And there will be a comic on/for the 4th of July. For those of you playing at home, the forth is a holiday of some note in the States.
OK, I am being asked about my position on the "new" Mac spots running here in the states. I did send Apple an email saying that their current campaign made them and all Mac users (myself included) look like arrogant pricks and it made me want to lie to people when they asked what I edit on.
I will say that these ads are so out of date that they border on slander. Let's address them shall we?
PC: "I have a ton of manuals to read..."
Are you using a PC Jr??? The last time ANY PC came with so much as a pamphlet, I had just purchased my 100MHz desktop from Gateway. These days all you get is one DVD. No manual, no software disks, nothing. God I wish they came with some kind of documentation - there are times when I truly need it. But now, most PC's ship with a single restore DVD and that's it.
My Mac came with exactly fifteen pounds of user manual. In the interests of full disclosure, I also purchased the full production suite with Final Cut and DVD Studio pro. Fifteen pounds!!!
Mac: "I even talk to that new Japanese camera"
Really? REALLY? You mean you can find a camera from Japan that is compatible with a Mac??? Look, I'm exaggerating here a BIT, but PC computability is no longer an issue. With China bootlegging millions of copies of Microsoft XP, ALL (as in every single one) of the cameras produced in China are PC compatible. Nearly all of the cameras produced in Japan are PC friendly first then Mac friendly second, if ever. I'm not knocking the Mac in this regard but the fact is that Windows - for better or for worse has 90% market penetration worldwide and as such very few digital camera manufacturers are non-Microsoft compliant.
PC: "I had to restart. You know what it's like"
Mac: "No, actually I don't..."
Since the release of XP and OSX, neither system has issues with freezes or restarts. Macs are somewhat less reliable than they used to be with the inclusion of third-party internal components such as graphics cards and Windows boxes are now every bit as robust as Mac's running OSX. Sorry - this is an old claim and happily no longer true. Now if you want to talk about applications "quitting unexpectedly"...
PC: "Actually, the rest of me is in some other boxes..."
My G5 came in six boxes. What the hell is Apple saying here? Buy a laptop?
PC: "We network now - we're friends!"
No. You are most assuredly not friends. I network my Macs and PC's but they are not friends. They talk cordially. Macs will share files. But every Mac will not always see or move files to or from from every other machine on that network. Macs are at best finicky on a network. Ever try to share a Mac internal hard drive to a Windows OS or Unix?
Every claim that Apple has made in these spots is true about PC's running Windows 98. Every one. But in the interest of intellectual honesty, I have to conclude that Apple has finally "stooped" to "lying" in order to appeal to new consumers. At least with Windows, you already know that the product is essentially evil.
