My heaven of Apple ads was back in 2008:
Consider the difference. The new ad creates an oppressive environment, like something I imagine in those thrilling movies I never go to see or in the kind of video games I've been encouraged to feel amazed by, where a little person — you, supposedly — goes into a surreal environment that is irritatingly lit and pumped full of pulsating sounds and elbowing you endlessly to be excited, be very very excited. Ugh!
And I want to buy a new desktop computer and would never buy a computer/tablet/phone that isn't Apple. I know they don't make ads for the old and they need to beg for favor from the young, but that just makes me worry more. Who are these young people who would bond to Apple over that ad? Where is the beauty, the kindness, the joy?
ADDED: The emphasis on the pattern of ventilation holes in the new ad may trigger trypophobia.
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69 comments:
Okay, now do the "She Comes in Colors" ad.
The Apple Studio really isn't a computer for the masses. it's far too high-powered for that purpose. The form is determined by function, particularly the additional cooling needed for high-powered systems.
They got burned (almost literally) when they got too cute with their design of the smaller, circular Mac Pro last decade, when Intel's chips got hotter in later generations, it needed more cooling, but that case design couldn't accommodate a cooling system powerful enough.
As far as designs are concerned, the MacBook Air, and the Mac mini, very much still adhere to the sleek, stylish aesthetic.
The Mac Studio is like a heavy-duty pickup truck. If you're buying it for looks, you're buying the wrong thing.
If I wanted to interpret the new ad, I'd say it reflects Apple's fear or satisfaction that in retrospect the 1984 that Apple gave us really is a lot like 1984 after all.
Oh, wait... Youre talking about the AD.... Sorry about that.
Yeah, the hellscape dream of the internals was weird. Trying to communicate the power of a computer really is a tough thing in a brief ad.
Dunno. I always disliked the silly pointlessness of a tablet being really thin. Why does anyone care about that? Give me more batteries any day.
Spot on. If you did go to those movies, you might have gotten some Tron and Honey I Shrunk the Kids vibes.
I am the opposite. I would never buy an Apple computer. I have worked with both Apple and DOS computers over the years, and have always found the DOS computers to be more usable and reliable, and to last longer. I have an Apple iPhone still, supplied by my work, but that is my work phone, I have my android for my personal use. Hopefully I will be rid of the iPhone by June! I am in the market for a new laptop, but still have not found what I want.
I’d say nightmare more than hell, and I was thinking that even before the dream reveal.
I went Apple (IIe), then an IBM clone, back to Apple for my first laptop and then decades without an Apple product in my life until they sucked me back in a few years ago. Apple is not what it used to be Tim, nor is the company particularly laudable for its good works, but Google and android are surveillance platforms where you and your data are the product. Apple will probably go that way one day and monetize the data, but for now anyway they sell actual products to make their paper.
...a sojourn in Hell...
I hear ya. So, this guy Gibson is a client and we've been watching in awe what he does, which is basically creating little universes...or sojourns in Hell if you prefer. He says a few seconds of ad or music video takes muliti-megawatt-sucking loads of computing power. Trying to communicate the power of a computer really is a tough thing in a brief ad and perhaps to those in the know this ad is a way to express the power and benefits of Mac Studio.
...or it could be the youngsters just respond to Hellscapes and humanity is doomed. I'd say it's 50/50...
Hah. Funny I am 68 near your age I think. That apple ad you do not like has the opposite effect on me. I want one now!!! I bonded with it. It is not an age thing?
"Who are these young people who would bond to Apple over that ad? Where is the beauty, the kindness, the joy?"
Which young people are we talking about? The pansexual pyro-foxes or the genderfluid cat-girls? Maybe it's the reddit bi-curious incels? Before we can answer the question about the ad's lack of beauty, kindness, and joy we need to know which young people we're talking about.
I'll go ahead and guess that it's the cat-girls. Cat-girls love Apple.
I'm planning on buying the first Apple of my life soon. I am fed up with Windows "upgrades" every stinking month. Does Apple do this too? (I'm 67, and liked the ad.)
If you're buying it for looks, you're buying the wrong thing.
To be fair a competing PC still comes in essentially the same tower, a crappy sheet metal box we've all known and 'loved' since the '80s...
Who are these young people who would bond to Apple over that ad? Where is the beauty, the kindness, the joy?
Who were their teachers at the elementary school, middle school, high school, and university levels?
The heavy use of text to sell features reminds me of this brilliant parody of Microsoft designing the Ipod box from 2006. Apple has become exactly what it wasn't.
Thanks for reminding me of the New Soul ad. It was enchanting to me too.
I’m going to need to upgrade my PC. Windows 11 won’t work with my 10year old.
I always buy custom spec PCs from a reliable gamer company. I get all the latest and greatest features and max out the ram and solid state hard drive.
This makes the machine compatible for about seven years.
I am constitutionally unable to over-pay for hardware, so no Apple products for me.
"To be fair a competing PC still comes in essentially the same tower, a crappy sheet metal box we've all known and 'loved' since the '80s..."
It's practical. It sits on the floor, off of precious desk space. The Apple in the ad sits on your desk? Dumb.
"The Apple Studio really isn't a computer for the masses. it's far too high-powered for that purpose."
I know. I'm just waiting for a new desktop with a 27" screen, like my current desktop. In the meantime, I'm interested in the general branding and aesthetics of Apple.
"The form is determined by function, particularly the additional cooling needed for high-powered systems."
Yes, I realize that the ad's obsession with holes is about something functional: the ventilation system. Why is there this blocky thing that sits on the desk as opposed to a computer built into the back of the screen? I know the answer and that it has to do with why I don't need this little monster.
"I always disliked the silly pointlessness of a tablet being really thin."
It's not pointless. You want to fit it into an easy to carry bag. It's more like a iPad... but this was before iPads came out.
Also it looked really cool. I bought one right away and I had people coming up to talk to me about it, gushing, and this was when I was living in New York City and hanging out with it in SoHo.
Nothing pointless about looking stylish and cool!
"I'm just waiting for a new desktop with a 27" screen,"
Why the need to 'wait'? Is what you want not available now?
Apple models confuse me. I can't figure out what's what (admittedly, I haven't tried very hard yet), but I'm in the market for a desktop with a 27"-ish screen.
I have been using an Apple Mini as my desktop for ten years and it works great. You can buy a flat screen tv to use as the monitor (which I have done). It will pack in a suitcase easily and wherever I go, I just hook it to the hdmi port on a TV and it's ready to go.
The ads have different goals. The 2008 ad is selling a design to ordinary consumers, while the new one is selling power to high-end users.
In either case, you're paying more than twice what you would for a competing Windows product, but any Apple user will have made their peace with that trade-off long ago.
White privilege? I remember when IBM sold black, titanium-infused systems (e.g. ThinkPad), NOW (pun intended) outsourced, that were both high style and performance, without the bureaucratic nuance, noise.
Get the cheapest laptop and add an external keyboard and big monitor, is my version of a modern desktop.
"Nothing pointless about looking stylish and cool!"
The pansexual pyro-foxes agree with you! But not the asexual queer-adjacent latinxes.
I am anti Apple. I will NEVER own an I anything. You can keep it.
It sits on the floor, off of precious desk space. The Apple in the ad sits on your desk? Dumb.
Clean off your desk you slob...
My first reaction to the ad: Apple was too cheap to hire the real Billie Eilish?
"Get the cheapest laptop and add an external keyboard and big monitor, is my version of a modern desktop."
Yep.
I have an iPad, the only Apple product I've ever owned, because I use a lighting auditing software that requires it. Not a fan.
I had an iPhone for work which I occasionally used for map directions. One day we were to meet up with family halfway between Sun Prairie and Milwaukee for dinner, and not sure about which exit to look for eastbound on I-94, I asked Siri for directions to the nearest Machine Shed restaurant. Siri responded with the address of the one in Rockford, Illinois.
I thought, well, maybe it is closer than Pewaukee, so we drove on. About a half hour later, I asked again. Still got the Rockford address. So I watched the exits intent on not missing the right one, wgich I found without help. In the parking lot of the Machine Shed in Pewaukee, in my irritated Edward Woodward voice, I asked Siri where was the neatest Machine Shed restaurant. "The Machine Shed Restaurant is on East State Street in Rockford, Illinois..."
My first reaction of the ad is it is a response to the long running “Intel Inside” branding phrase. These were ubiquitous when Intel was always cutting edge. Nowadays, not so much, though I note Intel is in a re-building phase. So instead of Intel inside, its Apple inside. As an aside, I love seeing the insides of things in general. Removing the casing of something and seeing how it works is pretty interesting in most cases.
I, too, am waiting for the new 27” iMAC…. (tapping fingers)
I once asked Siri where the nearest 7-Eleven was. She told me "7 minus 11 is negative 4". I kid you not.
I have turned off every Siri-tentacle I can find on my iPad.
This makes the machine compatible for about seven years.
I've been running Linux on a Falcon Northwest i5 Tiki that I bought in 2013, and I still get better timings than some folks running on modern high end hardware. I don't do heavy computation anymore, mostly editing and compiling, so I don't need a ton of cores. What makes the machine usable is a big screen, good keyboard, and comfortable chair. I may get an adjustable desk to help with the ergonomics. Keyboards are the hardest kit to find.
I am looking into backup hardware at this point, nothing lasts for ever. I'll probably go for silent, pretty much any machine will have enough performance. If Linux on Windows (WSL) gets good enough, I may go that route.
Like Tim, I'm the opposite. I like the first commercial; it's funny, light-hearted, adventurous. Though it still gives off the vibe that the user is not in control. The second commercial makes me cringe because I dislike the music and the idea that my soul is somehow involved. Neither would make me consider buying an Apple product.
Though the extent of my gaming is mahjongg and spider solitaire, I bought a gaming computer a few years ago when I got Google Fiber because I am impatient. I like speed and multiple monitors. An unexpected benefit is that my grandchildren never hesitate to spend the weekend with me.
Is a new model 27" iMac something that is imminent or expected?
I'm scared of boxes
And I'm scared of holes
I'm scared of dying just to prove I got a soul
Hey Mancha
Protect me from the dogs
I'm scared of darkness
and I'm scared of light
And I'm scared of hippies telling me that it's alright
Hey Mancha
Protect me from the dogs
I'm scared of hate
And I'm scared of love
And I'm scared of Chicken Little skies from up above
Hey Mancha
Protect me from the dogs
I'm scared of happiness
And I'm scared of bliss
And I'm scared I can't talk my way back out of this
Hey Mancha
Protect me from the dogs
I'm scared of me
And I'm scared of you
And I'm scared of God and all the things he puts me through
Hey Mancha
Protect me from the dogs
Protect me from the dogs
Protect me from the dogs
- Hey Mancha, Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkE90GZTuQk&ab_channel=JerryJoseph%26TheJackmormons-Topic
I don't recall the old ad, and the new one is nightmarish. I really have to wonder what the appeal is supposed to be . . . but then I'm as little tech-minded about computers as I am about cars.
Every job I've had since 1980 or so required computer skills and knowledge to a certain point. I kept up, but only as much as I had to in each case and never spent any time trying to become expert, much less a creative pioneer.
Nietzsche was on to something when he defined the barbarism of his age and place: technical proficiency married to cultural and creative mediocrity.
I rewatched the 2008 ad with the sound on. I still don't recall the ad, but that song! How awful.
To me that says that 2022 is the new 1984.
A few years ago I would have been the target audience for the Mac Studio products, and the ad was not an appealing ad to me...
The products look really nice though.
'Yes, I realize that the ad's obsession with holes is about something functional: the ventilation system. Why is there this blocky thing that sits on the desk as opposed to a computer built into the back of the screen? I know the answer and that it has to do with why I don't need this little monster.'
As someone who has used high-powered Apple products since they were invented, I (and many pros) prefer modular systems.
If a better processor comes out, I can keep my cool monitor and just upgrade that.
If a better monitor comes out, I can keep my cool processor.
Related to that is the fact that if one thing fails, not everything fails.
I find this to be pretty common among power users...
The new ad is focused on the technophiles that have largely shunned Apple for many reasons. The numbers mean something to them (us) and the music and visuals are very much appealing to gamers as well as to the more masculine market of coders and other geeks.
The 2008 ad was classic Apple, appealing to people who just wanted something sleek and cool and useful. How it worked or what it could actually do were inconsequential to Apple's marketing.
Dare I say it: The new ad appeals to men and the old ads appealed to women. Make of it what you will.
Good to see the obligatory Black computer nerd. Or was that Tiger woods?
The add invoked for me the feeling of being trapped inside the Apple eco-system. Ugh. Windows computers have a complete Ubuntu Linux subsystem and also Android. At my last job, the only computers that ever broke down were the Macs. Those poor fools who insisted on Macs were constantly running out to the the genius bar at the Apple store.
It does not set off my trypophobia. There is an ad that does that's out now, but I can't think of what it is. It might be something with a dried lotus flower, or maybe a Biore ad.
The Mac Studio ad was creepy, as if they hired Tim Burton to redo Alice in Wonderland.
I envisioned her waking up at her desk because she's pulling another 12-hour shift because Nike demanded it.
Heard at the Genius Bar: "Please high shamans of Apple, hear my request for I have been waiting here low these many hours to beg your indulgence. My fire wire port no longer communes with my storage device. It is an old machine but still deserving of care."
Apple Genius: "Be gone foul heathen. You plugged it in wrong, also you should have purchased new hardware many generations ago. You are not worthy of the pristine countenance that is Apple"
User: "I shall atone by purchasing many thousands of dollars worth of new relics. Please let me back into the sweet fold of Big Mother's embrace."
I think the real audience for the Mac Studio won't care about this ad at all.
The specs are what appeal to me, even though I just bought an M1 Mac Mini a few months ago. I bought the Mini even though it didn't have the amount of RAM I wanted because my iMac was shitting the bed and I needed something right away. But my Mini struggles with certain tasks, and so the Mac Studio just leapfrogged to the top of my list of future purchases.
I just have to find a way to justify it to my wife first, lol
Oof, that new one is terrible. They made two really big errors off the top:
1. It's nearly two minutes long. Two minutes is the new War & Peace.
2. They didn't use Yael Naim again.
"And I ... would never buy a computer/tablet/phone that isn't Apple."
How bizarre. I hate the things. Over-designed, under-powered, totally inflexible, vastly over-priced. The one thing you can say for an Apple product is that it will never make you wish you were more capable than you are. The only things it is good for require only the most rudimentary abilities.
"I always buy custom spec PCs from a reliable gamer company."
That's the way to go if you need real power.
“ Why the need to 'wait'? Is what you want not available now?”
There’s a major improvement that is available only with the smaller screen, so I prefer my old one with the big screen.
If they put the new processor into a 27" iMac they’ll cannibalize biz for the 27" pro rig with the nightmarish ad. Gonna be awhile.
Ann Althouse said...
There’s a major improvement that is available only with the smaller screen, so I prefer my old one with the big screen.
M1 chip or are they improving the display?
"There’s a major improvement that is available only with the smaller screen, so I prefer my old one with the big screen."
Ahh!
I dislike laptops because of their cramped screens. However, I am thinking I should buy an Apple laptop first to make sure I'll be ok with the Apple operating system. I've been decades in the Windows world.
You will be waiting a long time for the 27" iMac. It appears that it will not be refreshed. 24" is the only iMac now. If you want one, you are stuck with the Intel model, and only from the Refurbished stock for as long as that lasts.
"You will be waiting a long time for the 27" iMac. It appears that it will not be refreshed. 24" is the only iMac now."
It's not possible to buy a 27" monitor separately?
"It's not possible to buy a 27" monitor separately?"
Yes, it is. you can either hook that up to an iMac as a second monitor, or you can skip the iMac and buy a Mac Mini or the new Mac Studio and attach the separate monitor to that.
"I am the opposite. I would never buy an Apple computer. I have worked with both Apple and DOS computers over the years, and have always found the DOS computers to be more usable and reliable, and to last longer."
"Last longer?" Hmmm...I'm still working on a Mac Pro from 2007. It can't run newer software, but it works fine! Is that true of DOS computers?
I will, however, finally upgrade and get either a Mac Mini with the next generation of Apple chips OR a Mac Studio later this year, depending on the appearance of upgraded Mac Minis and which gives the best balance of power and price.
I do not like Apple products. The only one I own is an old iPod for the car. Apple is like Bose - both have proprietary systems that are incompatible with any other products.
Both Bose and Apple are really good at design and marketing. Both are over-priced.
What do I have instead of Bose speakers? Two Salk Song 3a towers for the front pair, a Hsu Research sub, Hsu speakers for the rear, powered by a Yamaha AVR and an Oppo universal player. I've heard 30K systems at Axpona that don't sound as good as mine.
Thanks, Robert.
Sure you can buy a separate monitor, but then that's not an iMac, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of it. An iMac is a monitor-and-computer in one enclosure. Apple used to make 2 sizes, but now they only make the small one, and the implication after this week's event is that they will no longer make the larger one. They haven't come right out and said it but you can't buy the 27" one any more and they pointedly didn't mention it during the Studio announcement.
"An iMac is a monitor-and-computer in one enclosure."
And, thank you Michael.
Can one buy an Apple laptop, and then use it to drive an external 27" monitor?
24" is just too small.
"Can one buy an Apple laptop, and then use it to drive an external 27" monitor?"
Yes.
Thanks again, Robert. Seems like the ticket.
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