Microsoft is currently running a new series of ads featuring ‘The Bug Chicks’, with each ad directly targeting a weakness in Apple’s Mac operating system. Kristie and Jess, curiously labelled as ‘real people paid for real opinions’, walk through several ways that Windows 10 helps them teach kids about bugs and the microscopic world.
The ad series focuses on several different competitive advantages Windows currently holds over OS X, such as touchscreen-equipped laptops for sketching and drawing, Cortana as a personal voice search assistant and face recognition for hands-free account login. Some of the things Microsoft highlights, like the absence of Siri on OS X are expected to be addressed by Apple later in the year, of course. Watch all four videos after the jump:
The videos show the teachers drawing a sketch of a bug on the PowerPoint project using their finger, with an immediate jab at Mac hardware: ‘I don’t have a touchscreen on my Mac, I’m jealous of that’. Apple has been very clear in recent years that it thinks touchscreen laptops are a bad idea, keeping touch exclusive to iPhones, Apple Watch and laptop-replacement tablets like iPad Pro.
One of the ads is dedicated to the face login feature, where Windows customers can use the front-facing camera of their computer combined with Windows OS face-detection to login to their account hands-free, no password entry required. This is something Apple may be resistant to add because of privacy concerns. It can also be very frustrating for users when the face detection fails to identify the user — obviously in the ad it works flawlessly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6SVsf0k2i0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln5LU532GuY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHoHKjjttvQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOV1tQpgAs8
‘Even on the new Macs they don’t have that’ is a common refrain in these commercials. It’s a blatant attempt by Microsoft to appear ‘cool’ again in the computing space, whether ‘The Bug Chicks’ ads will make that happen is another question entirely. Apple’s Mac laptop line has been stagnating for a while, so refreshed hardware for these products is expected soon. Apple is also prepping to unveil a brand-new 9.7 inch iPad Pro at an event on March 21st, which continues its post-PC efforts … alongside a new 4-inch iPhone and updated Apple Watch bands.
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Don’t forget VR. That’s no where to be seen on a Mac.
Right now, vr is gaming only.
VR? I will never wear those silly headsets. VR is DOA.
Wrong
Yes, This is not a good news for MAC users.
Ok microsoft, let me give you your reality check.
1. cortana is no big deal.
It can’t do anything useful.
2. windows 10 is a slow peace of shit.
Thats because it has multiple amounts of bloteware, and things that run in the background that you can’t shutdown.
3. its an advertising platform it can display fullscreen adds if you want it or not.
4. Microsoft tries to damage your computer with every windows update.
5. they modify your bios so you can’t revert to earlier versions of windows with out a backup.
6. spyware.
7. unreliable.
So, microsoft, shot up with your stupid marketing.
And before you ask, I’m running win 8.1 pro.
I also have windows 10 running in bootcamp on my imac and i have to say i find your assessment a bit unfair..
1. cortana is no big deal.It can’t do anything useful.
> it’s actually quite handy if you’re like voice stuff, just as SIRI will be in the summer with the latest OSX. Frankly i dont use it on my iphone, ipad or watch so in that sense i agree.
2. windows 10 is a slow peace of shit.
> I dont find that at all.
Thats because it has multiple amounts of bloteware, and things that run in the background that you can’t shutdown.
>Never had this problem on 10. Sure on 8, it was awful but not on 10 on my imac.
3. its an advertising platform it can display fullscreen adds if you want it or not.
Not true. There’s a way to switch off the background photo thing at log in and you can turn everything else off too if the store stuff bothers you.
4. Microsoft tries to damage your computer with every windows update.
I doubt they ‘try’ to damage. Sure there have been problems, ut the same goes with the iMac. The most recent update killed my ethernet port and last year my iphone 6 died with an update to ios shrtly after purchase!
5. they modify your bios so you can’t revert to earlier versions of windows with out a backup.
> I dont quite understand this, but perhaps your right. Never wanted to roll back to 8 it’s worked so much better under 10.
6. spyware.
> There’s a built in firewall and antivirus, and if you use it witout clicking on rubbish in a brower, i dont think you’ll have a problem.
7. unreliable.
I guess that’s subjective. I cant say it’s been a problem when ive been running windows 10 on my imac. I play flight simuator for several hours in a go and works fine.
So, microsoft, shot up with your stupid marketing.
> the concept is fine. I find it cheesy but i don’t think they need to ‘shut up’.
And before you ask, I’m running win 8.1 pro.
> Theres your mistake. Go to 10!
>There’s your mistake, Go to 10!
Some people value their privacy, dipshit.
I don’t see voice based assistants as being very practical, regardless of platform (Cortana or Siri) for desktop computing. In the office environment especially, this would be extremely annoying. This paradigm works well for mobile for obvious reasons. People use their phones when they are on the go or possibly when they need to be hands free in the car, etc. That doesn’t really apply to desktop computing.
For that matter, Spotlight on OS X has evolved quite a bit over the years and provides all sorts of information already. I figured this was Apple’s direction and preferred that solution. Rumors suggest that Siri is coming to OS X, but honestly, I don’t consider that to be much of a game changer in any way for OS X users. I would expect that nobody would really use it and instead prefer to keep using Spotlight.
@suchkunt The username explains your lack of class.
I know their is a firewall and microsoft antivirus, but I don’t feel like dealing with windows bs.
Word of advice, if you reinstall win10, it will ask you to buy a license.
I’ve done the reinstall – ignore the license enters, continue with set up, log into into your Microsoft account and it will automatically re-activate as its a known system.
Windows 10 has the power of chickening out on the one UI ideas Windows developed that felt fresh (8) because their sales were in the toilet and they didn’t want to bother refining it to perfection, and being a bizarre homunculus of the last 4 Windows OS. Oh, also the power of still having the worst native browser in the world. But it can see your face (depending on the computer) and harvest your info, so that’s cool.
Its also very buggy, which makes me believe that its a beta os that the public is trying out.
Macs don’t have the blue screen of death, or viruses. That’s enough for me.
I think they got rid of the blue screen of death a while back.
Nope. Had it happen on my Windows 10 laptop last week.
It looks different, but it’s the same basic shit. Much like Windows 10.
Windows+Bug=Perfect match
Fascinating to think that no one would’ve made the correlation during storyboard sessions but they went through with it anyway.
“What if we had two women dealing with bugs while using Windows 10?”
“That sounds horrible! Why would we want to make a commercial where the computer is crashing, locking up or getting viruses?!”
“No silly, actual bugs, like two science teachers that focus on the study of bugs.”
“Ohh, yeah… okay yeah. Forget about the first thing I said. I’m sure no one will ever tie those things together. Hey, you know what would be cool: let’s get the Blue Man Group for our next commercial!!”
You know what my Mac also doesn’t have Microsoft?
– viruses
– poorly designed software
– a lack of taste
– unintuitive software
– shared DLL’s
– a useless vertical touchscreen
– a drive from 1998 that supports, what’s it called, a DVD(?)
Really, if you want people to buy your product you really ought to make them so good people want to buy them.
What’s wrong with having an optional vertical touchscreen? you dont have to use it, but i know a lot of people do in businesses – finance for example.
The touchscreen makes sense when using a device in tablet mode. However, the ergonomics are all wrong in laptop mode… hence the phrase “vertical touchscreen”. There are lots of things devices can be made to do… that doesn’t mean they should.
I dort really understand the argument. I quite often use my iPad on portrait mode.
Portrait or Landscape mode isn’t the distinction I was making. As I said, touch screen makes sense when using a device in tablet mode (portrait or landscape) as you’re holding it, etc. Where it doesn’t make sense is when you have it propped up in a keyboard stand and are moving your hands from your keyboard up to the screen and back again, etc. That applies to iPads with keyboards just as it does with Surface devices with keyboards. Yes, you can use them that way, but ergonomically, you’re much better off with an actual laptop at that point.
You forgot bloatware and ads. Windows 10 now has advertisements for games. Also, Edge doesn’t support extensions and you can’t make another browser as default.
You must be confusing Windows with iOS, you certainly can set another browser as default. Not a single ad to be seen on my Windows laptop since I got it installed 6 months ago.
I will give them one thing. 10 is better than 8. 10 is actually a big improvement, for Windows that is. We’ve started using 10 at work and it’s not bad. Enough changes so it feels odd, but no worse than switching from XP to 7 was. That said 10 is still Windows. If I had to choose an OS I’d go with OS-X. Then if Apple were to vanish off of the face of the earth I’d use Linux (Linux Mint is my current favourite Distro). If every last Linux Distro also were to magically disappear as well, then because there isn’t anything else readily available Windows. It’s just still mediocre software at a very high price.
Oh and for those saying Macs don’t get viruses. WRONG. There are fewer but they are out there. You really should run an antivirus package.
I especially like the little bit about Linux Mint – One of the worst systemd infested distributions. Please don’t namedrop linux distributions if you don’t know what you’re talking about. It doesn’t enhance your credibility.
Interesting. I’ve been using Mint for several years with no problem, admittedly for fairly basic functions. I went to Mint when Ubuntu switched to the really weird UI. My brother also uses Mint for several HAM radio apps. Neither of us have had much trouble with it. I’ve also in various jobs used RedHat which was nice but I just prefer Mint. YMMV of course.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-and-others-on-linuxs-systemd/
Read it, then check out the boycott site. http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Mint is generally hated because it is based on ubuntu, and ubunty does a lot of shady shit at the system level.
OSX is the best, most user-friendly unix variant.
Linux is now split between with-systemd or without-systemd, and it’s sad to say some of the best distributions have succumbed.
Windows is absolute crap.Windows 7 was OK, XP was decent and 2000 was a masterpiece. Before than NT4 was rock-solid.
But it’s clear that they’ve lost their way. They are no longer interested in providing a usable OS for home and business. They have clearly shifted to the google model of datamining.
If you must use windows 7-10, look for the VOAT – Aegis utility and then disable windows update. It will permanently remove some telemetry/data-mining/privacy-raping features.
Macs don’t get attacked as often as windows pcs.
There are no actual Mac viruses out in the wild. Macs do get malware though, typically in the form of Trojans and adware. There have been a few cases of Trojans that were mislabeled as viruses, but no actual viruses. Some may think this is a trivial distinction, but Trojans require the end user to do something stupid through social engineering. It is for this reason that I have never had to use anti-malware on my Macs but would never dream of skipping anti-maiware on my PCs.
I don’t need to teach my kids how to draw a proboscis on my laptop… I can do that on a piece of paper…
Mac can’t do massing datamining back-ported to OS releases as old as 2009.
Mac can’t do ludicrous UI inconsistency from fonts to color schemes to icons.
Mac can’t do a 50GB base installation
Mac can’t do fullscreen advertisements in lieu of a screensaver
Mac can’t do product key hell
I think what’s more fascinating is how many ways Microsoft and the OEMs have tried to push Windows and all the “Mac can’t” feature sets and still see declines year after year while on the Apple side of things you’d be hard pressed to find even a single commercial promoting OS X and Mac sales have continually outperformed all Windows vendors.
I can only image if Apple put as much marketing dollars into promoting OS X as they do the iPhone and iPad how many more Macs they would sell but they seem to be doing extremely well with almost zero promotion.
I’m an OSX guy first..I’d love to see some muscled up OSX commercials……….
Are we really still doing ” which works better ” in the comment section!!? in 2016?! Com’on guys just grow up. Two platform for two diffrent type of consumers you just go get the one that suits you better * Period *.
Agreed. The actual debates are rather trivial. However, what I find most interesting is how Microsoft sees itself these days. The market leader never mentions the competition. When Apple had their “Get a Mac” campaign, they were clearly the underdog and they were striking real chords with their campaign as Windows was at it’s worst in the Vista days and the major security problems prior to Vista, etc. What’s interesting here is that Microsoft sees itself as the underdog here. Perhaps not in market share thanks to the enterprise market, but certainly in terms of mind share. They’re also seeing the PC market in decline while Macs continue to grow. Maybe it’s me, but I see this as a little desperate on Microsoft’s part and I don’t see these initial ads resonating they way they’d hope.
This is the way Microsoft say: “We have lots of bugs.” LOL
Wow…so this is where we are in 2016! If ever there was an indicator of Steve Ballmer’s failure as Microsoft’s CEO, here it is…Microsoft ads to claim Windows is better than Mac.
Cortana and voice recognition is simply a non-issue for 95% (that number is a blatant guess on my part) of business users. I’d venture that 95% of employees on computers are in cubes like me and don’t care to have other people hear me talking to my computer and the people around me don’t want to hear me talking to my computer. The other 5% may have a more private office or work area and may enjoy talking to their computer. To me, voice recognition is simply a non-issue and a feature I wouldn’t use at work.
Facial recognition is also a non-issue at work. Does not meet our security requirements.
MS is obviously advertising to the home market and any one with a bit of sense and enough money will select the security and stability of a Mac over a Windows pc and its fluff features designed to distract you from its new ugly (IMHO) inconsistent interface..
Well had Microsoft before and now have Apple, will never go back. Some people seem to forget that Microsoft makes software and not PC’s. Apple is a hardware and software company. They don’t make hardware or software for anyone but themselves. Which for means I’m getting quality in what I’m buying, IMO. Mac’s are quiet, run faster and just works. Pc’s running Microsoft take longer to load up, ramp up the processor more with noise, more viruses and just too many manufacturers involved to get a good product out. JMO
This is because you are comparing a +1000 computer to a 500-800 computer.
Try windows 10 on devices that has SSD and you will see how fast smooth it is.
My macbook pro 2011 used to be slow despite the corei7 cpu and this is because of the ssd.
same goes with macbook air…Apple’s main devices all run ssd and all are above $1000.
Any pC that’s built to a Macbook Pro’s specs is 500-1000+ MORE EXPENSIVE than a Mac. Look it up online. I checked on Adorama awhile ago. The pc was more expensive at each perform level and had slower ram and slower ssd hard drives (no pci express options at the time I looked). Your statement is false and misleading.
Very fitting ad campaign. I have loads of bugs on Windows……
Voice commands, while entertaining, is not how most people use their computer. It’s still a technology very much in it’s infancy and while Apple is going to bring Siri to the OS X platform, they are just delaying it so that it’s more useful, hopefully. But it’s not one of the Top 10 reasons to choose a platform. Touchscreen? Again, it’s not a Top 10 reason to choose a platform either, unless you have to have that feature, which most people don’t use with regards to a desktop or laptop computer.
Big deal! I’ll keep my Mac. I don’t give a crap about touch, or Cortana. Neither of those things would make me dirty myself by using Windows. Ever.
Is it a surprise that Microsoft are using ‘bugs’ to advertise their OS?
I was looking at these commercials and thinking, really Microsoft, this is all you have?
I got a Mic for my Windows 7 PC to get ready for a Windows 10 upgrade and Cortana. You know how much I’ve used Cortana now since I’ve installed Windows 10? I can count the number of times on one hand!!! It’s just generally quicker to use the keyboard and mouse!
Which comes to the next part, Touch Screen. I don’t have a Touch Screen Monitor on my Windows Desktop, nor would I ever want one!!! Pretend you reach up to your Monitor to touch it every little bit. How long would you put up with that before saying that sucks and I’m not going to do it anymore. Touch on a Tablet makes sense. Touch on a Desktop or even a Laptop doesn’t make much sense. A Mouse or the direction Apple went, which is a large touch pad makes far better sense. You’re staying on the same plain using a Keyboard with a Mouse or Touchpad, Using the Touch screen you are now having to reach up. You are going from Horizontal to vertical. It’s just dumb and never made much sense.
The Logging in with a Camera. Don’t you really need a Special Camera for that to even work right? They call it a RealSense camera. Come on, how many Windows users have one of those? I don’t!!!
So Microsoft is showing on features 99% of Windows users can’t use or don’t bother to use!!! All the while giving Apple free advertising!!! With some big issues I had with Windows 10 this weekend and the Start menu, spending hours trying to fix it so it would pop up, Microsoft should be more focused on it’s self. How about getting the new Edge Browser finished where it can use add-On’s like LastPass and a Ad-Blocker. Right now it’s completely worthless!!! Instead MS is doing these dumb commercials.
All I can think of is that its a subliminal message saying W10 is full of bugs.
All I can think of is that this commercial is a huge subliminal message saying that Windows10 is full of bugs.. But it also gives you the impression that, hey.. bugs are okay.. bugs are nice.. so Yay!
Jealousy & envy are not synonymous.
Unfortunately, the insect “experts” mispronounce proboscis!
As soon as I hear that commercial I turn it off …..
honestly i do wish that MBP had touchscreen