Artificial Cheese

I’m sure you’ve seen Apple’s recent advertising campaign starring the Mac Guy (Justin Long) and the PC Guy (John Hodgman). This really shouldn’t be a showdown, because the issue has been settled. Earlier last week Apple’s ad department decided to fire the “Mac Guy”. The reason is pretty obvious, but I think that Seth Stevenson’s ad review at Slate said it best when he called the Mac Guy:

“…just the sort of unshaven, hoodie-wearing, hands-in-pockets hipster we’ve always imagined when picturing a Mac enthusiast. He’s perfect. Too perfect. It’s like Apple is parodying its own image while also cementing it.”

These advertisements have always bothered me. Not because of Justin Long, or even the fact that I don’t like using Macs, but because they shout proof of hypocracy between Apple’s ad campaign and their technical roadmap. The audience that Apple is targetting with these advertisements may see these clever exchanges between PC guy and Mac guy as arguments of Macs over PCs.

Well that isn’t the case. What these advertisements are claiming is that the Mac’s operating system is superior to Microsoft Windows. If you click on the first link in this post, you’ll notice that each point made against PCs is actually a point against Windows. Whether it be the issue with drivers or the issue of viruses, these are Windows issues, not PC issues.

Why is Apple hypocritial in making these claims? Boot Camp. Boot Camp is a feature built into Mac’s latest operating systems that allow Mac machines to run Windows. Well…why would you trash Windows in an ad campaign and then turn around and painstakingly develop a feature into your own systems to run Windows?

From a business perspective, its clear that Apple makes most of its money by selling computer hardware, so Boot Camp is good because it sells more hardware. On the other hand, the advertisements are good because they make convicing arguments on behalf of the Mac and its operating system. Unfortunately, Apple chose to have its cake and eat it too by implementing Boot Camp and then pointing out problems with the software they plan to support.