Sometimes I wonder how Microsoft is so incredibly bad at “getting it.” Visit site »
My cousin Brian compares the advertising strategies of Obama and McCain to that of Apple and its competitors, respectively. It’s an interesting comparison. While Apple just keeps showing sexy shots of its killer products and whetting people’s appietie, Sprint (for example)…wait for it…shows sexy shots of Apple’s iPhone in the ads for its Instinct and calls it an “iPhone killer.” Smary, Sprint. Real smart. Brian says:
Perhaps the biggest flaw of John McCain’s campaign (and the criticisms levied by his supporters) lies in the decision to lend even more face-time to an immensely popular opponent who isn’t suffering from a lack of face-time…
Indeed. Visit site »
Apple has changed the text on it’s MobileMe “features” page, indicating that sync from computer to cloud aren’t really “push” at all, but rather standard interval-based syncs. The textual change comes after a lot of folks complained about “false advertising” and “deception” on the part of Apple. The page previously stated:
MobileMe stores all your email, contacts, and calendars in the cloud and pushes them down to your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. When you make a change on one device, the cloud updates the others. Push happens automatically, instantly, and continuously. You don’t have to wait for it or remember to do anything — such as docking your iPhone and syncing manually — to stay up to date.
As of today, it says:
MobileMe stores all your email, contacts, and calendars in the cloud and keeps them in sync across your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. When you make a change in one place, MobileMe pushes the new information up to the cloud, then pushes the change down to your other devices. Choose a sync interval for your Mac or PC. On your iPhone and the web, sync happens continuously.
It’s good that Apple has made this more clear, but it doesn’t change the fact that they absolutely did misrepresent how the service works — not only on their site, but also during the WWDC keynote demo.
Form talking to someone inside Apple, it sounds as though “true” push is likely to come to the Mac with updates to iCal, Address Book, Mail, and Safai, but who knows when that will be. It’s good to hear it may be coming though, and is not entirely a lost cause.
Thanks to Bret for letting me know about the text change. Visit site »
Tom Ford’s latest campaign is decidedly NSFW, but also includes some beautifully provocative photography. Overall, I really like these images. But what the hell is up with that last one? Seriously, that’s not a good photo at all in my judgement. It’s compositionally all over the place, and the lighting is downright awful. The shadows the people are casting are painful to look at. It just feels really, really out of place in an otherwise great collection of photography. Via Rex Visit site »
It’s just like a mini-mall! Hillarious. Thanks, Brandi. Visit site »
I mostly agree with what Gruber has to say in a response to criticism over his defense of Apple’s Hello TV spot. And, it’s well-written, as you’d expect from John.
Tangentially, I think one of the points of confusion over all this rip-off-or-not business is that there’s a world of difference between the law and the morals of individual creative people.
Creative people, and especially web designers, have gotten up in arms a lot lately over things the law would laugh at. What you call a rip-off often would not be seen as any kind of wrongdoing in copyright or trademark court. Copyright doesn’t protect ideas at all, and trademark is pretty lenient about logos and other marks that “look pretty similar.” So just because you’re upset that someone has a logo that looks like yours doesn’t give you any legal ground for focing them to cease and desist (you have the right to ask, of course, but they have the right to ignore you, too).
So next time you’re upset because someone has appropriated your idea or design, maybe think twice before saying, “you’ve stolen my intellectual property.” Because, more often than not, you don’t know the law well enough to know if that’s really true (I certainly don’t!). Instead, say what you do know: “I think you got this idea from my original work and I feel cheated that you used it without my permission.”
In the case of Apple’s Hello ad specifically: there’s absolutely no way it is copyright infringement in the legal sense. But is it a rip-off? Definitely. Is ripping something off without breaking the law morally wrong?
Well, that’s for you to decide. Everyone’s morals are different. Visit site »
Someone needs to tell Christian Marclay that you can’t copyright an idea. Ideas are simply not protected under copyright law. While they’re at it, someone should tell a lot a web designers this, too. Even if something is a rip-off of an idea, that doesn’t make it illegal. Visit site »
In this testing video, PC freestyles an Apple commercial in which he delivers a “personal message from Steve Jobs.” Steve has asked all Mac developers to “just stop for a while,” and maybe even take some time to help out with Vista. Funny stuff that was probably never supposed to see the light of day. Visit site »
A friend of mine says this pretty much sums up why he quit working in the advertising business. Funny stuff. Visit site »
Sure, it doesn’t mention that you can only listen to the song three times before it explodes inside your Zune, but still, I like this commercial. Funny, pointed, and direct. It’s an interesting twist to see Microsoft acting as the little guy poking fun of the big behemoth in the industry, like Apple has been doing to Windows for so many years. Visit site »
Awesome new spot from Dove. You gotta see it. Visit site »
Guy moderated a panel of young people in the Valley and the results are fascinating. Among the topics broached: advertising, Apple, iPods, MySpace, Facebook, The OC, and more. There’s a video of the panel, as well (which I’ve not yet watched, but definitely intend to). Visit site »
I’m not sure how I feel about this trend. A few of them are clever and well-executed, but many of them distract from and even could be confused as real content. Visit site »
The creators of this amazing 81-minute documentary explain: “The story chronicles the rise, fall, and rebirth of the cult TV show “Firefly” as told from the perspective of the fans who helped save it.” This CC-licensed lower-res version of the full documentary is released partly as a promotional tool for the full DVD, which includes an insane amount of extras. Kick ass. When you can no longer run… Visit site »
Freakin’ great. Visit site »
Oh man, this is a great ad campaign. What a beautiful display of constraint. Love it. Visit site »
The security ad might be the best one yet. Man that made me laugh. Visit site »
Django itself signed up for a MySpace account and created a profile. Does your web framework do that? :) Visit site »
Some are better than others. The iLife, Network, and Restarting ones are great. Love the subliminal message hidden in the fashion of the actors. Overall, just what the doctor ordered. Visit site »
Brian on fudge factories, realtors who give you a pounding, and hamburgers that want your sweet lovin’. Visit site »