make a purchase after witnessing the power of a Mac, that you are like Seth Stevenson and the annoying PC guy, you are a dweeb.
Hi, Im a Mac…lol
I have to agree with you about Macs Ed. Being an original Apple II/Macintosh user converted to PC and staying with Windows up to XP, I’m sorry to say that I didn’t convert back to a Mac sooner.
I was convinced that Macs are the best way to go the moment I sat in on an iMovie & iDVD mini-class at a Mac store and saw the simplified rendering process, movie theme templates, and all the effects to create dvds. My mouth dropped. I had struggled for several years on a PC creating movies and waiting hours for the rendering processes and constant reboots. I was instantly converted back to the Mac and won’t even look back.
Sometimes I feel people only have working knowledge of a PC and just can’t phathom the heaven sent Mac’s performance. For those people, I’d recommend not saying anything about Macs until you’ve tried it out first. The Mac commercials are hillariously TRUE too!