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Apple Humor
"Changing the opinion of a Mac fan is impossible, and not really necessary. Just leave them alone and let them believe what they want. Worldwide there are probably more people who play the banjo than use Apple computers. It’s really not a big enough group of people to warrant an argument, much less the constant flame wars we seem to have around here."
- a comment on an article about Apple’s false advertising
Comments:
Humm, not doubting the fact of what the article says, it very well could be true that Apple had miss information, I’m not going to take the time to figure out who release what when, etc. And was giving it to the public. But I do think its a little silly for Dell to throw up flags on this, figuring none of there systems even are at 64-bit yet. Neither Dell or Gateway have even implemented a (ItaniumŪ 2) or a (Athlon Opteron). None that I can see at www.dell.com or www.gateway.com - seems like they just wanted to complain about something! Seems to me that it would even be a worth complaint from Dell - if they even sold a machine that had a 64 bit processor in it. Oh my bad...just looked again. They do have a few of there server machines implementing a Itanium. But who is going to spend $12k + for a stinkin rackmount server to do what a PPC 970 G5 can do? Not I.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?cs=555&oc=PE3250PAD2&m_1=P32131&c=us&l=en&s=biz
whatever. As posted in a forum in response to this claim by dell : They {Apple} should start an ad: "windows, the world’s crappiest operating system". Then no one cold argue with it.
So your contention is that:
1. You have to sell the product in question in order to say that false advertising is wrong.
2. Since Apple has finally been officially called on their grand tradition of misleading performance statements, they should instead make their ads purely subjective, using terms like "crappiest" which cannot be quantified... and these "ads" should be about their competitors’ products instead of their own.
On the one hand, it’s ridiculous; on the other, it can’t be much worse than the current sorry state of affairs.
I could understand if Dell was selling a similar product that beat out the G5 in Benchmarks, and in some way possible that Apple’s Statements were causing loss in sales to Dell, but there not...but its not its a bogus argument on Dell’s part as far as I am concerned. Honestly what is Dell’s beef behind this complaint. Granted the statement is a little old. As far as I can tell it hasn’t been used since the released the machine. Its been what a year since it has been first introduced?
As for grand tradition, what else have they been misleading in?
Honestly this discussion will go nowhere like the other post, and replies. Really. I don’t understanding the Apple trash talk. I’ve been on both sides of the fence...I choose Apple. So be it. And by the way - I don’t play the Banjo.
> I could understand if Dell was selling a similar product
> that beat out the G5 in Benchmarks, and in some way possible
> that Apple’s Statements were causing loss in sales to Dell,
> but there not...but its not its a bogus argument on Dell’s
> part as far as I am concerned. Honestly what is Dell’s beef
> behind this complaint.
First of all, as I’ve already stated, you don’t have to be a competitor of Apple’s to believe that false advertising is wrong. But Dell is a competitor of Apple’s. Dell sells computers, so when Apple makes an ad containing false statements designed to make Apple’s computers look better, Dell obviously is not going to be happy about that. The fact that Dell doesn’t sell the exact same product is irrelevant, just as it would be irrelevant if Dell didn’t sell computers at all. This could have been a class action by a consumer group against Apple and it would be just as relevant.
What else has Apple been misleading in? The "benchmarks" that Apple runs itself instead of having an independent lab do the tests, which show that the Mac is faster than the PC on certain Photoshop filters, and conclude that the Mac is therefore superior?
The most blatant example is of course Steve Jobs’ presentation at Macworld 2001. Let’s see... it was a Photoshop comparison, as usual, since we all know that Photoshop filters are the most representative test of performance for the majority of computer users. But the version of Photoshop used on the PC didn’t include SSE2 optimizations for the P4, though it included the equivalent (Altivec) optimizations on the G4. Worse than that, the PC version was linked with a flag that enabled a chunk of debugging code that made it drastically slower than the previous version of Photoshop for the PC, let alone the new version for the Mac. (This bug was conveniently fixed by Adobe shortly after.) It was widely speculated that they used PC600 memory instead of PC800 in the PC, another thing that drastically reduces the performance of the P4. Apple never released any details of the PC’s configuration, though, nor anything about the tests (which filters and options were used, source images, etc), to allow outside groups to verify their results. If their 733MHz G4 was honestly faster than a 1.5GHz P4, and they had an honest benchmark to prove it, wouldn’t they have wanted to show it the world? (And by "it" I mean the benchmark, not Steve Jobs saying "I’ve seen the benchmark.")
Despite the broken PC setup and the fact that the "test program" was optimized for the Mac, Apple used that "benchmark" for a year as the basis for their "Power to burn. (Pentiums.)" advertisement.
> Honestly this discussion will go nowhere like the other post, and replies.
"Go nowhere" as in you continually make incorrect/irrelevant statements and I continually correct them with facts about Apple’s history? I’d say that’s probably an accurate forecast.
> I don’t understanding the Apple trash talk.
What you don’t understanding is that no one here is trash-talking Apple. When an Apple-user is presented with some unpleasant truth about the Mac, he calls it "torment" or "trash talk." To Apple fanatics, the Mac isn’t a computer, it’s holy, and you can’t say anything bad about it regardless of whether it’s true. Case in point: I link to an article about false advertising by Apple, and you try to change the subject by saying Dell doesn’t sell a 64bit machine, which to any rational person, has nothing whatever to do with the question of whether Apple’s ad was accurate.
All I can say is my new AMD 64 makes me feel all warm inside. Sure it doesn’t do anything more than a 32 bit processor at the moment but it’s the chicken and the egg idea. The processor has to be there before the software can use it.
Having a computer that has been advertised to stick it’s tongue out at me would make me sick. It may make some people feel warm inside but those people are hippies. Hippies stink. I think that’s all I have to say.
I think it is time for me to sit back and admire my computer some more so pardon me while me and compy have a private moment.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/content/auto/epaper/editions/sunday/business_04c6eefad54040240064.html - interesting article. I’d have to say I agree with him.
From the article:
> Most of the PC world seems unaware that there’s a feud.
> To them, the Mac is a niche player, a quaint hanger-on.
And most PC users couldn’t care less about the whole issue. To most PC users, it’s not a "feud" or "debate." Most PC users don’t try to "defend" their platform the way most Mac users feel an inherent need to do. To PC users, these rabid Mac fanatics are like animals at the zoo: they live in a different world, and sometimes it’s fun to go and watch them.
> I’m a disappointment to rabid enthusiasts on both sides.
> Today’s column will finally give foaming-from-the-mouth
> owners of Macs and PCs something to agree on.
He’s trying to play nice to both "sides" of this "debate," but the truth is foaming-at-the-mouth doesn’t really apply to PC users. There may be a few, but they’re the minority by far. In the Mac world, on the other hand, the majority of users have some amount of this rabidness, and the ones who speak out about Macs are usually severely rabid. PC users just use their computers and get on with their lives; Mac users are in love with their brand and lash out violently at anyone who doesn’t praise Apple.
> Stability... Even so, both the Mac and PC crash at times.
> I’ll award an A-minus to the Mac and a B to the PC.
Load of crap. PC does not equal Windows. My PC crashes far less than most Macs and Windows systems.
> Worms and viruses: The Macintosh leaves the PC in the dust...
> The PC gets a D-minus, the Mac gets an A.
Load of crap. PC does not equal Windows. My PC gets fewer viruses than most Macs and Windows systems. (To his credit, the author does point out why Windows machines (which he incorrectly refers to as all PCs) get so many more viruses: because Macs are statistically insignificant, and it’d be a waste of time to write a virus for a platform that relatively no one uses.)
> Bang for the buck: It’s not fair to use the speed of
> the processor chip as the guide. Macintoshes with a
> slower megahertz rating perform faster than a PC with
> the same megahertz rating.
Load of crap, with an official name: "The Megahertz Myth." This is the myth that Macs are "just faster" regardless of the actual speed of the system, and it exists because of the false advertising done by Apple, as mentioned above.
Also... "Macs with a slower rating perform faster than a PC with the same rating." Oh, I see. Slower Macs are faster than PCs which are just as fast.
> Graphic artists have long seen the Mac as the machine of
> choice. It’s not just prejudice, either.
Load of crap. Prejudice is exactly what it is. It may have been true long ago and far away, but it’s not true anymore. The graphics apps available on the Mac are available on the PC too.
> The Mac has better electronic conventions when it comes to
> displaying accurate color on the screen.
"better electronic conventions"?? Who does this guy think he’s kidding? Macs use CRTs and LCDs just like PCs do. This is not only a load of crap, it’s a load of crap that he pulled directly out of his own rear end. (But at least on this one, he isn’t spreading age-old Mac propaganda that he read on some Mac fanatic message board.)
"Load of crap?" Anthony, you sound like a foaming-at-the-mouth rabid PC owner.
Or, did you get that line from Strong Bad?
And, hey, what about foaming-at-the-mouth rabid Open Source advocates? Any room for me in there?
P.S. I did think anonymous was a little funny when he said "And by the way - I don’t play the Banjo." That bit cracked me up. Banjo is such a tight category. Wouldn’t you hate to be in the oboe, or glockenspiel category?
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