Is Apple’s Jealousy Of Microsoft Surfacing?

Apple has been a big bully this week and to be quite frank, I think it’s because Apple’s jealous.

 

The Safari Fiasco

Apple has been making headlines, most notably on Techmeme, over the fact that they are now pushing their products onto Windows machine’s using their Apple Software Update program. Basically, if you don’t have any of their products installed, when you use their updater, the option to install these products is checked by default. This doesn’t stop at Safari either. Oh no, silly people! This has also happened for those that don’t have iTunes installed. Damn Apple! Is this how we do business now? Even John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, thinks Apple’s latest moves are wrong. However, that could be because they didn’t think of it first.

Nevertheless, people have been pretty pissed off about this move from Apple. It says a lot about the company’s emotions towards not only Microsoft, but also users of Microsoft’s products. Personally, I feel it has jealousy and envy written ever so subtly all over it. Obviously the market share that Windows has could make anyone envious. Even though iPods and iTunes are dominating the music scene, they beat the revenue that Microsoft generates off of Windows alone. As a result, Apple’s becoming more aggressive with it’s marketing tactics. It’s an unexpected move from Apple and one that most would expect to see from Microsoft instead. You have to admit, Apple is definitely dirty dancing.

 

The Ads

At the same time, I notice Apple’s ads are becoming more and more spiteful in tone. At first, everyone laughed. It was…snarky. One could almost consider it to be friendly rivalry. Then today I read that, “Apple again takes a swipe at Vista on Windows-friendly sites”.

In the ad, the PC Guy notices that the banner above has a negative headline calling Vista “one of the biggest blunders in technology”. He walks to a blank wall and opens a door to reveal an “Emergency Banner Refresh” panel. He pulls a lever and the ad refreshes, only to reveal another Vista-bashing headline that says the operating system needs “a do-over”. His third attempt finally yields a positive quote, this time referencing Leopard, the latest version of the Mac OS, calling it “a perfect 10”.

The PC Guy throws the switch one more time, and the top banner shows simply the Apple logo, while the right panel shows an iMac and the words “Upgrade to Mac.”

Update: This ad apparently was running Friday on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. It doesn’t appear to be there today, though.

Apple is fighting really dirty and being very slick about it lol. I’ve never seen any response from Microsoft, but if you have, please share them in the comments section.

What Apple fails to be seeing is that it’s dirty to the consumers not just Microsoft. We stand the most to lose from such behavior, not Microsoft, and Apple stands to lose one of the hardest things you can ever get from consumers: Trust. Is it really worth it Apple? Quite frankly, I’m glad I’m not using any of your products. Whatever happened to Updates? You know, the keyword in the program that you’re using to carry out your Windows domination plans?

What do you think: Is there a crack an Apple’s armor?

Are they really jealous? Is it simply ingenious marketing skills?

Or is it something else all together? 

Corvida Raven

A natural pioneer at grasping the rapidly changing landscape of technology, Corvida Raven talks tech in plain English on SheGeeks.net.