lesser evil

Here's the thing about Apple ads:

Yes, they're still ads. But what I like about them, in direct contrast to Microsoft ads, is that they tend—not always, but often—to emphasize something real about the product. For example, the ad above, which I find totally uninteresting per se, does have one thing about it that makes it like 50 times better than just about any bullshit PC ad you'll see (like this shit): the design (æsthetically boring though I find it) is about the iPhone/"iTouch" accelerometer or whatever the fuck they call it—about the fact that its games (the focus of the ad) tend to make use of the way you tilt the machine. In other words, the choice to show these devices laid out at different angles is a choice to emphasize actual functionality, to communicate how it works—not just a functionally arbitrary effort to make it look awesome, as in the case of the Zune ad below:

Meaningless.

The Apple ad communicates that there are a bunch of games for the iPod Touch and you play 'em by moving the iPod Touch around. The Zune ad communicates that...what, Zunes are magical?*

Another example. The "Hi, I'm a Mac" ads starring Justin Long and the wonderful John Hodgman (of whom† I've been a fan ever since I guess 2005, when I happened to see him on The Daily Show hilariously promoting the slightly less consistently but still largely hilarious Areas of My Expertise) are, for all their faults, largely about a real thing. I myself switched to Apple after almost 20 years of PC loyalty when it was demonstrated to me that Macs do not fucking crash all the fucking time;‡ the beauty of the "Hi, I'm a Mac" ads is that ultimately they're making the following pretty much indisputable claims:

1. For better of for worse,§ people generally find Macs to be more "user-friendly" and "cooler" than PCs.
2. PCs fucking crash all the fucking time; Macs do not.
3. In conclusion, Macs are easier to use and cause fewer headaches.

Again, these are still ads, and they're still trying to create associations so that you'll give them money...but the leg they have up on PC ads** is that they aren't just about associations, aren't all image, but rather have some actual content, are about something. A lot of the time, anyway.

(The PC ads about shopping for a computer are about something: they're about how PCs are sometimes cheaper. And this Mac ad is a great response to that. You get what you pay for, folks.)

Compare to this. [BONUS: Obama's a Mac; Clinton was a PC.]

* Yes, the Zune ad says that you can put music, videos, and pictures on there. It says it. But I'm talking about the images, about what's communicated by the ad. Does a late-1990s corporate reboot of an acid trip communicate anything at all about the Zune's actual functionality?

† Of whose? I mean, surely not, but one does often hear, "I'm a fan of his," so...?

‡ Slightly less true than it was in 2003, but still a fact.

§ Well, I'm not sure how it could be worse, but let's say, "Whether or not this is important."

** Including or especially the idiotic Microsoft comeback campaign, which essentially and revealingly misses the point, seeming to believe that the Mac ads are only about image and responding only with image, like, "Look, Girl Talk 'is' a PC"—which, unlike the original Mac ads, does not comment in any meaningful way on the differences between the machines. [OK, a quick Internet search has (as in the case of my Wolverine observation) revealed that someone has made all these points before. Ah, well, nothing new under the sun: "This new 'I'm a PC' spot starring Girl Talk in his hotel room fails to identify why PCs are better, but we can assume it's because Gregg needs a laptop that can withstand flailing hipsters spilling Sparks."]