"Hey kids, Apple here - you know, the cool company. All your favorite musicians and influencers use our products. And you know what's just as cool as the latest social media trend? Giving a powerpoint presentation to your parents."
Which of these guys (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_a_Mac) would throw a slide deck at their parents and which would buy his own laptop from the money he made filming skateboarding videos with his amazing iphone 18 camera?
firstplacelast · 42m ago
While I agree with you, in high-school a buddy of mine was going on a weekend trip a couple states away and made a whole power point presentation to another friend's parents to convince them to allow their daughter to go.
He also gave a very memorable and completely inane speech to our entire school that involved him stomping on a loaf of bread while running for student council (and won). The coolness isn't so much in the tools as the way they are used.
andiareso · 2h ago
I actually thought it was pretty hilarious. It's supposed to be ridiculous. (Am a parent and also own Macs).
The idea is... okay, but it's way too long so the joke gets old and starts sounding kinda fucked up. When a kid does the "buy me a PS5" powerpoint on his own it's cute, this looks more like MLM training.
parliament32 · 6h ago
They're right, it is cringe.
fortran77 · 5h ago
My kid's going to get a Windows ARM laptop, just to spite Apple.
xeonmc · 4h ago
“Mom, can we get Apple Silicon?”
“We have Apple Silicon at home.”
Apple Silicon at home:
WorldPeas · 2h ago
or.. you could buy a used device. I had the m1 2020 for the longest time and save for the mobo parts, it was quite repairable. That computer was socially the best thing that ever happened to me after using linux for 12 years. Don't isolate your kid from social reality, grim as it is.
ThrowawayTestr · 5h ago
Don't torture your child just to get one over on a company.
garciasn · 5h ago
I just don’t understand the thinking. MacOS and Apple hardware are far superior to Windows in every conceivable way except price in the immediate; but, Apple hardware is superior in price over time as the machine will last longer and have better performance for many more years than a Windows PC.
All because they had a stupid marketing event. Sheesh.
jajuuka · 21m ago
Don't choke on Apple's boots. Leave some for the rest of us.
cosmicgadget · 2h ago
It's tough to put a price tag on never entering the Apple ecosystem.
anon7000 · 4h ago
Plus an Apple device has meaningful resale value in 5+ years.
simmerup · 4h ago
The hardware is superior but the software is not
joshstrange · 4h ago
Ehh, I just watched about half of it. It’s way better than their stupid ad where they smashed musical instruments (a low bar, I know). I didn’t find it particularly egregious, a little cringe but so are most commercials. I don’t think this really deserves the blowback.
The truth is, a Mac is probably best for most college students. I had to make my case for why my parents should buy me a Mac for college (in an all-windows family) and was successful. My dad worked in tech, thought the MacBook was overrated, and loved windows (at the time). A few years later my dad got my sister one when she went to college and again a few years after that when the other sister went.
He later told me “That was the best decision I ever made, you know how many calls I got about issues with their computers? Zero”. Contrast that with rebuilding the family windows computer at least once a year due to some virus/spyware/malware that was infecting it when they lived at home.
MacBooks also hold their value well and are well made (butterfly keyboards notwithstanding). They are great value for the cost. I paid ~$1,000 for my first Mac and it got me through college without issue while I had friends who bought the bargain bin windows $400-500 machine and very few if any of them survived 4 years, the ones that did had batteries that didn’t last or parts literally falling off them.
Things may have improved in the subsequent 15 years (I don’t think they could’ve gotten worse on the window side) but I still recommend people get a Mac unless they have some software that they need that can’t run on it (normally only specialized things). For most people and in most cases it really does “just work”.
xeonmc · 3h ago
Macs: locked down by default, hackable if you know what you’re doing.
Windows: hackable by anyone, usually inadvertently so.
Phones: locked down and hostile to all attempts of tinkering.
---
Microsoft’s attempt at the locked-down-by-default approach with S Mode was half-assed in its effort and held back by ecosystem inertia.
I think the only feasible way to achieve this with the win32 ecosystem is a pubesos + wine approach.
KetoManx64 · 2h ago
I'd say Android phones are in the same category as the Macs, especially Google Pixels. If you know what you are doing you can ublock the bootloader, replace the ROM, root your device, etc.
xhkkffbf · 3h ago
I've had the best luck with a used Chromebook that I purchased on eBay for $100 or so. It's not like I had to install any software for my classes. It was all Google docs and sheets.
And I didn't worry about someone stealing it.
BanazirGalbasi · 3h ago
It really depends on what you're doing with your computer. For all of my computer science classes, a Chromebook would not have been sufficient. We did have a remote desktop server we could log into that had most of the tools we needed, but I don't even know if RDP runs well on a Chromebook. Even then, I found that I preferred developing locally so I didn't have to deal with shared computer bandwidth, which means a Chromebook would be completely inadequate.
For some of my friends outside of STEM degrees, a Chromebook would have (mostly) been fine. Given that our laptops were a major source of entertainment for us at the time, I think something with enough power for indie gaming and HD video is a must.
xhkkffbf · 2h ago
It's true that the Chromebook isn't so good for many CS classes. But it is possible to start up Linux access on a Chromebook. So there's that.
My classes, though, didn't need them.
xattt · 7h ago
Are kids these days even sensitive to “edgy” marketing anymore?
nancyminusone · 4h ago
Yes, but they would recognize this as cringe, not edgy. There's not even any swearing or porn!
hotmeals · 58m ago
It's quirky at best.
fred_is_fred · 6h ago
No. My kids loathe ads - to the point that they would rather do anything but watch shows with ads, including watching other shows or watching Instagram/TikTok instead of(which have ads but don't "feel" like ads to them).
9rx · 4h ago
Conversely, my kids get upset with me when I skip past ads. "Hey! I wanted to see that", I hear.
Which of these guys (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_a_Mac) would throw a slide deck at their parents and which would buy his own laptop from the money he made filming skateboarding videos with his amazing iphone 18 camera?
He also gave a very memorable and completely inane speech to our entire school that involved him stomping on a loaf of bread while running for student council (and won). The coolness isn't so much in the tools as the way they are used.
[EDIT]: Archived Version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHFUmPbODbI
“We have Apple Silicon at home.”
Apple Silicon at home:
All because they had a stupid marketing event. Sheesh.
The truth is, a Mac is probably best for most college students. I had to make my case for why my parents should buy me a Mac for college (in an all-windows family) and was successful. My dad worked in tech, thought the MacBook was overrated, and loved windows (at the time). A few years later my dad got my sister one when she went to college and again a few years after that when the other sister went.
He later told me “That was the best decision I ever made, you know how many calls I got about issues with their computers? Zero”. Contrast that with rebuilding the family windows computer at least once a year due to some virus/spyware/malware that was infecting it when they lived at home.
MacBooks also hold their value well and are well made (butterfly keyboards notwithstanding). They are great value for the cost. I paid ~$1,000 for my first Mac and it got me through college without issue while I had friends who bought the bargain bin windows $400-500 machine and very few if any of them survived 4 years, the ones that did had batteries that didn’t last or parts literally falling off them.
Things may have improved in the subsequent 15 years (I don’t think they could’ve gotten worse on the window side) but I still recommend people get a Mac unless they have some software that they need that can’t run on it (normally only specialized things). For most people and in most cases it really does “just work”.
Windows: hackable by anyone, usually inadvertently so.
Phones: locked down and hostile to all attempts of tinkering.
---
Microsoft’s attempt at the locked-down-by-default approach with S Mode was half-assed in its effort and held back by ecosystem inertia.
I think the only feasible way to achieve this with the win32 ecosystem is a pubesos + wine approach.
And I didn't worry about someone stealing it.
For some of my friends outside of STEM degrees, a Chromebook would have (mostly) been fine. Given that our laptops were a major source of entertainment for us at the time, I think something with enough power for indie gaming and HD video is a must.
My classes, though, didn't need them.