Posted on 08/20/2008 8:20:08 AM PDT by Swordmaker
Apple has begun airing three new "Get a Mac" ads on U.S. network and cable television.
In "Pizza Box," PC stoops to disguising himself as a pizza to get college students to even look his way.
Apple "Get a Mac" ad: Pizza Box
In "Throne," PC sits atop his throne, but Mac puts a damper on his fun.
Apple "Get a Mac" ad: Throne
In "Calming Teas," Windows PC offers user "calming teas" to deal with the mess that is Windows Vista.
Apple "Get a Mac" ad: Calming Teas
See the ads in various sizes and qualities via Apple.com here.
No not at all. I am thinking that Windows has been the primary target because of their huge almost total market share. As Mac's share continues to grow we may see more attacks on Mac. There must be more of the former NSA types that you mentioned in a previous post out there with an interest in achieving their claim to fame by bring down Mac.
LOL, but when you’re right, you’re right. Aren’t you?
Re: Windows targeted because they’re numerous.
They’re targeted because they are easy.
Re: betamax is still dead.
Actually Sony still sells Beta VCRs and tapes.
So mote it be.
Really! As I still have a large Beta tape collection, I must check that out.
Yes, Microsoft operating systems are easier to attack due to design decisions made by Microsoft. It has nothing to do with the numbers of systems out there.
If it were true that popularity is what drives the numbers of attacks then the Apache webserver would have twice as many compromises as Microsoft's IIS. The reverse is true.
Microsoft has more viruses, worms and trojans because Microsoft makes it possible to do those things. Apple (based on BSD Unix) and Linux have many fewer problems because of their design, not because of their numbers.
Would you mind elaborating, for a layman, a bit on those design decisions.
Thanks, Axel.
Denile is not just a river in Egypt.
My understanding is that it is for the limited remaining TV news type cameras.
In my travels I see more and more moing to the HDD type news cameras.
There are still LP’s being pressed just very very very few.
Apple used to give away thousands of computers to schools to “capture” students minds early. With all that seeding you would think it would have more than 8%.
Yeah, that has been my point and question all along. I still can not get an answer to that point.
Just saw the pizza box commercial on TV.
If Apple now runs Microsoft Office, why would I want to run microsoft office on a non microsoft machine? Some people here are just overthinking the answer to that one.
It would seem the best system to the unwashed masses is to run microsoft on microsoft.
In layman's terms:
There are two (basically) parts of an OS. One is the part the user sees and interacts with. This is called userspace. The other part is where the OS works with memory and CPU resources and schedules slices of time for each user's jobs to work. This is called kernelspace.
Microsoft designed Windows such that things that userspace processes can directly engage processes in kernelspace.
As a result a slew of viruses and trojans are able to be accessed by a user and then the malware jumps into kernelspace and invades system-level processes. This allows the malware to run with system-level permissions and hide itself from the user.
Unix and unix-like operating systems have a completely different and much more restrictive set of rules for this kind of thing.
Microsoft really hasn't ever figured out the right way to separate those sets of privileges. Each version of Windows seems to get a little better, but even Vista has the same kinds of problems while Unix has pretty much been immune from this kind of attack.
The obvious question: Why? Was it to make their system, more "user" friendly?
You'd have to ask them. ;)
There is an old saying. "Those that refuse to learn Unix are doomed to reimplement it. Poorly."
But in all seriousness, my guess is because they started out with a single user, single tasking system. DOS only did one thing and only had one user to worry about. Programs were designed with this in mind.
When Microsoft started moving into multitasking systems they had two problems. One, they really didn't have a lot of experience in building multi-tasking systems, and two, many programs written with the assumption that the program could do anything it wanted would break if you tightened things down. This has included programs written and sold by Microsoft including cashcows like MS Office.
So even if the engineers could figure out the right way to run multiple processes with different levels of access, the business guys didn't want them to implement it because it might impact sales of other Microsoft software.
When that happens you end up with a lot of compromises in order to let broken software work and the system attackers out there just love those kinds of compromises.
Colleges are handing out iphones and ipods to students.
Good (long-term) marketing strategy.
If BMWs are such great cars, wouldn't they have more of the market? Ya hear great things about Lamborghinis, but I hardly ever see them...
They have been doing this since the 1980’s.
Apple II’s were at one point the ONLY computer’s in schools (TRS-80’s don’t count)
At one point Palm hand held computers were the ONLY computers.
At some point we have to ask WHY is apple stuck in the rut.
iphones and ipods are just design marketing objects.
Pizza Box commercial is pushing the idea Mac are “same as” Windows machinces because they run Microsoft Office like Windows machines.
If an object is “same as” then it becomes a price issue.
If car A goes from point 1 to point 2, why do I need more expensive car B?
I think we should just come to the conclusion that Mac, like BMW and Lamborghinis, does not want to be the dominant force in the market. Apple just wants to be a niche machine. This is 100% fine as long as you make a profit.
(see also Delorian cars, Rolls Royce, Next Computing, Tandy TRS-80, sinclare computers)
Re: Apple computer giveaway
You are talking ancient history here. Apple gave one Apple II computer to each elementary school in California in 1977-78. That did garner them quite a bit of the personal computer market— at one time as high as 37%— but that was 30 years ago. Today Apple competes for market share against a thousand other computer makers who, for the most part, sell Windows computers.
Thanks for the history.
I hereby retract my statement that it might be a decent marketing ploy.
It obviously didn’t work out too well for them before.
And I imagine there’s even less “customer loyalty” when it comes to mp3 players and cell phones.
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