Mac Bashing with a British Flair

[Claymonkey]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...006031,00.html

I know we have our fair share of Mac users here. Heck I even own an old tangerine imac to poke around on. However, I couldn't help laughing at this piece. I hated OS 9 and I like bits of OS X and I think their hardware has something... however, I've NEVER liked their ad campaigns for their computers. He touches on a lot of topics I can get behind.

[Jammrock]

That was a riot

[Kooldino]

Read that a few weeks back.

[dbdg]

That is the second thing I have read this week about the Mac ads not going down too well over here, other was a journal on Ars.

[TnT]

I don't think the Mac ads really do well here either with the exact same problem. What happened is that Apple started choosing ad campaigns that showed how cool they are instead of just making cool ads.

John Hodgman, who plays the PC, is a great comedian. In the commercials he actually is loveably nerdy. The Mac guy comes off as a cooler-than-thou prick.

My favorite line from the article:

I even hate people who don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did.

This is the main point and what legitimizes the article from "just another Mac bash" to insightful about marketing:

Ultimately the campaign's biggest flaw is that it perpetuates the notion that consumers somehow "define themselves" with the technology they choose. If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality.

[ZokesPro]

Those comemricals bash PC's and as I've said before they should in actuality be bashing 'Windows' because it's not the hardware that makes the system crap, it's the software. Technically, by installing Windows on your Mac, you can turn it into a steaming pile of electronic junk like a PC. So basically they should also be bashing themselves! I hate macs too, but I like OSX. Those commercials are painfulyl inaccurate. Now to get back ontopic,I enjoyed that article and I can get behind it as well.

[Tom]

I think that I'd like to make a commercial about "PC vs. Mac"...from a gamer's point of view. Here's how it would go....

Mac: "I'm a Mac.".
PC: "I'm a PC... a dual core gaming PC".
Mac: "How come you have a book in one hand and a ball in the other hand?
PC: "I'm going to read The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields and play some football."
Mac: "What's that?"
PC: "It's Albert Einstein's first work."
Mac: "No, not that, the other thing."

I like PC gaming and seriously doubt that any Mac would suite my needs.

[Jessterw]

Love the article for the very fact that the author is so obviously taking the piss out of the whole affair (on both sides if you pay attention).

Then again I like the Mac vs. PC ads as well, but then I would like them even as a PC user. Apple has taken it a bit too far at times and the ads are getting a little tired, but as someone who used Windows-based PCs for far more years than I've used Macs, I still find some of find them decently amusing. *shrug*

And for the love of all things sane, can we avoid the whole Mac gaming discussion? We all know that if you're a serious, non-console gamer you're going to be using a Windows-based PC - I think that's a given.

Of course that's all moot if your game of choice is WoW

[schmosef]

I just remembered something, didn't Apple announce about a month ago that the were going to discontinue the Mac vs. PC ads because they changed their mind about portraying the Mac as a hipster?

I seem to remember that they wanted to create a more mainstream, adult and senior friendly image that the current kid didn't convey.

Am I remembering correctly?

[Jessterw]

There were some rumours about replacing Justin Long (Mac) with another, while keeping John Hodgman (PC) around - maybe because he's an actual Mac user?

Haven't heard any details as to the why or when of it.

[DGhost]

Those comemricals bash PC's and as I've said before they should in actuality be bashing 'Windows' because it's not the hardware that makes the system crap, it's the software. Technically, by installing Windows on your Mac, you can turn it into a steaming pile of electronic junk like a PC. So basically they should also be bashing themselves! I hate macs too, but I like OSX. Those commercials are painfulyl inaccurate. Now to get back ontopic,I enjoyed that article and I can get behind it as well.

Except for the fact that most problems that Windows faces right now are not because of Windows. It's third party software that causes 90% of the problems.

[Jessterw]

Except that many of those problems are results of flaws in the design of Windows. Windows developers have had to hack and slash in their code to achieve the same results that Microsoft's own developers do using undocumented APIs and the like.

Then there's the Windows itself, with its myriad of registry, shared library (DLL) and other issues that caused instability with Microsoft and 3rd-party software alike. Thankfully most of those issues have been negated or lessened since the introduction of Windows 2000 on through XP to the current version, Vista.

Let us not forget a certain piece of software that, while it's not Windows, also comes from Microsoft and causes all sorts of problems for many users - MS Office. Granted it's not prone to break all the time or across the board in any consistent fashion, and most breaks occur during or after upgrading (Windows or Office).

Apple isn't free from guilt on these general issues with OS X either, even though they are most definitely less of a problem. It's just the very nature of Windows and the requirement that it run a vast number of software applications developed any number of years ago on a plethora of hardware configurations. The legacy code didn't help matters much either.

Of course, I'd be ignorant to suggest that there aren't a great number of Windows-based software applications out there that were coded by monkeys with little regard shown to quality or stability, that muck around in places they shouldn't.


Now, for the sake of argument, let's try to put the Mac vs. PC ads in perspective as far as Zokes last post. The 'PC' in the ads is a Windows-based PC, so you have to take the system as a collective whole when viewing. Honestly now, who else besides Windows-users are these ads aimed at? Certainly not those using Linux or any other OS.

Could Apple have used 'Windows' of 'Windows PC' in the ads? Sure, but that would have sounded silly and long-winded. To the target audience, a PC is Windows running on a Dell or HP or whatever. It's really that simple.


Edit: Just as an aside, I really don't get why people remark that they "hate" Macs. As an across-the-board statement it just makes little sense to me. I like Macs, I love PCs. I dislike Windows, I love OS X. I hate to perform any hardware repairs or advanced maintenance on Macs, I dislike to do so with PCs (I want it all to just work).

I guess I just don't see it as so black and white. *shrug*

[DGhost]

As I have pointed out to others who comment on how secure the Mac is... Look up a piece of software called Application Enhancer. Their website says this -

Application Enhancer performs its task by loading plugins (Application Enhancer modules) containing executable code into the running applications. Once loaded, the APE module performs the needed modifications (such as redefining the minimize window action, or customizing the standard Apple menu) on the launched application memory space, never touching any files on disk, utilizing set of functions defined in the Application Enhancer framework.

To put it simply, it takes an arbitrary binary blob and loads it into another applications memory. This, for the last 10 to 20 years, has been considered a Really Bad Thing(tm). Yet it is amazing the following that Application Enhancer has whom consider it a good thing to have - and actually defend it as a positive tool.

I dunno about you, but this is one of those things that should *not* be possible. In fact, I honestly cannot even think of any sort of reason that a modern operating system would allow a process, priviledged or not, to overwrite another processes memory. Especially not do that and then execute it.

Anyways, I'm sidetracked. I am simply using this as an example. For every vulnerability in the Windows OS, there is one in Linux or MacOS. Right now Microsoft has it the worst for the simple fact that 1) they have the largest install base (and thus the most profitable to develop exploits for) and, 2) as you said they are required to maintain some degree of backwards compatability. Yes they depriciate old code paths and try to implement safe alternatives (or replacements). But they still have to maintain a bit more compatability than Apple does.

If the situation was reversed and Apple was the dominant platform, I guarantee it would have just as much (if not more) problems with security issues. Apple is actually worse with acknowledging and patching security vulnerabilities. They are also far worse at doing internal audits and product design with security in mind. Right now they just compose a small enough portion that it isn't worth it to exploit.

Anyways...

I have no problems with Mac's. I respect the fact that they do generally "just work". I just really dislike people who have absolutely no idea what they are talking about bash one platform when the alternative they mention really is no better.

[Jessterw]

Not once did I make a reference to the security level of OS X in my post...

However, now that you've mentioned it, it's hardly accurate to say that OS X or Linux contain a vulnerability for every instance of one in Windows. Are there likely undiscovered vulnerabilities in the former two? Without a doubt, but that's not the same thing, and given they haven't been discovered or documented one could not make such a broad statement.

Apple is far less public about patching vulnerabilities, but is no better or worse than Microsoft in patching those vulnerabilities. I see the patches coming down the pipeline and I see what they're for in comparison to what vulnerabilities are out there.

In case you didn't notice, I was actually standing up for MS with the issues present on Windows. There was no bashing of any platform whatsoever. When I do happen to "bash" Windows I do so from personal experience with the OS as a system builder, developer, and systems/network admin. Every gripe I have against the OS (save for Vista which I can't comment on given I haven't used) is based firmly in reality and not some misguided hatred rooted in my being a Mac user as well. I've been using Windows since 3.1 was released and up until sometime after XP SP2, while I've only been using OS X since 10.3.

OS X may not be a "better" OS - really a personal preference - than Windows, but it's certainly a far more secure OS than any version of Windows prior to Vista (which again, I can't comment on). I've said it before, I hope Vista is a wholly secure OS, as the computing world would gain much if that is proved to be true.


Apologies for hijacking the thread Dames

[DGhost]

Not really going to argue about most of that. No, you didn't reference security levels in your post. You did mention design flaws, and my own experience is that design flaws, intentional or not, are the biggest cause of security vulnerabilities right now. In fact, it is the leading reason why developers need to do security audits on their own code.

I don't really buy that OS X was a more secure OS than any previous version. The NT code base has been every bit as security conscious, if not more so, than the Mac OS. The problem is that for a user to exist, you have to make certain security tradeoffs. It's part of the way things work. Most current Windows security exploits are in the form of user-initiated executables. Yet, Apple in November of 2006 would default to automatically opening disk images and zip files when they were clicked in Safari. Worse yet is the fact it would actually skip integrity checks on disk images and just force them to be mounted.

I mean, seriously. A program like APE should not be able to even execute on any modern operating system. The handful of legitamate reasons that an application would ever need to write into another processes memory can be handled quite gracefully through thread safe and secure shared memory implementations. But all you do for that is open up a region of memory that can be written to and read from by other processes - you don't allow the whole binary to be modified while in ram.

The only thing that OS X has going for it is Security Through Obscurity. There are simply not enough people who want to actually do anything to it.

Anyways. I understand where you are coming from. I know you were not trying to bash Windows or the platform. In fact, that comment wasn't even pointed at you. I know you know what you are talking about and I don't intend to say otherwise. It's just that there are quite a few people out there who talk out of their arse about how piss poor Windows is when the other side really isn't any greener.

Like you said - it's all personal preference.