The WOW Starts Now. Just not on your iBook
By Peter Rojas 
posted Mar 5th 2007 11:37PM
posted Mar 5th 2007 11:37PM
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Huh. Weird.
"The WOW starts NOW"?
Pffft. This campaign was doomed from the start.
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.
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.
"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
scott, the pics on your link show the same side of the notebook and that ain't it. it's an ibook.
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.
@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!
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.
im not sure if you guys understand... its windows vista on a mac book. currently that isnt possible
sc00ter - yes, it is possible, actually.
Actually Mister "leet" sc00ter - it is possible, it's currently running on my Macbook Pro and gf's Macbook.
Doink.
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).
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.
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.
Let's all TALK IN random CAPS.
YES LETS. hmm CAPS battle ILL need some MUNCHIES.
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.
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.
Okay, but the laptop in question in the iBook, not the MacBook.
If they didn't care what kind of hardware you ran why would they keep you from running it in virtualization.
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.
"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.
Seems to me like someone just got way lazy with stock Photography.
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". :/
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.
"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?
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.
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.
^^^^^ Finally somebody that makes sense. Completely agree.
Definatly an iBook, my Macbook has two 3.5mm audio jacks on the side which the notebook the the photo is missing.
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...
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
Definitely an iBook. The Sony's edge is sharper, whereas the iBook has a curve edge.
@LandMineHare
You are hilarious!, thank you for making me laugh like that :)
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!
go to www.gettyimages.com and search for "200299047-001" & "200299048-001"
ibook
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.
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.
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.
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.
And that is why I will not shop at BestBuy, they don't know there stuff. They think Sony is an American product and Apple an Asian. After 3 years of trying everything my girlfriend finally switched over the the mac. All, it took was for me to install Vista about 3 months ago, she hated the experience so much that I told her I would buy her a new computer if she didn't like it. Well, yesterday she said enough is enough with Vista and she wanted her XP back, so we went to best buy and she wanted another Sony. To bad for her they had Vista on them, she cried and now she has a macbook and I even bought her a copy of Windows 2000, she is in love.
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.
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.
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."
No, wow as in "wow! I got a pretty & useful operating system!"
@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.
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.
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
The wow start in 1996 according to this CD
http://lyrics.christiansunite.com/images/albums/album_2300.jpg
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.
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.
You think this is bad you should see the pink sketchers (i believe) advertisements that contain a girl holding a pink macbook. We have them in NH mall and they drive me nuts every time i walk by them. A pink macbook?!
It's a joke.
Many people working in graphic design only use macs... so it would be funny if they were able to make an ad with a old iBook in it, especially getting away with it.
Just like the Ikea catalog that had the dog boner photoshopped in, and countless others.
Paying closer attention to ads and you'll start to see these easter eggs more often.
here's my opinion from sort of a neutral point of view.. First time I used Vista, I was pretty impresse. It looked pretty good, better than xp i thought. but after working with it for a while, I realized that the eye candy was not that useful. (atleast for me). It does have some new features butter a couple of weeks of usage I went back to win XP. Still prefer XP over vista for simplicity and performance. (mind you my pc is not new).
Around the same time I bought a macbook. Again I was damn impressed. Everything seems to intergrate very well in the system. and it was pretty easy to use, with great performance. I was happy..
But at the moment, I think what is most impressive GUI wise is beryl on linux.. I've only been using it for like a month and I just love it.. It's the sweetest UI you can get in my opinion.. Then again they all does the same thing.. as far as they do what they are suppose to do, i'm happy..
All of em have they're own advantages. Personally I wouldn't buy vista because it's too expensive. And it hogs up resources. Even if I buy a new PC and get Vista pre installed, I would probably format it and put XP on.
Dontcha know? All the cool companies are doing that nowadays. But I think that a non-Microsoft person made that, as it doesn't show Flip3D, as all self-respecting Microsoft ads do.