I tweeted… twittered… twitted… whatever the heck you call it; anyway, I basically posted on Twitter the other day my loathing of the stupid, “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” commercials. That day (about 3 or 4 days ago, actually) I saw TWO of those commercials that I had never seen before and I couldn’t help but shake my head and think to myself one thing:

Just how the hell would Apple market their OS if it weren’t for Windows!?

Yeah, now THERE’S a novel concept! I mean, just how big of a niche is Apple appealing to with the whole, “ohhh, every PC has bad viruses and they’re going to eat all your datas?” It can’t possibly be THAT many! Oops… maybe I’ve just stumbled onto something there.

It seems that for all of their, “Mac users are, “up here” and everyone else is just, “down there”,” they don’t really give a good reason to use their product. Not once does one (or do I, at least) get the impression from those commercials to get a Mac other than for the purpose of, “not getting millions of viruses.” You know, if I’m going to buy something, I don’t want FUD marketing techniques to sell it to me. Granted, if someone wanted to, they could go pull up Apple’s website to see what a Mac is really supposed to be about but doesn’t that defeat the purpose? How is someone going to look it up if they don’t have a computer to begin with? Oh, that’s right… chances are, everyone already has a computer with Windows on it. Once again, just where would Steve Jobs’ OS be without good ol’ Bill G’s already dominating the market?

Okay, so let’s say I don’t have a computer at home, so all I have to go by are Apple’s commercials. Okay, I want to go check out a Mac. Is there an Apple store close by? Let’s have a look in the phone book to call and see. Oh, well looky there! There’s only ONE in my state and it’s 3 frickin’ hours away! That’s alright, let me see if any other retailers near by sell Macs. (Once again, back to the phone book) Okay, there are. Let’s go to the store and check them out!

*Microsoft’s commercials kick in here* and I do indeed find something more powerful and just as good-looking and usable in a PC… and for considerably less, to boot! It’s really simple in my head: You walk into a store where you can compare the two and a PC sells itself! If it works great in the store, it’s going to work great at home unless you’re like Rafael Rivera and visit naughty sites all the time (he’s exemplary of what, “InPrivate” mode was built into IE8 for, har har!).

Anyway, maybe Apple’s OS is great and beats the pants off of Windows… but I’m not going to go and actively seek it out when I have absolutely no reason to due to the problems I DO NOT have with, “millions of viruses” and the gazillion random crashes I DO NOT have! No, Apple’s going to have to sell their product to me directly… or at least give me SOME reason to look into it! Until then, I’m pretty sure that most users like me will remain quite content with their status of being a PC. Yes, all of us low-life PC users will sit down here and look up the nostrils of the snooty Mac users (not all of them, because I know some good people who use a Mac because they like it and not just to be cool) and laugh at them because we can’t figure out just why the heck they think they’re all so cool.

Oh, and I’m not ditching Apple’s OS by any means. I’m a huge fan of people using what they like and what works for them, but as a content Windows user, it baffles me that I’ve been watching these stupid Apple commercials attempt to beat the same message over and over and over and over into peoples’ heads for, what… 2 years now? Something like that? *Pssst!* Hey, Apple! Try appealing to those willing to give your product a try, should they find it to be discernible enough from what they currently use to do as such! Oh, what’s that? There’s really nothing that’s that much greater about your OS? Shame. I guess one of these days, I’ll get even so much as ONE of those, “millions of viruses” that plague Windows and I’ll go running to adopt your invincible OS!

And just to drive the point home, Apple did a FINE job selling their iPod Touch to me via their commercials. I couldn’t keep watching that Crash Bandikoot racing game much longer without having it for myself… along with all the MP3′s I frequently listen to and all the other awesome apps! So, Apple knows how to do it… they just can’t if the product doesn’t sell itself via its own means. To me, this is even more proof that Apple’s OS just couldn’t stand on its own two feet if it weren’t relying on bashing Windows at every turn.

But who am I kidding? I’m just preaching to the choir here. Oh well. Thanks for reading my rant anyway (if you made it this far). =)

-Stephen
http://msftkitchen.com

9 Responses to “How would Apple Market their OS without Windows?”