Apple Demands Microsoft Pull 'Laptop Hunter' Ads (VIDEO, POLL)

The battle between Microsoft and Apple seems to never end. PC World reports that at a Microsoft conference on Wednesday, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner revealed to the audience that an Apple lawyer actually called him to complain about the ubiquitous 'Laptop Hunter' ad campaign.

Here's PC World:

"And you know why I know they're working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey -- this is a true story -- saying, "Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices." They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I've ever taken in business. (Applause.)"

What made Apple so angry? PC World points out that Apple's price cuts were significant enough to make many of the ad's price information inaccurate. Here's one of the offending Laptop Hunter ads, in which a cheery red-headed woman finds a PC laptop for under $1,000:

WATCH:

And here's one of Apple's advertising responses to those pesky laptop hunters. The ad goes directly after the type of comparison shoppers featured in Microsoft's spot:

Story continues below

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Comments

[baseballmom]

My co-worker, who had always poked gentle fun at me for being a Mac person, had to pay $300 for Geek Squad to come to his home and remove the viruses and spyware that had incapacitated his PC. When his first son left for college, he took a Macbook with him.

[OmegaHunter]

Your coworker is stupid for 2 reasons.

1) Getting viruses and spyware on his PC
2) Paying $300 to get them off of it

[sharpstick]

Ah yes, just another example of those arrogant, self important PC users telling someone who may know better how stupid they are.

And you think Mac users are arrogant?

LMAO

[HoracePManure]

Yeah, this guy sounds really happy with his PC purchase.

http://fortcollins.craigslist.org/cpg/1280489332.html

[OmegaHunter]

That guy also claims to be "tech-savvy" when he clearly isn't. He doesn't know what he's doing and he thinks the person that can help him really needs to know the product number of his Hewlett Packard computer. He's the kind of guy that when asked what kind of processor he runs would answer "Well I have an HP."

[guyfrombrooklyn]

No beef here, just sayin'

I was as loyal a PC user as there ever was. When my machine crashed, I'd either fix it or run out and buy another.

I bought quite a few of the computers that used to have the young kid in the ads, along with the TV maker from Japan's laptops.

I've opened up and added memory, hard drives, cards, or chips to every PC I've ever had. With that, bought countless virus and spyware eliminators. Updated to windows this, windows that, like the loyal lemming they wanted me to be. Ran the compression program on the HD, that knocked the PC down for 1/2 a day. Ran the once a month anti virus that shut me down for sometimes a whole day.

I've not done any of these things for 6 years.

And made NO adjustments to the MAC MINI that I sit here typing this post on.

Try it. You WILL like it.

[OmegaHunter]

You can't really upgrade a Mac Mini much. You have to pry it open with a knife which allows you to upgrade the memory, network card and hard drive. That's it. It's prepackaged for people that don't know and don't care.

You also claim you've been using one Mac for that last 6 years. The Mac Mini is only 4 years old (January 2005). But let's assume you own one of these first generation models. You have (at best):

1.42 GHz processor
256 MB RAM (upgradeable to 1GB)
80 GB HD
Radeon 9200 (32 MB) video card

So it was a cheap, very slow computer FOUR years ago. So by today's standards it's really, really, incredibly slow.

How is that better than an upgraded, up-to-date PC again? Oh, that's right. You're good at getting viruses on your computer.

[sharpstick]

Is this really all you guys have got, calling you fellow PC users stupid?

It's amazing how many really stupid PC users there must be.

It's hilarious how every person who tells a PC horror story is met by some a-hole telling them how stupid they are.

And you call Mac users arrogant. Ironic isn't it?

[guyfrombrooklyn]

Well, perhaps you can tell me WHY if I don't have to purchase AV software,

should I have to either deal with warnings at every page click, or partition my drive away from the users and create an admin account?

or why I should have to run a check disk, partition, clean disk, use webroot, lavasoft or spybot to eliminate any unwanted crud?

BTW how many master disks (startup, boot disks) have you used in your lifetime? Betcha you own a few now JUST IN CASE.

By the way, I do know what I speak of. Perhaps you don't use the internet.

Or perhaps the "This is (or isn't) a trusted site message (warning) at every page is what you like :->

[garymc8]

If pc's are so great how come Apple won the coveted title of MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANY IN THE WORLD?

[garymc8]

G5 DESKTOP STILL ROCKS AFTER 5 YEARS. 12" G4 POWER BOOK 7 YEARS OLD RUN GREAT. MACS LAST LONGER AND RUN BETTER AND FASTER. MY 15" DUO CORE LETS ME USE WINDOWS AND MAC OS. CAN A PC DO THAT?

[mathme]

Apparently your caps lock key is broken, though.

[Eris23]

"MY 15" DUO CORE LETS ME USE WINDOWS AND MAC OS. CAN A PC DO THAT?"

YES! IT'S CALLED A HACKINTOSH. GOOGLE! YOU CAN HAZ IT? YARLY!

[jdunaway65]

Um, well... the operative syllable in there is "hack." The macs that have pentium processors do not have to be hacked to run Windows, and you don't even need to shut down and reboot. You can go from Windoze to Mac OS on the fly...

[guyfrombrooklyn]

Here is NYC we are lucky to have a store(s) that do all the upgrades for MAC/Apple products that people talk about.

As far as the browser jumping?...Not sure but maybe the little ICON in the dashboard is what you speak of?

[guyfrombrooklyn]

Do PC users realize the added expense of having to PURCHASE a virus scanning/spyware program ANNUALLY?

How about the cheaper PC that is that way because the Windows program is just a DEMO. 30 days after starting it, you must buy it to continue to use it.

Or even the fact that - eventually it WILL - fall victim to spyware/vi­rus/malwar­e and pop up insanity.

Once a faithful PC user, I used to heckle those MAC hippies.

Switched to Mac in early 21st century. Still using same computer.

Now I'm a member of that same HIPPIE nation.

[mathme]

You don't have to buy AV software.

You speak of things you do not understand.

Never had a virus/spyware/etc. because I know what I'm doing and don't have to buy unpopular products just to avoid being targeted.

[sharpstick]

Yet another ARROGANT PC USER calling a former PC user stupid.

And these are the same folks who claim Apple users are arrogant.

[Eris23]

"Do PC users realize the added expense of having to PURCHASE a virus scanning/spyware program ANNUALLY?"

Nope. It's because there is a fair amount of free ones that are often vastly superior to the ones you pay for, as they learned that the money was to be made with corporate, and not home, licenses. AVG Free has worked fine for me.

"How about the cheaper PC that is that way because the Windows program is just a DEMO. 30 days after starting it, you must buy it to continue to use it."

LOL!

"Or even the fact that - eventually it WILL - fall victim to spyware/vi­rus/malwar­e and pop up insanity."

Run AVG Free and a firewall and it's about as likely to happen on a Windows OS as it is on OS X.

"Once a faithful PC user, I used to heckle those MAC hippies."

This seems to be a rather repeat problem for people who have "made the switch." It's about choosing a team. For those of us who truly have used what simply "just works," there's never been any team loyalty. At the moment, the Mac Cultists are acting way more ignorant, arrogant and annoying than the diehard Windows gamers who used to represent the other side of the coin. Good job. :)

[sharpstick]

Your coming off pretty arrogant and annoying to me.

What were you saying again?

[pishsticks]

Once you go mac you never go back

[jtmoney]

it's hilarious reading all these PC users and mac users talk smack to each other. theirs is always the best, and theirs never crashes or get viruses. i bet a lot of people are embellishing a bit too.

just for the record, i do have a pc but only b/c it was a gift. i certainly don't have any preferences. i use it to balance my check book, surf the web, pay bills and save/download music. so long as you're not looking up porn sites from thailand, the pc works just fine.

[blackwhitegirl]

Why all the venom, people? There's plenty of room for both Mac and PC

In full disclosure of my Mac bias - I'm a graphic designer and so an "expensive" high-end Mac is THE professional tool for me - always has been, always will be. But when my visiting sister went with me last week to an Apple store, she was surprised at how "cheap" a simple iPhone is - $99.

Apple has all kinds of price points on ALL its products to appeal to different segments of the market. There's something for everyone - from "fully-loaded" for designers like me, to "simple and utilitarian" for a working mother of 3 small children.

[mathme]

I think that there is room for both, but it is annoying to see people making things up or generalizing from one experience.

Anyway, what does a mac do for graphic designers that PCs can't? They run the same hardware and essentially the same software. If we were still back in the days of the IBM chips, I might agree with you because of the vector processing that could really boost a couple PS filters (though over all, not) and vector graphic software like Illustrator. But all in all, what does it do?

People keep spreading this little factoid like it's true.

[Eris23]

"Why all the venom, people? There's plenty of room for both Mac and PC"

Shhhhhh! You're a traitor to all if you suggest that choice of either architecture generally comes down to subjective comfort level.

"But when my visiting sister went with me last week to an Apple store, she was surprised at how "cheap" a simple iPhone is - $99."

$99 for the hardware perhaps. Then throw on the actual phone contract. If I'm not mistaken (been awhile since I looked at the numbers), the cheapest iphone plan is about $60 a month. That's a required contract for 2 years. So, that $99 phone is actually $1,539. Now, I'm not about to say that a $60 plan is unreaonable given what's out there on other regular cell phones. But, my cell phone cost me about $40 and, in 3 years, has cost me a total of 306.75. That's including the $40 cost of the phone.

Now, no, I don't have access to things like youtube on my phone. But, the cost difference doesn't make it worth the switch for me. Figuring that my total phone costs have averaged to about $100 a year, I saved over $1200 by not going with an iphone, assuming a $99 model was available two years ago which I am pretty sure was not the case, as my brother dropped $499 on one at that time. That's significant.

[OmegaHunter]

I always hear "graphic designers" rave about how awesome Macs are for doing just that, graphic design. Yet when I ask them why their Mac is any better than a PC for that they can never give me a real answer.

You use the same design software you would on a PC. You have greater likelihood of compatibility problems since most businesses and people own Windows based PCs. You pay much more for less power. You can't upgrade it as readily or nearly as cheaply as a PC. If hardware fails, you will be paying a lot to get it repaired rather than the DIY approach you could take with a PC (or if you don't know how to it would be cheaper to repair than a Mac).

For the same price you paid for your "expensive "high-end" Mac you could have gotten a much-much faster and "high-end" PC or you could've paid a lot less and gotten one that's comparable to your Mac.

So I ask you. Why is a Mac "THE professional tool for you?" Why is it the way to go for your graphic design? Is it because someone else told you it's the way to go? I'm guessing that's why.

[ptfcNassoc]

The average person that just surfs the internet, checks email, uses word processor, listens to music and watches a dvd from time to time, doesn't need a ridiculously overpriced Apple (most people only need a computer for these purposes). Now for hardcore gaming, movie making, and CGI geeks it would be worth going out and buying an expensive Apple (for those purposes Apple's are better).

[Stallings]

Hardcore gaming on a Mac? Ridiculously overpriced Apples? You know not of what you speak.

[thaggas]

My wife does just those things you speak of: email, internet, music and movies. She has an $800 MacBook and she absolutely loves it. Additionally, the lid closed a little too hard one time and cracked the body just below the keyboard. I walked into a Mac Store with my credit card in hand and the guy at the Genius counter said, "Yah we had that happen to a couple of these models. We'll take care of it. Can you come back in 60 minutes?"

I wonder if the new Microsoft retail store are going to offer that?

[Kayte]

I didn't realize until reading all this that owning an Apple product made you a yuppie, elitist toolbag. Wow, thanks. My boyfriend and I both own iPhones and Macbooks; my Mabook being new per April 2009 and his going on 3 years. Neither of us have had ANY hardware or software issues and we both have been extremely happy with the "thousands upon thousands" of dollars we have spent. I bought an HP laptop new for only $200 less than what I spent on my Macbook and it did not even last me two years and was nothing but issues. The female port of the charging mechanism corroded and would have cost with parts and labor over half of what I paid for the piece of crap to begin with. Mind you, I do not travel with my laptops or beat them up, they sit in one of two spots in our house. The HP computer habitually crashed, would take forever to start up and I had to use different browsers to do different things which is just bogus (among other things). I did not use this computer for anything other than web browsing, photo editing, and word processing. Sure, I could wipe and reinstall windows and all that to make it run smoother every year or so, but I personally find that ridiculous. There is no need to be too tech savvy with Apple products, bottom line they just work and work well.

[hairyhuman]

I hear there are definitely pros with Mac but with your HP situation, it sounds like you got ripped off.

[Kayte]

Ripped off? Not really, that is just how it works when you are out of warranty. I have several friends that are PC techs that looked into it for me as well after being quoted from HP and the pieces that needed replacing were costly, plus the labor...no way around it. I owned PC's from the time I was in college until I bought my Macbook and they were nothing but problems of one sort or another. I am not an idiot, but I am not a pc tech either.

I totally understand folks who like to build their own machines to their own specifications and PCs are good for that and are cheaper in a lot of cases. Those people though usually have the knowledge to upgrade/replace their own parts when needed. Myself, I just wanted a machine that had an easy set up out of the box, that I could do basic things with no hassle.

[Eris23]

Why would you buy a laptop if all it does is stay in your apartment? That's a waste of money right there, as no laptop is ever as durable as a desktop.

[Kayte]

The main reason is completely in personal preference that I don't like being tied to a desk, simple as that. I like to have the mobility around the house. Seeing as I am not complaining about the cost, I don't find it a waste of money.

It is also nice on the occasions I do travel that aren't for work, that I can take my macbook with me. When I travel for work, they provide me with a laptop so I don't have to worry about mine being toted around as much.

[tommyboy455]

Being that I work at Best Buy, she didn't get everything. She forgot anti-virus/spyware, recovery disks, MS Office, and Black Tie service plan. This commercial is complete BS!!!!!!!

[KarateKid]

Yup, that's what happened to me when I bought a Toshiba at Best Buy. I had to get all the stuff you mentioned, plus have Geek Squad remove all the trial software slapped on to the laptop as the salesman claimed that you could harm your registry by doing it yourself. That cost an extra $65 on top of all the software and service plan. The ad is completely bogus.

When I bought the iMac, I took it home, plugged it in, and it was ready to use, except for Office. The Apple ad is funnier, too. I have no complaints with either machine, and use both equally, so there's no built in bias.

[hairyhuman]

"could harm your registry by doing it yourself"

LOL

[JSHorwitz]

Nobody has to buy any of that crap and why would you? and if you did and want the comparison, well then add on the Apple Care + Mac Account + more and you'd still pay less for a PC than a Mac. Mac is like Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, or any other high quality expensive product. PC is for everyone else who doesn't need all the bells and whistles and has a budget. Oh, and can't spend a couple thousand dollars on a laptop each year considering most computers die in 2-3 yrs (or become obsolete due to Moore's Law).

[justanotherday]

You do know you can get a some apple laptops start at $700 right? And the ones larger ones start at around 1,300 (15 - 17inch). Don't know where these thousands come into play, unless your going to the mac-pro models (towers) that are made for professional use.

I guess my dual processor G5 styled by Pada and built by Lamborghini may have been pushing it though.

[BoilerMan]

Apple outright lies in their ads. They have always done it and probably always will. I remember when they came out with the Mac Air and their ads claimed "worlds thinnest notebook." This was a lie as there were several sony systems available at the time that were actually thinner, and also had an integrated DVD. I even had a Sony Vaio in 2001 that was speced out thinner than the Mac air. So not only was it a lie, it wasnt true by a margin of 7-8 years. I dont trust a thing they say. Their systems crash and are effected by viruses.
PCs are open platforms that benefit from broad development of hardware and software by an open community of users and companies. IBM made this possible when they opened up their platform for cloning in the 1980s. Since then PCs have dominated because of competition in the marketplace for value, and innovation. Macs are closed systems with very limited hardware and software integration possibilities. You can only buy a Mac from Apple. The truth is that over the last 10 years Apple has been adopting and benefited from the broad innovation coming from the PC world.
I also remember when all of the MAC people tried to tell us how their computers were superior because they had Motorolla processors... that arguement went awy when Apple switched over to Intel. It is always something with these folks that are really concerned with fashion and status symbols.

[Niqueth]

I could really care less how thin the Air is, but I can tell you that with a Mac, you are nowhere near as likely to get a virus. I don't know anyone with a Mac that has ever gotten a virus and I live in a community of composers where Macs are much more common than PC's. Also, the OS on my notebook has never crashed since I started running Leopard almost a year ago. There are a lot of open source programs for Mac as well. PC's, I've heard are better for gamers, but I don't play video games, so that is not important to me.

[Swasea Clark]

The only reason you are " nowhere near as likely to get a virus" is due to obscurity.

Stop touting the MAC as the end all be all of home PC security. It's not. You don't get viruses because no one is making viruses for a Home computer that makes up less than 10 percent of the market share (wait.. maybe it's 5 percent...).this also means there are far more options for fighting viruses on a PC than a Mac. In reality, the amount of PC users complaining about Viruses is a bloated statistic. Here's some truth.

IF EVERYONE PRACTICED RESPONSIBLE COMPUTING PRACTICES THERE WOULD BE NEARLY NO COMPLAINTS AT ALL.

Viruses happen because people are IRRESPONSIBLE and LAZY.

Secondly, the only way to upgrade a MAC is to buy an entirely new one. I spent 400 bucks to upgrade my video cards (went from 8800GT OC's SLI to GTX 260 OC's SLI) and now my graphics ability is near the top of the heap. For 1/5th of the price of a brand new, top of the line Mac. Soon, I will drop 6-700 on a new board and chip, Core I7- when I do that there isn't a Mac on the planet that can touch it. Core i7, 8 gigs of DDR3, and 1.7+ Gigs of
GPU. Instead of having to buy it all at once, I was able to buy them when I could.