Microsoft may have tried to make nice last Christmas with its ‘Peace on Earth’ performance in front of the 5th Ave Apple Store in New York City, but a new year means a new chance to target Macs and sell more Surface tablets.
After dismissing the iPad Pro as a companion device earlier this year, the company started advertising their Windows 10 operating system by highlighting what Macs can’t do: namely having a voice assistant, although 9to5Mac has reported that Siri is destined for the Mac in OS X 10.12 later this year.
Now Microsoft is focusing on its not-quite-a-tablet-but-definitely-not-a-notebook hybrid Surface Book laptop, which features both touch and input like Surface tablets but has the body of a notebook. The latest ad (via iClarified) assigns photographer Tim Flach this line: “I can’t do that on my Mac.” Noticing a theme here? I personally liked Apple’s ‘I’m a Mac and I’m a PC’ ads better when they were the underdogs.
Anyway, take Microsoft’s advice is use the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil with an app like Astropad and you can do that with you Mac … only like a professional. :) See the ad below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQw6vxYo8KE
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“Assault”
The song in the commercial is the same one Apple used for the first commercials for the 15 inch Retina MacBook Pro, when it was first released (“Song – Kidstreet”), though Microsoft uses the piano version. Maybe people at Apple and Microsoft like similar music… or maybe it was deliberate.
Have to love the fact that ‘and I can’t do that on my Mac’ was added in at a later date, you can tell by the sound difference (unless of course they were trying to emphasis it, which is possible, but it sounds like dodgy editing)
I was trying to write something clever and as I ponder I will only do whatever MS is doing that is trying to be relevant.
and the idiocy from this company continues.
Your “tablet mode” isn’t that good.
Microsoft is out of touch with reality. No one wants to use their fingers or a stylus on their laptop or desktop computer.
In addition to the dreaded “Gorilla arms syndrome”, you can use your multi-touch much more effectively on a trackpad than on a vertical computer screen, because 1) you are not blocking what you are trying to manipulate, 2) you don’t get messy finger smudges all over your screen, and 3) you can use smaller precise movement on a trackpad than the large imprecise movements you would make on your screen.
Also, on a laptop you need to use your other hand to support the moveable display are you push your fingers all over it. And if your laptop is on your lap (usually at an angle) pushing on the screen (if not supported by your other hand) will send it crashing to the floor. Duh!
The software and hardware of a computer using a desktop operating system is very different than that of a hand-held multi-touch tablet. Just because you CAN make a laptop that has a multi-touch screen, doesn’t mean you SHOULD make a laptop that has a multi-touch screen!
There are logical reasons why Apple makes desktop computers and multi-touch tablets, and doesn’t try to combine the two. You end up with something like the Microsoft Surface. It is neither a good laptop, nor is it a good tablet. It is too thick, heavy and expensive, and using your fingers to run a desktop application is a an exercise in futility (there are very few “tablet” apps for the Surface). No one buys a Surface WITHOUT a keyboard/trackpad cover, because it would be mostly useless without one.
The surface book could tuck me in at night, but if it runs Windows, you can keep it.
And someone with an English accent, no less.
It’s funny that their stylus has a lot more lag than the pro/apple pencil and this is the ideal example, featured in a commercial. ha.
“Can’t do that on my Mac” says it all *facepalm*
As a photographer I can say that those comments are legit – beautiful screen, sketch on the screen directly and convertibility is great, but…
As a photographer, you do not touch your screen to avoid fingerprints that will screw that “turn of lion’s saliva”.
So a SurfaceBook could be good additional to photographer’s tools if photographer didn’t have to pay for it ;) just like in this case. And he will do his retouching on “his Mac”.
These adverts are such complete bull…and why in the UK are they even legal, it is my understanding that you cannot make false claims in an advert or are those on the advertising bodies so ignorant? Not only can you do everything on a MAC that you can on Windows, you can run every application that you can on Windows on a MAC….you cannot do that on Windows! (see wine)