Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

“Right on schedule, today Apple is on its way to reinventing mobile advertising by officially launching its iAd advertising program.”

As promised, Apple has started the promotion of iAds, and examples are starting to appear around the web. As a revenue generator for developers, this seems to be a sound concept, but billing advertisers $2 for each click seems like a decimal point was misplaced somewhere. I wonder where this number came from.

"Not one to be baited into a direct reprisal of Microsoft's latest "laptop hunter" series of commercials, Apple is firing back in their own way with the release of four new installments of their "Get a Mac" ads. The Get a Mac ads, in case you haven't seen them (how's life under that rock, by the way?), star John Hodgman and Justin Long as human representations of a PC and a Mac, respectively."

These are the first new ads since Christmas of last year, when they came out with the animated ad I Can Do Anything and Tree Trimming, fitting due to the time of year. This time they have four new ads: BioHazard Suit, Legal Copy, Stacks and Time Traveler.

"A series of Microsoft ads are aimed at budget consumers worried about price tags, further perpetuating the pricey Mac myth. Associated Press reports the ads were shot by recruited unwitting subjects by posing as a market research firm studying laptop purchasing decisions. It picked 10 people who answered a call for volunteers on Craigslist and other websites and sent them out with a camera crew and budgets ranging from $US700 to $US 2,000. If they found a computer that fit their criteria, they could keep it. In the first 60-second ad, a red-haired recent college grad named Lauren is on the hunt for a speedy laptop with a 17-inch screen and a “comfortable” keyboard, all for less than $1000. She strides into an Apple store; then, the scene jumps to her walking out empty-handed, telling the camera that the only laptop in her price range has a 13-inch screen. Back in the car, she sighs and says, “I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person.”"

It isn't that you're not "cool enough," Lauren. It's that you're not smart enough.

Just because two laptops have 17 inch screens doesn't make them comparable.

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Above: Nico looks for a baby gift on her MacBook Air as Kirby checks up on her (NBC Photo).

It's no secret that the networks / television studios / movie studios pay a pretty penny to have their products placed in front of our adoring eyes, but sometimes it's almost out of place. If you figure that the Mac is at about a 7% market share (and that is a high percentage, no doubt), then the cast of Lipstick Jungle is just about as atypical as they come as far as owning Apple products. Each of them uses Apple products regularly (Nico and Wendy use MacBook Airs, and Victory uses a MacBook Pro), they all have iPhones (including minor characters) and whenever you see an interior office shot, there are iMacs galore. It got me thinking as I watched; how much does Apple pay for this product placement? To have their logo in your face constantly in every episode it had to have cost them a pretty penny.

My theory? It's Candace Bushnell's fault. Bushnell, as you all know, is the writer behind Sex and the City. For the entire run of the HBO series, Carrie Bradshaw was using a "top-of-the-line" Powerbook to write her column. Something tells me she's just a big Apple fan!

Have any of you noticed lots of Apple products in your favorite shows?