Apple Legal Asks Microsoft to Stop Lying

[Vincent Ferrari]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/apple_legal_forces_microsoft_to_stop_falsely_advertising_macbook_pro_price/' target='_blank'>http://www.macdailynews.com/index.p...book_pro_price/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"In addition to falsely advertising the wrong price for the 15-inch MacBook Pro, the ad has always been misleading in that the shot of the Apple product shown before the price tag is of a now-discontinued aluminum 13-inch MacBook, which at the time retailed for $1,299 and has since been replaced by the new 13-inch MacBook Pro starting at $1,199 or $800 less than the 15.4-inch MacBook Pro price card that Microsoft shows in their misleading ad. Not only do they lie in the visuals, but Microsoft lies in the audio, too: In the ad, while showing the 13-inch MacBook, Microsoft's actress states, "This Mac costs $2000""</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1248094142.usr18053.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>Some people ask me why these ads get me so annoyed and this is a prime reason.&nbsp; While MacDailyNews has a habit of getting a bit inflammatory in their posts, they make an excellent point here, particularly about the dope at Microsoft, Kevin Turner, saying the call he got was the greatest ever because it proved the ads were working!</p><p>Yeah sure, Kevin.&nbsp; That's exactly the reason you got that call.&nbsp; It had nothing to do with you outwardly lying about the price of the 13" (then) MacBook.&nbsp; It was all Apple fear. There's an axiom in business, and Microsoft would do well to pay attention to it.&nbsp; When you're number one in a market, don't bring any attention to number two.</p><p>And for those of you who complain that Apple's ads are just as inaccurate... Cool...&nbsp; Since there were 40 or so of them, I'm sure you have plenty of examples of where Apple attacked Microsoft with something as inaccurate as a $900 difference in the price of one of its products, so share them so we all can enjoy!</p>

[Macguy59]

Time for popcorn, a Corona and my easy chair. This could get interesting :p

[edvislee]

Wow! Mac people are sooooooooo.... defensive. You'd have thought someone said that Santa Claus doesn't exist and that Christmas was invented as a quasi religious/holiday stimulus package to boost end of year sales for long-suffering merchants. What EXACTLY is so bad about these commercials? Do they bite into the mystique ( read: fluff, misdirection, and overexaggeration) that built apple? Apple users like to think that they are anti-establishment, environmentally-friendly, hip-trendy, power users who simply refuse to kowtow to the evil Microsoft Empire. Let's be honest... they're just afraid to get down to the nuts and bolts of REALLY tweaking, tuning, and learning an OS and its hardware. By the way, what are good examples of "rotten" Apple? How about all the claims that the Apple Iphone "pioneered" GPS, etc. on a phone- such BUNK! Pocket PC (read Microsoft) users have been doing these things for almost 10 years.
Booyah!

[griph]

Wow! Mac people are sooooooooo.... defensive. You'd have thought someone said that Santa Claus doesn't exist and that Christmas was invented as a quasi religious/holiday stimulus package to boost end of year sales for long-suffering merchants. What EXACTLY is so bad about these commercials? Do they bite into the mystique ( read: fluff, misdirection, and overexaggeration) that built apple? Apple users like to think that they are anti-establishment, environmentally-friendly, hip-trendy, power users who simply refuse to kowtow to the evil Microsoft Empire. Let's be honest... they're just afraid to get down to the nuts and bolts of REALLY tweaking, tuning, and learning an OS and its hardware. By the way, what are good examples of "rotten" Apple? How about all the claims that the Apple Iphone "pioneered" GPS, etc. on a phone- such BUNK! Pocket PC (read Microsoft) users have been doing these things for almost 10 years.
Booyah!

Hmmm
Joined March 2005 - and only one post? Not an Apple fan then? :)

[Deslock]

How about all the claims that the Apple Iphone "pioneered" GPS, etc. on a phone- such BUNK! Pocket PC (read Microsoft) users have been doing these things for almost 10 years.
I've never seen a claim the Apple pioneered the GPS-equipped phone. But yes many of the iPhone's features existed in prior mobile devices.

But while the iPhone can't do some things, Apple deserves credit for releasing the first phone with a capacitance touchscreen, multitouch, and visual voice mail. Additionally, the iPhone might have been the first phone with a 3.5" >QVGA screen squeezed into a <.5" thick, <5 ounce formfactor (I'm not sure). Less measurable, but also important, is the iPhone's near-desktop browser experience (despite the lack of flash), effective and intuitive gesture-based interface, automatic and lag-free orientation switching, proximity sensor, tight application integration, and the app store.

Let's be honest... they're just afraid to get down to the nuts and bolts of REALLY tweaking, tuning, and learning an OS and its hardware.
I would say that the percentage of Apple users that don't tweak their OS is not greater than the percentage of Windows users that don't tweak their OS. At the university I work at, the computer science department is mostly Mac and the majority of OSX users I know are programmers who prefer a Unix-based environment (but don't want to deal with Linux... though that's often not the PITA it used to be).

Back to the topic, Apple is not going to get a lot of sympathy given how smarmy their ads are. But I agree that Microsoft shouldn't be so misleading. The reality isn't so much that Apple is overpriced (some of their models are and some aren't) but rather that they simply don't sell low-end hardware. Compared to mid-range and high-end Dell, Lenovo, and Sony models, Apple's base 13" MacBook Pro and iMac are actually pretty reasonable (especially with the educational pricing and specials... which pretty much anyone can qualify for).

For example, the 13" MacBook Pro's education price is $1099 and that comes with a free iPod touch and printer after rebate (both of which can be sold on Ebay, making the effective price of the MacBook Pro <$900). It's not a cheap laptop, but it comes with a maglock connector, tiny power brick, high quality LED screen, aluminum unibody case (it's the most solid laptop I've ever used), backlit keyboard, fast CPU, large multitouch pad, FW800, and 58 WHr battery (real-world battery life of 6-7 hours) in a thin 4.5 pound package. Also Apple's support is excellent and OSX is at least comparable to more expensive versions of Vista.

To get a Windows laptop of that caliber, you're going to spend a similar amount, if not more.