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Apple's 'Get a Mac' attack

Jon Skillings Editorial director
Jon Skillings is an editorial director at CNET, where he's worked since 2000. A born browser of dictionaries, he honed his language skills as a US Army linguist (Polish and German) before diving into editing for tech publications -- including at PC Week and the IDG News Service -- back when the web was just getting under way, and even a little before. For CNET, he's written on topics from GPS, AI and 5G to James Bond, aircraft, astronauts, brass instruments and music streaming services.
Expertise AI, tech, language, grammar, writing, editing Credentials
  • 30 years experience at tech and consumer publications, print and online. Five years in the US Army as a translator (German and Polish).
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Jon Skillings

Apple Computer may have broken bread with the Wintel camp, but that doesn't mean it's finding the closer association easy to swallow.

The new Get a Mac ad campaign continues the company's long tradition of that run the Windows operating system, featuring an easy-going, T-shirt-and-sneakers-clad techno-hipster ("I'm a Mac") and a not-so-with-it gent ("I'm a PC") in an ill-fitting business suit.

A series of video clips on the Apple site drives home the point. The "Viruses" clip, for instance, has the sneezy PC stand-in lamenting his susceptibility to maladies, and "iLife" showcases his cluelessness about cool apps. That's in spite of the brief--and quickly obscured--nod to the fact that Macs now have the ability to run Windows ("We have a lot in common these days.")

But it's the "Network" clip that gets in the slyest dig. The PC and Mac characters are joined by a cute and perky young woman identified as "that new digital camera from Japan." Not only do the Mac and the camera characters have an obvious, um, affinity--they chat affably in Japanese, which Mr. PC clearly doesn't understand--but she also declares of the latter, with a mocking smile, "Hey, don't you think he looks nerdy?"

(Thanks to Hayashi Sakawa of CNET Japan for translating--and for spotting this in the first place.)