The WOW Starts Now. Just not on your iBook

The funny thing about marketing Vista with a stock photo of a MacBook is that these days the Mac could actually be running Vista. Too bad that's an iBook.

[Thanks, hkkevinc and Lkr721993 ]

[Nick @ Mar 5th 2007 11:42PM]

Huh. Weird.

[randy @ Mar 5th 2007 11:44PM]

"The WOW starts NOW"?

Pffft. This campaign was doomed from the start.

[Scott @ Mar 5th 2007 11:50PM]

As much as it pains me to correct, that's actually a Sony laptop, http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start?ProductSKU=VGNN270E%2fW&Dept=computers&CategoryName=cpu_VAIONotebookComputers_NSeries

As much as it looks like an apple one. I work at Best Buy and we had a couple hoots over that though.

[StevO @ Mar 5th 2007 11:47PM]

For all the flak it gets, the new system is actually not that bad. I mean, I'm using the voice recognition right now to write this, comment. Of course, I still think that $400 is a ridiculous price to pay for an operating system that will not run on most computers.

And yes, it's clear ironic that invest up runs better on Macs that it does on dell's.

[brian @ Mar 6th 2007 12:15AM]

"And yes, it's clear ironic that invest up runs better on Macs that it does on dell's."

hahaha!! The voice recognition software is clearly working flawlessly! :P

[Steve @ Mar 6th 2007 12:00AM]

scott, the pics on your link show the same side of the notebook and that ain't it. it's an ibook.

[Will @ Mar 6th 2007 1:05AM]

Zoom in on the full sized picture. The side is definitely two toned with the gray on top like the iBook and it's just been muted in photoshop. If you look where the vents should be on the iBook, you'll also find some very sloppy photoshop work. The kicker? One mouse button.

[kazumashell @ Mar 6th 2007 1:46AM]

@Scott
"As much as it pains me to correct, that's actually a Sony laptop,"

Maybe you should have LOOKED at the picture before you posted it. I'm glad you and your buddies at Best Buy had a couple of "hoots" over that. I wish I worked there, sounds like an absolute riot!

[Nick @ Mar 6th 2007 10:26AM]

i have to agree with Steve and Will on this one. I also noticed the single mouse button and the cappy sloppy photoshop job at trying to cover up to two tone, but also if you look at your linked picture of the Sony laptop you'll notice that it has sharp cut corners. If you look at the advertisement the computer in question has rounded corners much like an ibook.

[sc00ter @ Mar 5th 2007 11:50PM]

im not sure if you guys understand... its windows vista on a mac book. currently that isnt possible

[mars @ Mar 5th 2007 11:53PM]

sc00ter - yes, it is possible, actually.

[Nick @ Mar 6th 2007 11:03AM]

Actually Mister "leet" sc00ter - it is possible, it's currently running on my Macbook Pro and gf's Macbook.
Doink.

[Matt @ Mar 6th 2007 12:05AM]

LOOK AT THE SIDE PORTS!! its an ibook!!


"by ngyoshi 13 hours ago
+ 0 diggs
Yes. At Micro Center we make all of our banners and posters for the most part and that is one of them. Apple computers are more aesthetically pleasing which is a good reason why we may of used it is this poster. We also were in a bit of a rush to get all stores across the country ready for the release. "


AN IBOOK not a sony.

[Chicksta @ Mar 6th 2007 10:01AM]

I think it's important to stress that these signs are *Micro Center signs*, not Microsoft, and Micro Center always makes horrible, inaccurate signs. I'm amazed they spelled 'wow' correctly.

[kinimod @ Mar 6th 2007 12:06AM]

I ran RC1 on my Macbook with only 512 megs of ram. I have a copy of Vista Home Premium coming for my daugthers machine that I will probably just install on my Macbook (now with 1 gig of ram).

[Jeff @ Mar 6th 2007 12:07AM]

Let's all TALK IN random CAPS.

[Matt @ Mar 6th 2007 12:09AM]

YES LETS. hmm CAPS battle ILL need some MUNCHIES.

[dpaanlka @ Mar 6th 2007 1:36AM]

It's an iBook. I'm literally looking at one right now.

The ports visible (from left to right) Ethernet, Firewire, USB, USB, Video, Headphone. There's a modem jack further to the left, covered up by the yellow coloring.

[netdroid9 @ Mar 6th 2007 1:40AM]

So? Microsoft could care less if you bought a macbook, so long as you buy Vista with it. They're a software company, they could care less about what you use to run it.

[Nick @ Mar 6th 2007 7:54AM]

Okay, but the laptop in question in the iBook, not the MacBook.

[Austin @ Mar 6th 2007 2:55PM]

If they didn't care what kind of hardware you ran why would they keep you from running it in virtualization.

[Greg @ Mar 6th 2007 1:45AM]

i dont know if id call it an "amazing OS", seeing as its an imitation of Mac OSx, and a fairly flawed one at that. Even Bill Gates cant deny that one.

[e_rocm @ Mar 6th 2007 2:27AM]

"i dont know if id call it an "amazing OS", seeing as its an imitation of Mac OSx"

How so? Microsoft copied spotlight? Oh wait, that was in the works (and announced) long before the feature was announced for Tiger. Gadgets..err..Widgets? Nope, both Apple and Microsoft stole those from Konfabulator. Well Apple was most certainly innovative with its "Front Row" functionality. Hmmm, FrontRow acts a lot like the Windows Media Center that has been around since 2003 (except Media Center can do a whole lot more i.e. SD & HD TV, tons of online content, XBOX 360 extender, etc.). Maybe it was the new up coming Time machine? Wrong again, this was a feature ripped from Microsoft Server 2003 (Shadow Copies). I know, Apple totally invented the two button mouse...need I say more.

Vista is not perfect but it is far from an imitation of OS X. On the contrary, as you can see above, it looks like Apple is the one doing the imitating.

[Scott @ Mar 6th 2007 1:55AM]

Speaking of Best Buy... this bit reminds me of some in-house signage they used to have that always cracked me up. It was a picture of some woman, holding a computer mouse. But she was holding it with both hands, arms outstretched, like it was a REMOTE CONTROL - complete with the cable dangling off the end.

I used to work in the advertising industry, and I've long forgotten how many times co-workers just "made shit up". :/

[LandMineHare @ Mar 6th 2007 6:09AM]

And let us not forget, that if Apple never licensed it's user interface technologies to Microsoft, Vista never would have existed in the horrendously ugly yet yawnful state it is now.

[Nick @ Mar 6th 2007 7:59AM]

"On the contrary, as you can see above, it looks like Apple is the one doing the imitating."

How does an outdated computer on a Vista ad mean Apple is the one doing the imitating?

I would think it's more of Microsoft trying to make their ads attractive.

But they can do that with other laptops too. Maybe they didn't look hard enough. Time to update Windows Live Search?

[captain underpants and the bringdown gang @ Mar 25th 2007 6:23AM]

First apple invented widgets back in the 80's they never implimented them though.

Second Apple works on more than 1 OS at a time (did you really think they only take 1 and a half years for each OS upgrade?)so all the features in tiger were planned and tested years before.

Finally, there is an old saying in the business when someone comes out with a better product than you, either make yours even better or copy it.

[Deezee @ Mar 6th 2007 2:34AM]

^^^^^ Finally somebody that makes sense. Completely agree.

[endless @ Mar 6th 2007 2:37AM]

If I were microsoft, I would probably prefer you to use a legal version of Vista on a mac.

I mean, then you had to pay the full price retail, unlike if you got it preloaded on a dell.

[Rob @ Mar 6th 2007 2:57AM]

Definatly an iBook, my Macbook has two 3.5mm audio jacks on the side which the notebook the the photo is missing.

[Christian @ Mar 6th 2007 2:58AM]

This so reminds me of Sony's GT HD using Microsoft's PGR4's picture. I guess when you're publicist are not paid enough they really ruin you in....
1. Maybe they're making fun of blonds thinking they can use vista with mac?
2. Maybe they really want you to say "wow" if you notice it's a mac?
3. Maybe their web/ad designer was out of images to use and was using a mac to design this that he said to himself after printing, meh no one will notice, pay me more then I'll replace it?

I know that is an iBook as that's the same ports that I had on my old iBook G3 500mhz... wow, that laptop is still in my closet with a Linux Ubuntu installed...almost 2 years now, wonder if it's molding/working...

[spaceman @ Mar 6th 2007 4:24AM]

It's a mac with no doubt. The sony machine has a drive on the left side.

The mac on the other hand has this...

http://img.alibaba.com/photo/10920537/Apple_IBook_Notebook_12.jpg

sony

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_ViewPopup-MoreImages?Template=sy_more_images%2eisml&ProductSKU=VGNN270E%2fW&max=3&index=1

[Skillz @ Mar 6th 2007 6:36AM]

@LandMineHare

You are hilarious!, thank you for making me laugh like that :)

[michael @ Mar 6th 2007 6:29PM]

If you haven't notice by now, this is an ad from MicroCenter. NOT Microsoft. Just because Best Buy has ads that show a MacBook doesn't mean that Apple made the ad. So stop the ranting on Microsoft, and get out of the Apple den that you live in.

BTW: Windows Live Search IS better than Google, if you're going to be so snarky about it. You're one of those people that makes some people feel ashamed for liking a company and it's products, if one of their users are so arrogant.

[Alejandro @ Mar 6th 2007 8:28AM]

It's a SAD, SAD world where an ad for Microsoft uses a previous generation Mac.... are there no aesthetically pleasing PC's out there? (even the new Vaio lappies that rip off the iBook / MB). Let's not even go into the discussion about how it works. ha.

[Mark @ Mar 6th 2007 9:07AM]

Ad copy is frequently slapped together by people who have little knowledge of the product they are advertising, and the people who do have that knowledge don't have the time to review all the little details. End of story.

[william @ Mar 6th 2007 9:23AM]

Vista is an OS X Imitation, nothing more. It is flawed at best and will run as crappy on an ibook as it will a Dell or sony. I would imagine that it is marketed this way as yet another way to imitate the much superior Apple machine. I use both and Vista is not that great.

[Anto @ Mar 6th 2007 10:02AM]

Well that's one good thing about Vista, it won't run on my iBook. Phew! thank **** for that! :-)

Why would I want to run a forth rate OS when I have OS X????????? I know all the PC fanboys will be queing up to tell me why now, yawn yawn!

[maven8 @ Mar 6th 2007 10:16AM]

This really shouldn't surprise anyone. I work in the advertising industry as an art director/designer, and first of all the "creative" departments in agencies are usually comprised of 95% mac users (even if you're a pc user you usually have to work on a mac). Out of those the majority don't have the slightest clue about technology (or like has already been said, most of the products they have to sell). So the process usually consists of getting images off getty/corbis/jupiter whatever, and trying to make them work. The majority of the images in those stock libraries are old... and don't get updated frequently. So you usually have a choice between older macs, or really old PCs... I'm talking 1994-97 old. Also keep in mind that if there's a photo shoot that requires a laptop, very often the photographer will "donate" his own laptop for the shoot, which often winds up being a mac.
Last year I was doing some ads for HP... I actually sent the creative director a big e-mail with a list of features I thought we should emphasize... You would think HDMI outputs, dual hard drives and dual headphone jacks were pretty compelling... but the response basically boiled down to "uh... most people don't know what you're talking about. We need to say something vague about entertainment or something".
By the way the same agency does ads for Microsoft, and some of the people on that team (like me they are no longer there) were die-hard mac fans that I always used to argue with. I always found it kinda disturbing that most microsoft ads were created on macs... but that's just me.

[Ken @ Mar 6th 2007 10:55AM]

Okay guys, the user tovaac obviously posted a link that would be beneficial to you. Please click on it to find out that Microsoft just bought the image of the woman/child focusing on a laptop, smiling. I'm sure they didn't do any photoshop job... Jeeze.

Wow, everyone's getting all worked up over nothing.

[Ryan @ Mar 6th 2007 11:16AM]

Seems to me like someone just got way lazy with stock Photography.

[Lex @ Mar 6th 2007 11:21AM]

The WOW starts now! Like in "WOW, this really is one heck of a piece of bloatWare stuffed with more things to annoy the user."

[michael @ Mar 6th 2007 6:33PM]

No, wow as in "wow! I got a pretty & useful operating system!"

[Jason @ Mar 6th 2007 11:28AM]

@Ryan- Exactly.

@The other defenders of Microsoft - How in the hell did it take Microsoft so long to implement those features they "invented" first and bring them to the "consumer" market? It's not about who came up with what first or who stole what from whom, it's "is it available now" and "is it done right?" Corporations "steal" ideas. MS is no different. In this case, they shouldn't have shown things off so early if they weren't able to make them a reality in a short time.

Apple is capitalizing on bringing new features and technology out now in pretty, functional forms. That's what the consumer wants.

[Matt @ Mar 6th 2007 11:41AM]

Wow, MicroCenter used stock photography from Getty, big deal. Anyway, am I the only one who initially though WOW stood for World of Warcraft? And I don't even play the game. Of course, I just get the headlines in my RSS reader, not the article itself.

[vincenthue @ Mar 6th 2007 1:34PM]

Definitely an iBook. The Sony's edge is sharper, whereas the iBook has a curve edge.

[nelsb @ Mar 6th 2007 1:44PM]

Isn't it funny how the term "I couldn't care less", which has a very specific and literal meaning, is often replaced by "I could care less", which has the opposite literal meaning to what is intended?

--Nels

[Joseph @ Mar 6th 2007 4:12PM]

The wow start in 1996 according to this CD
http://lyrics.christiansunite.com/images/albums/album_2300.jpg

[zack weinstock @ Mar 6th 2007 5:39PM]

ok whoever said that that is a song laptop is mentally retarded. first off, white laptops r generally made by apple. and the port layouts...well its pretty obvious.

[michael @ Mar 6th 2007 6:32PM]

So it's impossible for any other company but Apple to make white laptops? Just as it's impossible for Apple to make black laptops? Sorry, but you're so wrong.