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Intel Desktops (Apple) It's funny. Laugh. Apple

Intel Puts Apple's 'Mac Guy' Into New Ads Praising PCs (theverge.com) 243

Posted by msmash from the jabs-continue dept.
Intel has hired Apple's former "I'm a Mac" actor Justin Long to create new ads praising PCs. From a report: Long starts each commercial with "Hello I'm a... Justin," with the typical white background you'd find on Apple's Mac vs. PC ads from the 2000s. Naturally, the ads focus on Mac vs. PC again, with Long mocking Apple's Touch Bar, lack of M1 multiple monitor support, and the "gray and grayer" color choices for a MacBook. One even goes all-in on Apple's lack of touchscreens in Macs or 2-in-1 support by mocking the fact you have to buy a tablet, keyboard, stylus, and even a dongle to match what's available on rival Intel-based laptops. Another ad also points out that "no one really games on a Mac." Intel has put out more ads where they point out that Mac doesn't have the gaming ecosystem that Windows laptops enjoy.
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Intel Puts Apple's 'Mac Guy' Into New Ads Praising PCs More

Intel Puts Apple's 'Mac Guy' Into New Ads Praising PCs

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  • Intel is really freaking out (Score:5, Insightful)

    by atomicalgebra ( 4566883 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @02:30PM (#61169028)
    And they should be. Apple has made a cpu that is better than theirs. Apple! Intel has really dropped the ball and is going to be losing marketing share for the foreseeable future.

    • Re:Intel is really freaking out (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @02:39PM (#61169060)

      In a way, I'd also argue this demonstrates Intel's fundamental internal problems. They're running an ad campaign which plays off an Apple ad campaign that ended *over a decade ago*. Many people likely don't even remember that Justin Long was in those Mac ads - if they recall the ads at all.

      It's like the old axiom: If you have to explain a joke, the joke has failed.

      On a side note, it also stresses how SOL Intel will be if (or maybe I should say "when") Microsoft moves whole hog over to ARM processors.

      • On a side note, it also stresses how SOL Intel will be if (or maybe I should say "when") Microsoft moves whole hog over to ARM processors.

        Could only happen when the performance overhead of emulating x86 apps on ARM is acceptable, so not any time soon. Closed-source and multi-arch just don't mix. I'd also morn the replacement of UEFI/BIOS with binary BSP blobs.

        • What makes you think that emulating x86 is a requirement for a move to ARM? Emulation is fine as is for anything but applications that hammer the CPU, mostly games. If Microsoft does move to ARM, game publishers will follow.

        • Re:Intel is really freaking out (Score:5, Insightful)

          by edis ( 266347 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @03:29PM (#61169278) Journal

          Could only happen when the performance overhead of emulating x86 apps on ARM is acceptable, so not any time soon. Closed-source and multi-arch just don't mix. I'd also morn the replacement of UEFI/BIOS with binary BSP blobs.

          On M1 it is well acceptable.

        • Emulated code on M1 is often faster than on native intel chips.

          • Interesting, starting to see why Intel's shitting their pants now. I'm starting to wonder about the FLOPS-per-watt of an M1 vs. a good x86 CPU for x86 tasks.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Sorry but this is complete bollocks.

            If you look at emulated x86 performance on M1 in benchmarks it's 30% below mid range mobile Ryzenn in single core, and a small fraction multi core.

        • Depends on what you deem "acceptable". Most reviewers of the M1 think that it is acceptable for the average consumer. Certainly for high end tasks performance will not be there in this first generation.

        • Could only happen when the performance overhead of emulating x86 apps on ARM is acceptable, so not any time soon.

          Funny, Apple seems to have done a damn fine job of exactly that, first try.

          Too bad MS doesn't have as talented of Developers as Apple.

          And that's even though Apple and MS are reportedly using the same basic concept of "Pre-Execution Translation" (not "Emulation").

        • Could only happen when the performance overhead of emulating x86 apps on ARM is acceptable, so not any time soon.

          Apple's Rosetta 2 does a pretty decent job of it, I haven't tried Microsoft's solution but I have heard it's performance is lacking somewhat at the moment.

          The performance of Rosetta 2 is good enough that people can switch to arm-based Macs and it buys time for software vendors to rebuild their applications for it natively.

      • Yeah, this says far more about Intel's bitterness than it does about the difference between products. Literally every one of the observations made are observations where Apple was one of the first companies to introduce similar features: the colour explosion of Macs in the early 2000s, the Retina Display, and Face ID. Criticizing Apple for starting a trend that PC companies have tried, and generally failed, to emulate in the same quality, says "keeping up with the Joneses" is the only thing Intel thinks P

      • Re:Intel is really freaking out (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @03:19PM (#61169228)

        Apple stopped showing those Ads shortly after Windows 7 came out. and was shown to be a good OS. Also with the popularity of the iPhone across consumer and business sectors the "Look at me the scrappy underdog who is better than the big guy" type of ad's didn't fly much anymore.

        The I am a Mac and I am a PC Ad campaign, was a sign of the times, where Apple (while growing again) was much smaller in terms of money and market share than Microsoft where MS Dominance of the PC seemed like a sure thing. That campaign was to assure people that switching to a Mac wouldn't be a big deal, and you are not going to be loosing out on much, but actually be gaining a lot.

        That campaign doesn't seem to be a good idea.
        1. Justin Long is older. Yes ageism and other stuff... But he was young and hip, now he is a bit older and out of date (What we currently think of Intel)
        2. You are giving attention to Apple. Apple has a sleek new chip that a lot of people say is much faster than what Intel has to offer. Many people (including me) may have been off Macs for a while because we found that we could get more powerful Laptops from other vendors for less (because it has the specs we are interested, and can choose from a larger variety, not that Macs are actually that much more expensive to compatible PC's). Apple targeted generic PC's which everyone knew about, and hoped people would compare the two and find out that Apple may be a better fit for them. Intel probably doesn't want that.
        3. You had just pissed off Vendor Loyal People. We had other companies try and fail to bad mouth Apple, where all it did was galvanize the Fan Boys to go against you.

        This is a bit different than Sprint Using the "Can you hear me now" guy from the old Verizon commercials. As it is the smaller historical brand name mocking the larger one, as well the old one was about coverage, which is no longer such a big issue anymore doesn't play much in giving a bad message.

        • I just watched the first ad and the gist of it is that Windows PCs come in a bunch of colors and Macs come in two shades of gray.

          That's what you do when your CPU technology sucks and you want to divert attention to something irrelevant.

          • Funny how they didn't seem to have much concern about informing the consumers of this lack of colours when their chips were inside.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Guspaz ( 556486 )

        Uh, Apple just revived the ad campaign a few months ago when they announced the M1 macs...

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        • No they didn't. That "ad" was a one-off shown only at the end of Apple's presentation about the M1 and never shown anywhere else, like TV where the original ads were shown. And Justin Long wasn't in the new "ad" either.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Guspaz ( 556486 )

            It shows, however, that Apple believes people will still remember the original ads. I do agree that Intel's new commercials are kind of dumb, but I don't agree with the rest of the premise of the grandparent post.

            • It shows, however, that Apple believes people will still remember the original ads.

              True, but it's also more likely to be true that many Apple fans will remember those ads since Apple fans tend to be loyal and so have stuck with Apple for a long time. But, again, since it wasn't a real ad campaign (and also pretty clearly tongue-in-cheek), Apple, unlike Intel, isn't hoping it will actually lead to increased sales. It was just to inject some fun into a presentation given during a pandemic when the world coul

      • Well, it worked for Sprint, who used the Verizon "Can you hear me now?" actor to do their commercials.

      • In a way, I'd also argue this demonstrates Intel's fundamental internal problems. They're running an ad campaign which plays off an Apple ad campaign that ended *over a decade ago*. Many people likely don't even remember that Justin Long was in those Mac ads - if they recall the ads at all.

        Do they need to recall them to understand how bad Macs are?

        If you recall them, it's icing on the cake. If you don't? No biggie.

      • On a side note, it also stresses how SOL Intel will be if (or maybe I should say "when") Microsoft moves whole hog over to ARM processors.

        That might be a while considering MS was using ARM with Windows RT in 2012. With their current SQ1 chips, Windows on ARM is still nothing to write home about. Maybe in the next decade, they will make some progress. :)

      • [...] Many people likely don't even remember that Justin Long was in those Mac ads - if they recall the ads at all.

        I do not know, the Verizon guy went to T-Mobil to somewhat good effect.

        On a side note, it also stresses how SOL Intel will be if (or maybe I should say "when") Microsoft moves whole hog over to ARM processors.

        For a long while, the will not even notice the lack of windows clients, bussy as they will be with the frequent trips laughing all the way to the bank to deposit the income from Servers, Clouds and 5G basestation and Core gear.

    • Intel has made a lot of mistakes in the last decade and they are definitely eating humble pie because of it. But the M1 is only better for Apple. Such a chip, configured as it is couldn't really work in PC's. Apple gets some very good performance because they leverage a lot of specialized instructions and fixed function hardware that is specifically tailored to their stack and their prescribed use case. Like everything else they do it all works great together. A best case demonstration of vertical integrati

      • Does anyone think an M1 can do everything a Ryzen can?

        Why not?

        Does a Ryzen CPU not spend its entire life emulating an x64 architecture?

    • but it's been optimized for what Mac users do (edit video and images, web programming, general computer use). Apple has a very specific market, so they could build a CPU with acceleration for those things. Intel hits everything, so they've built a general purpose CPU. Jack of All Trades, Master of Nothing.

      That said, Intel's still good enough, and I still can't do a lot of gaming on a Mac. That's unlikely to change, especially as long on x86 owns 2 out of 3 consoles (with the last one being an afterthoug

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Arkham ( 10779 )

        Right now even if you don't think Apple is eating Intel's lunch, AMD certainly is. Their desktop CPUs are faster than Intel and use half the power. Their laptop CPUs are maybe twice as fast with less power consumption. Their EPYC CPUs make the Xeons look like a bad joke.

        I think Intel is attacking Apple because of what's coming, not because their first foray into a low-power CPU is a huge threat. We'll see though. Most people who pick a Mac laptop aren't trying to decide if they want Windows or not. Th

        • and the world doesn't do much to enforce anti-trust. I think Intel is still owning the OEM market as a result. Not that AMD isn't making strides there, but it's a tough nut to crack.
    • You need to post a fanboy alert when you post shit like this. Unbiased reports show that the M1 in general is no better than any of the other newer CPUs on the market. So give it a rest, OK?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Intel has to go after Apple because they can't compete with AMD anymore. They are behind in they category: performance, power consumption/battery life and integrated graphics.

      The only advantage they hadn't now is Thunderbolt. AMD need to get their act together on that. They are taking about next year.

  • They need to hire the runner who threw a hammer through the screen in 1984.

  • Intel has put out more ads where they point out that Mac doesn't have the gaming ecosystem that Windows laptops enjoy.

    Gaming has a fiercely enthusiastic bunch of loyalists who think it is the be all and end all of computing. But Gaming is not what drives the vast majority of PC sales. Boring crap like word processing, e-mail, basic image processing and beyond all else Facebooking, Youtube and surfing (especially for porn) drives PC sales.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Gaming is the only thing an average home user might have to lose from switching away from Windows though.

    • Companies want to go as cheap as they can when it comes to the average, mundane office, so this is why you find offices filled with Dells or HPs, even if they might not be the 'best' PCs out there.

      Because they are regulated to "boring office tasks", they don't need fancy graphics cards, or super fast processors. As long as they can run M$ Word or access the company's database, a humdrum, no frills PC will do.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @02:37PM (#61169052)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • This, and they don't even have that much to be insecure about. The M1 is a super-oddball CPU that's a long way from running anything but Apple's OS and its performance is good, sure, but there's nothing really amazing about it. People are hardly going to be cross-shopping M1 Macs and Intel PCs specifically. Intel's bigger threat is whatever AMD's making these days. The last two computers I bought for myself and the last one I built for a customer all had AMD CPUs, nothing I would've considered an M1 for.

    • Intel can't argue on the merits of their CPUs and instead have to argue things that aren't really related to their CPUs and instead related to hardware and software that they have little to do with.

      Heck, AMD could come along an equivalent advert, but target at Intel: "Intel may game better than Apple, but AMD games better than Intel".

    • They did push the "Ultrabook" form factor. Which honestly was better than "Netbook" which were really crappy (mostly thanks to underpowered Intel Atom CPUs). Of course they only did so years after Apple released the Macbook Pro and Macbook Air (2008).

  • Mac with Windows is best (Score:4, Insightful)

    by iamhassi ( 659463 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @02:39PM (#61169056) Journal
    I don’t like the Mac OS because a update every year means after a few years it can’t run the latest software. For example, to run the latest Big Sur OS X, you need MacBook (2015 or later), MacBook Air (2013 or later) or MacBook Pro (Late 2013 or later). Windows has none of those requirements. If you have the ram and storage, you can run windows 10 on nearly any laptop. But the quality of PC laptops are all over the place, while Apple always has good quality. I also have a local store I can take a Mac to for any problems. So get a Mac and put Windows on it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Arkham ( 10779 )

      A 2013 Mac can run the 2021 Big Sur. It's not like they are deprecating quickly here.

      https://support.apple.com/en-u... [apple.com]

    • I'm running Mojave on a Mid-2010 MacBook Pro. Not officially supported, but it works. It still gets security updates, and can still run most of the latest software, the main exception is VMWare, which needs a more modern CPU for the latest versions.

    • It's always amused me that the best way to revive an older Intel Mac with a modern OS is to throw Windows on it.

      Though you don't have to go back very many years before the first Intel Mac to start getting into processors that Windows 10 won't run on. (It won't run on CPUs that lack NX, PAE or SSE2.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swilver ( 617741 )

      With the money you spent on a mac though, you can buy a *better* quality PC, and you won't have to deal with Apple's one-size-fits-all problem.

  • All this as tiny AMD's server chips consistently beat giant Intel's top offering. Ask serious gamers.

    And these last few years, we have been hearing about several serious security flaws baked almost all of into Intel's chips. Some can be repaired at BIOS level, others can not. Permanent vulnerabilities, only recently disclosed.

    Now Apple has their own RISC chip. Even less market share for Intel.

    No wonder Intel are pointing fingers at Apple.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mackil ( 668039 )

      I found it amusing that the PC gamer in their video was using a gamepad. It's clear that the ad was (at least partially) targeting people who aren't PC gamers.

      Quote common actually signed, a pc gamer who uses xbox pc controllers

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mackil ( 668039 )

      I found it amusing that the PC gamer in their video was using a gamepad. It's clear that the ad was (at least partially) targeting people who aren't PC gamers.

      Quite common actually. I'm a PC gamer, and always have a pair of xbox controllers around. My kids use them almost exclusively.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • I found it amusing that the PC gamer in their video was using a gamepad. It's clear that the ad was (at least partially) targeting people who aren't PC gamers.

        Quite common actually. I'm a PC gamer, and always have a pair of xbox controllers around. My kids use them almost exclusively.

        You're not a real PC gamer unless you have a gaming mouse, controller, HOTAS setup, VR setup, mechanical keyboard that can wake the dead, dual RTX 3090 and 240 Hz 4K monitor.

  • One funny thing about those old Mac ads (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @02:46PM (#61169092)

    Back then, I thought it somewhat amusing when I found out that - in real life - John Hodgman was an avid Mac fan, while Justin Long preferred Windows. But both played their parts well.

  • So Intel ist beating on Apple from the 2000s? (Score:3)

    by joh ( 27088 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @02:49PM (#61169106)

    Figures.

  • A shill's a shill. Gotta make that money.

    • Re:Nothing like a turncoat... (Score:4, Informative)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @03:04PM (#61169164)

      Dude's just an actor, he makes his living playing different roles.

      I mean, John Hodgman was a Mac user in real life, even while he was saying "I'm a PC" in the ads. Was he a shill?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sl3xd ( 111641 )

        It definitely falls in the category of “You keep using that word (shill)... I do not believe it means what you think it means.”

        A shill is an “enthusiastic customer” — anybody in an advertisement can’t be a shill by definition.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by j-beda ( 85386 )

          It definitely falls in the category of “You keep using that word (shill)... I do not believe it means what you think it means.”

          A shill is an “enthusiastic customer” — anybody in an advertisement can’t be a shill by definition.

          Not really. "shilling" is the act of (fraudulently) praising a product, usually while pretending to be an actual customer rather than a paid speaker. In common usage it is frequently applied to celebrity spokespersons.

          shill /SHil/

          informalNorth American
          noun: shill; plural noun: shills
          an accomplice of a hawker, gambler, or swindler who acts as an enthusiastic customer to entice or encourage others.
          verb
          verb: shill; 3rd person present: shills; past tense: shilled; past participle: s

  • I'm totally a computer doctor and I don't want to sound like a dick, but your old rig is like totally f**ked up. What you should is get one of these awesome Apple doohickeys. It'll make your like really, you know, kick a**.

  • "Every time I think of you
    I always catch my breath
    And I'm still standing here
    And you're miles away
    And I'm wondering why you left"

    "I ain't missing you at all
    Since you've been gone away
    I ain't missing you
    No matter what my friends say"

    "I ain't missing you
    I ain't missing you
    I can lie to myself"

    Remember when Intel said even if they lost Apple, it wouldn't matter much since Apple didn't contribute much to their revenue?

    • And their latest CPUs are 300 watts of latency inducing redesigns:

      https://www.anandtech.com/show... [anandtech.com]

      "Our results clearly show that Intelâ(TM)s performance, while substantial, still trails its main competitor, AMD. In a core-for-core comparison, Intel is slightly slower and a lot more inefficient. The smart money would be to get the AMD processor."

  • ... is pretty amazing and it's only the initial version. Intel, you had the initiative and couldn't deliver.

  • I use my Mac to make money while playing. This is rather different from PC gamers who play and waste money.

  • Is where a gang of bearded weirdos breaks into Mac & PC guy's office and installs a different Linux distro on each machine.

    • Is where a gang of bearded weirdos breaks into Mac & PC guy's office and installs a different Linux distro on each machine.

      You know that’s not true. Those guys would be installing BSD. Linux is too mainstream.

  • And the burning bunny suit too.

  • In these ads, I see a focus on games and a focus on the colours of different laptops and...

    What about those of us who need a good, solid, reliable laptop for business? For literally decades, I used laptops made by Lenovo, HP and Acer that were basically all charcoal grey and designed for road warriors but it seems I'm now out of step with Intel with looking for these attributes in a laptop.

    For almost 10 years now, I've had a basic MacBook Air as my primary business laptop and have loved it. It's kinda

  • Pick a viable alternative, not Microsoft. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ikhider ( 2837593 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @03:53PM (#61169392)
    Asking Mac users to switch to Windows is ill advised. Perhaps suggest Linux instead. In the multimedia field, big studios (where those mega Marvel and Star wars movies are made, for intance) use Linux. Perhaps most Mac users are there for multimedia purposes. Professional video editors like DaVinci Resolve and Lightworks run on Linux. For pro audio, Harrison Mixbus, Reaper and Bitwig (among others) also run on Linux. This is only growing. I imagine Mac users want to get things done, not to be boggled down by virus', a crashing OS, paying for every little thing that should come with the OS. While not perfect, Linux is the better alternative to Microsoft.

  • A shot in the foot (Score:3)

    by dhaen ( 892570 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @03:56PM (#61169402)
    So Intel make these ads criticising a good customer - Apple have bought and are still buying a lot of their CPUs from Intel. The ad campaign can only accelerate Apple's desire to transition to their own silicon.

  • Apple brought back an ad with John Hodgeman and it was entertaining.

  • I watched the video and found it really, really underwhelming.

    This doesn't bode well for Intel.
  • M1-based Macs donâ(TM)t support multiple monitors? Why not? Do they support one external monitor at least?

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