Apple pays Google for Windows 7 hits

no actually windows will always give mac users something to laugh at.

Mac users are such zealots. Windows will always give em something to be bitter about.

I own a Mac and have worked with Macs when I was in the printing/publishing industry. They are great for the work I do but PCs have their places too.

Some people like vanilla and some like chocolate. I get so TIRED of Mac and PC users wasting their time trying to argue their points. It's just a waste of time guys. Use what you like and get over you differences.

Mac users are such zealots. How bout we start a new religion and call it Macanity?

I see a lot of crap on here about having to tinker with Windows Machines all the time and always having to work on them. If you use it properly you don't have these problems. I havn't gone to Win 7 yet but I have been running my Vista machine for almost 6 months straight with out a reboot and no problems. I havn't upgraded my machine in over a year.
I also own a Mac laptop and love it. It's a great machine and extremely durable However I stay with PC because it's cheaper and easier to upgrade. I choose PC because it's cheaper to get more power out of a machine. Granted Windows has problems it always has but I have never found that it was to invasive.
Mac users get over yourselves Apple makes a great machine but it's not for everyone.

I never did understand why most Mac users I've known spent more time bashing Windows and Microsoft than just leaving it alone. You love your Macs…that's great! They're great machines.

It all comes down to a matter of choice. If you like Macs; great! If you like Windows; great! Use what you like and move on. I see no reason to spend so much time and energy bashing the "other side."

As someone that works on macs and pcs. Macs are pretty and look cool sitting at starbucks. Trying to integrate them into a large network and trying to make them play nice with network devices and programs is not fun.

oh noess! mac fanboys are here again!!!!

I really doubt that anyone out there bashing on pc's realizes than 90% of the time, its not windows itself having the issues. Its the drivers or software you use that is not up to date. Yeah, its a pain to keep up with. Mac is great in a lot of ways and pcs are too. Matter of preference.

Wishful Analysis, Philip

"In fact, this form of guerrilla marketing is surprisingly inexpensive. The cost per click for either "windows 7 download" or "download windows 7," according to Google's (GOOG) Keyword Tool, is 5 cents."

Let's try a "non-wishful" analysis – what is the benefit for AAPL of one click?

Assume that X denotes the probability that a person that clicks on the link actually buys a Mac; and Y denotes the contibution USD of an average Mac sale to AAPL. The product of X and Y must be more that 5 cents for this to be a profitable proposition for AAPL.

Y is probably well known, but X is a very, very small figure, especially if one (who's not trying to find in everything and anything something that brings Apple closer to world domination) remembers that this X must be "unique" or "exclusive", i.e., this customer wud NOT have made the decision to buy a Mac had he not clicked on the link.

You gets what you pays for, Philip, even for Apple.

Just to clarify: "Steve, CA" is a different person from me, "Steve, Los Angeles, CA". I don't feel we need to insult Ryan if we disagree with him.

What a shocker, another idiotic comment from Ryan: "As soon as you install Windows to play those applications, your "benefits" of owning a Mac are voided"

Oh, you mean like the benefits of being able to boot into an OS that is essentially virus-free and surf the web without having to sweat bullets? Why don't you go level up one of your Warcraft characters and leave the serious discussion to grown-ups who know what they are talking about?

Apple's true marketing genius: Put an ad up on Google or a little while, pull it down and have everyone talking about the ad. This way, the ad gets way more play time than what they paid for.

Similar approach to the "1984" ad. Played on TV twice. (once in a small market in Dec, so they could be up for the awards) They got a lot more free play on the news though.

"Mac's marketing is directed at those too lazy to take it upon themselves to care for and maintain their equipment." Exactly. Why should I be out doing stuff when I spend my time tinkering with my PC. I should probably also dump my reliable Honda for a failure-prone Lada.

Thanks for confirming my instinct that I should switch to Mac.

@Sacto Joe,

Without installing Windows, you cannot. As soon as you install Windows to play those applications, your "benefits" of owning a Mac are voided, unless you count your snooty, better-than-thou attitude as a benefit, then you've still got that going for you.

Ryan, you got outed as a punk kid trying to sit at the adult table. Accept it and go back to your WoW guild.

Right, because the only thing you should do on a computer is troll CNN/Money and create sweet vids of you and your friends dancing to techno music so you can post it up on YouTube.

@Ryan: oh, so your major gripe about the Mac is that it's not a gaming computer? good, now I know I can completely discount your opinion as being anything close to relevant from this point forward.

"Mac's marketing is directed at those who wish to spend LESS TIME caring and maintaining their equipment so they can actually have time to DO SOMETHING ELSE with their computers."

As long as that something else isn't video gaming, tinkering, or hardware customization.

"Would you complain that there's a glut of people in the market who prefer an automatic transmission to a stick-shift in a car? Not enough people in the market take apart their engines anymore and put them back together?"

Yes I would. Bastards with auto trannies need to get off my bumper when I'm stopped on a steep hill.

"And while we're at it, fewer and fewer grease monkeys who enjoy tinkering under the hood in real cars even exist, because of the massive computer tech in the engine compartment. How many even change their own oil these days?"

More than you'd imagine. Oil changes are no more difficult now than they were 40 years ago.

"If you like tinkering, try Linux."

Thanks for the advice. I dual boot XP Pro and Ubuntu 8.04 on both my desktop and laptop.

@Ryan;

Oh, wise one, since for several years now, the Mac has been Intel microprocessors, please enlighten us "lazy" Mac users with the titles of the 90% of computer games that we can't run.

And if you can't, then shut your pie hole.

I just tried the search. I didn't find the Google ad. Too bad. I thought it was a clever idea.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

"Mac's marketing is directed at those too lazy to take it upon themselves to care for and maintain their equipment. "

Let's rephrase that.

Mac's marketing is directed at those who wish to spend LESS TIME caring and maintaining their equipment so they can actually have time to DO SOMETHING ELSE with their computers.

Would you complain that there's a glut of people in the market who prefer an automatic transmission to a stick-shift in a car? Not enough people in the market take apart their engines anymore and put them back together?

And while we're at it, fewer and fewer grease monkeys who enjoy tinkering under the hood in real cars even exist, because of the massive computer tech in the engine compartment. How many even change their own oil these days?

If you like tinkering, try Linux.

If you like tinkering, try Linux.

As soon as Macs can run more than 10% of computer games on the market and are included and capable of running at least a few blockbluster new releases, THEN maybe a Mac would be of interest to me. Or I could just spend 1/3 the cash and build my own with specs of my choosing.

Mac's marketing is directed at those too lazy to take it upon themselves to care for and maintain their equipment. There are obviously a glut of them in the PC marketplace.

Probably the same people who pay the dealership $80 to plug their scan tool into the OBDII port to find out that their gas cap wasn't screwed on tight enough.

@Ryan: congrats on living up to the Windoze fanboy cliche. keep throwing your money at the Borg, smart guy.

When I just did the search, there was no apple sponsored link.

ex ped: Same here. I'll make a note of that.

"Tacky," "unprofessional," "cliche," "annoying." Are you referring to Microsoft's ads with Bill & Jerry, or, maybe, their misleading ads that imply that "user input" was important in the design of Windows 7? Or the "I'm a PC" ads, which confused the roles of the actors in the Apple ads with real people? Or the "shopping" ads where the "shoppers" were paid to "shop" (their laptops were paid for) and, in at least one case, was in the Apple Store less than 10 seconds (the same pedestrian is in the frame when she goes in AND when she comes out), yet claimed to have checked out the Macs?

The test of advertising isn't any of the above, but how well it works. In the last earnings report, Apple told us (not for the first time) that over half of the people who bought Macs at Apple stores had never bought a Mac before. Most of those were "switchers." We might also note which company's revenues were UP 44% year-over-year and which were DOWN 17% and which company's stock price is up 78+% vs 11%.

It's always surprising to me that so many who profess to "believe" in the "free market" don't accept what the market says.

That's the most made up, false statistic I've ever heard "78% of Mac Users run Windows." Yeah, I think I'll buy a Ferrari and put a Yugo engine in it. I don't think so……..
Next time if you state a statistic to make help substantiate your statement, please include it's source.
Thanks

Stop with the bashing? Please…Apple "fanboys" have been the target of bashing and abuse for decades. It's about time Apple hit back.
That being said, the OS wars should never be about which one is best, but rather which ones does the job you need to do and which one you prefer. Preference…that's all that matters.

People commented on how the commercial says nothing about the mac; I take it as the flaws on the windows don't exist in a mac. False propanganda? Where is the defamation lawsuit?

Also many people will have to upgrade their hardware to install Windows 7. I remember back in the PPC days that I could install Tiger on a 6 year old G4 with 400mhz and it ran just fine. Of course it is not possible now because of the recent PPC -> Intel change. For example, the first generation of iPhone can still do many of the same things the new iPhone can (minus the 3g hardware). So if you think for longevity, Apple wins.

I got negative criticisms from my friends when I got my first mac 6 years ago. The year after, they all got macs. I worked at the helpdesk in college and saw so many problems with windows that I decided to go the mac route and happy ever since. Only good thing about a pc is games and people grow out of it sooner or later. And with a mac, you can always dual boot to play games. There are many applications on the mac now that I don't need to use windows anymore now.

And here is the kicker, I can take it to a mac store. Any hardware problems, they will fix for free (assuming under warranty). With PCs, the only place you can take it to locally is the geek squad and they will not do anything for free. You can call Dell and try to argue to get a replacement harddrive that you have to put in yourself. Ever talked to one of their customer representitve?

There will always be problems with macs or PCs but apple makes it easier for me. Driver issues? None because if the hardware states it is compatible with mac, it just works out of the box.

Life is busy enough as is and don't have the time to deal with pcs and windows problems. Look on the bright side, it keeps IT people employed.

Yeah just look at the idiot above you, Ryan.

I switched over to a MAC and I DO NOT run windows on my machine. I am sick of MicroTrash and the headaches of the OS. All Windows machines in my house are being converted over to Linux and any new machine WILL BE A MAC.

Awesome! I heard that sales of iZinger and MadLipz on the iTunes App store spiked over the weekend, too. A billion App downloads and counting!

To Ryan in Central IL: What is "tacky, unprofessional, and cliche" about not wanting a computer that crashes all the time? I switched to a Mac after my last computer, a PC, crashed and I had to reformat the entire disk, losing everything that wasn't backed up. That PC was less than 2 years old, and that was the 2nd PC in a row that did this to me. The average home PC sees a dramatic loss of performance from the day it first connects to the internet until the end of its short life when it crashes and becomes inoperable. This has happened to EVERYONE I know who has ever owned a PC. Since switching to my Mac (over 3 years now) it has not slowed down at all and I have not lost any data, which is the case for EVERYONE I know who has ever owned a Mac. I have no idea why people like you love to attack Macs and their users. Maybe you should consider the fact that it is just a superior product.

"There was a report that 78% of Mac owners…"

No reply on this comment? Or is it so off the wall that it doesn't deserve a reply? Just curious…

❤ GO! APPLE! APPLE! APPLE! is the BEST!!!

Doesn't matter if it's desperate or brilliant advertising, Apple's recent rash of adds are nothing but tacky, unprofessional, and cliche. Much like its user-base, so I guess they've got their market share pretty much zeroed in.

I don't think it's desperate, I think it's ANNOYING. Yes yes, you make a wonderful machine with a wonderful OS. WE GET IT. It's also easy for you to throw stones because you control both the OS AND the hardware, and Microsoft has to work with whatever people decide to bolt onto a PC next.

I like Apple, and I love the idea of a Unix based OS, but please, stop with the bashing! There's a point where there's going to be a backlash… here's to hoping I start it.

Why does it always have to be a fanbois thing? One WOULD think that if they interpreted Apple's move as a move of desperation. I don't see it that way. It is their whole marketing thing. Call it clever…call it desperate. They have for a while been aggressively using tactics against their competitor. Look at the Mac vs PC commercials?

There was a report that 78% of Mac owners run windows. So 'switch to a Mac and then download Windows 7'!!!

Hmmmm. Cue Windows Fanbois chucking in their 2 cents that Apple is "desperate".