back to article Microsoft mocks Apple and new iPhones in vids it quickly pulls

Microsoft has posted and then pulled several videos in which it mocks Apple's new iPhones. The seven videos first appeared over the weekend on the Windows Phone YouTube channel. All have since been made private, but as will happen online various folks pinched copies of the vids so we can all enjoy them. Here's one titled “ …

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  1. poopypants

    Apple makes consumer products

    They have been doing it for a long time, and they are good at it.

    Microsoft is more business oriented.

    They don't really "get" consumers (I'm looking at you Kin, Zune, Games for Windows Live, etc...).

    1. LarsG

      I wonder who authorised the videos?

      That usually comes from the top doesn't it, so a parting shot from Ballmer perhaps, before he starts his new job as a warm up act to Michael McIntyre?

      1. GeorgeTuk

        I wouldn't imagine right to the top, I would imagine the marketing head would have OKed it...he must be having a tough day today!

    2. kb

      Re: Apple makes consumer products

      That doesn't change the fact that is funny, I personally laughed at both videos. Of course the best humor comes from truth and the fact that Apple is all about image (and are probably running out of gas now that iJobs is no longer there) and that MSFT just loves the bullet points and sys reqs? pretty spot on IMHO.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Apple makes consumer products

      And that's exactly why Apple's Mac guy & PC guy ads worked so well. Apple wasn't so much making fun of Microsoft as they were saying PCs are for business and Macs are for people.

      1. Rukario

        Re: Apple makes consumer products

        Re: Mac guy & PC guy

        Does no one remember when Commodore did this style of ad as Amiga vs Mac?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @Rukario - Amiga vs. Mac

          I don't remember ever seeing any ads for Amiga. Ever. If you can find it on Youtube I'd be curious to see it.

          But advertising against Macintosh would have made no sense for Commodore. The Mac and the Amiga were totally different markets. The Amiga was color, about games, and fairly inexpensive. The Mac was B&W, not at all popular for games and expensive. It would be like running ads for a motorcycle against a pickup....totally different markets.

        2. Radio Wales
          Trollface

          Re: Apple makes consumer products

          Didn't you really mean to say "Mac guy or Poor guy"?

    4. Ron Christian

      Re: Apple makes consumer products

      > Microsoft is more business oriented. They don't really "get" consumers

      Agree. I think Win8 proves the rule in a different way -- it tries to be consumer oriented, fails, and the collateral damage is that it's not business oriented either.

  2. Martin Budden Silver badge

    Who is that at 1:29? They should have used Aqua.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gosh

    The peeps at what used to be Nokia must be so thrilled they've got Uncle Fester and the might of his evil empire to look after them. All one big happy family now.

  4. frank ly

    Opinions may differ

    " ...a summary: two Apple employees interview ..."

    I could be bothered to watch it. I saw two product developers presenting a summary of their efforts to two different senior staff in various weekly (?) meetings.

    Then again, maybe it was a series of therapy sessions where the two developers try to explore the source of their discomfort.

    1. Marvin the Martian
      Stop

      Re: Opinions may differ

      I saw a similar video to yours, but without any therapist session. I definitely saw a different video from ElReg:

      In the past, I saw black-clad developers that have to report to Mr. Jobs (seen from the back of the head only). In the present, dress code has slipped to 'casual' as in 'haphazard', and the same idea-less developers are speaking to Mr. Cook (also only seen from the back; for explicitness' sake, he's even addressed at one point as "T.").

  5. Fill
    Facepalm

    Out of touch?

    MS mocks Apple in these vids to what end? MS has no compelling products in the area of mobile right now. (WinPhone and Surface need a lot of help.) Why even draw attention to their own deficiencies by distastefully poking fun at a mobile leader? And, I'm not trying to tout Apple here, this could easily be an anti-Android ad too. It just seems to smack of how out of touch MS is at their own market standing?

  6. cashxx

    Bad decision and taste

    Take notice the back of the head looks like Steve Jobs when he was sick and near the end of his life. I think that is poor decision making at the person who ok'd the videos and publishing them! Thats just not right.

    1. Fill

      Re: Bad decision and taste

      Yes, it does look like a Steve Jobs from behind complete with a black shirt. I noticed that too, but wasn't sure it was in good taste to even point that out. But, you are absolutely right. Shame on them!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bad decision and taste

      Too soon? It's been nearly 2 years, so no...

      1. Great Bu

        Re: Bad decision and taste

        If the person had been a ghostly, see-through figure, then it would have been funny.

    3. Huw Leonard

      Re: Bad decision and taste

      It's supposed to be Tim Cook. They guy even calls him "Tim" (and there's a difficult reference to pass up).

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bad decision and taste

      Look carefully.... it's TWO people, one is a bit Jobsian and the other a bit Ivy!

      It was funny and why not? MS have been the brunt of so many jokes, why can't Apple? Is it blasphemy?

      Samsung did it well on their S3 ads too.

      As someone from Britain - piss taking is a national pastime!

  7. dan1980

    Stop trying to be funny - just make products people want to use.

    Everything else aside, at some point, you've just got to realise you aren't funny so you should stop trying.

    My biggest annoyance with Microsoft at the moment is that they are trying to compete with Apple and in doing so have almost completely missed how Apple managed to, overall, grab such a large amount of market share.

    In (overly) simplistic terms, Apple got where they are by offering something different - a different philosophy, different direction, different aesthetic. Apple stopped trying to compete on Microsoft's home turf years ago and once they made that decision, they were free to carve out their own patch; a patch they have made so lucrative that MS are now trying to succeed where Apple failed - fighting on opposition ground.

    The Windows ecosystem is unsurpassed for most business use. I don't mean stacks of servers in a big Hadoop cluster - I mean PCs on desks. Microsoft are now eroding that by trying to compete with Apple. just look at the backlash over so many of their recent changes.

    These kind of ads and marketing decisions are just more of the same - they're still playing catch-up on those "I'm a Mac; I'm a PC" ads

    The thing that Apple has always done well is to create an image and follow it. When looking at anything Apple - be it a store or an iPhone or an advertisement - I feel that everything about it has been vetted against a very simple set of design and image principles. Microsoft are so damned piecemeal because they want a slice of every pie.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Stop trying to be funny - just make products people want to use.

      entrenched != unsurpassed

      1. dan1980

        Re: Stop trying to be funny - just make products people want to use.

        Correct.

        But also, 'unsurpassed' does not necessarily mean 'best', nor even 'best suited'. It can mean: to a greater extent than any other option - the leading option as it were. (Note that that doesn't imply the BEST option either - just the leading one.)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Stop trying to be funny - just make products people want to use.

          adjective: better or greater than any other

          http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/unsurpassed

          adjective: as good as or better than any other

          http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/unsurpassed

          adjective: better than anyone or anything else

          http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/unsurpassed

          adjective: having no equal or rival for excellence or desirability

          http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unsurpassed

          There are certainly words which could have better conveyed your meaning if it wasn't "best"...

          unremitting? unyielding? unchallenged? common? endemic? prevalent? dominant? ubiquitous? puissant?

          1. dan1980

            Re: Stop trying to be funny - just make products people want to use.

            Dominant. Sold.

            1. dan1980

              Re: Stop trying to be funny - just make products people want to use.

              . . . but then, what i was trying to get at was not so much 'unsurpassed' as 'not surpassed'. In effect contrasting their business dominance with other areas where Apple have or are looking to surpass Microsoft.

              I accept that 'unsurpassed' was too ambiguous a word and lacked clarity but I like it in the comparative sense above, where the word doesn't imply that someone is the undisputed winner, so much as in the lead.

              There are likely better words, though perhaps 'still unsurpassed' would have made my meaning more apparent.

              I like the Reg and I like you folks; it's nice to be able to simultaneously have a discussion about technology and language with people who have intelligence in both. On an unrelated note, my pain meds have just kicked in.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Stop trying to be funny - just make products people want to use.

                Superb. In that case I'll lob incumbent at you for good measure... and... just to help you get the maximum effect from the meds... supreme. ;)

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: AC with a thesarus

                  Well done, cutting and pasting is sooooo tricky.....

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Stop trying to be funny - just make products people want to use.

                "it's nice to be able to simultaneously have a discussion about technology and language with people who have intelligence in both."

                I think you've been reading a different set of comments than I have been of late.

    2. Fill

      Re: Stop trying to be funny - just make products people want to use.

      Absolutely right.

      BTW- Speaking of which, can we get a real forum here Reg? OMG, I forgot how painful it is to follow threads here on TheReg.

  8. Cliff

    Not that bad

    Clearly an internal film, MS make dozens of internal films like this for various internal working groups and launches etc. As internal corporate videos go, this is far from the worst. Far, far from the worst.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not that bad

      Found its way onto youtube by accident then I suppose... and would have been swiftly removed even if, in some bizarre reality inversion, it had caused a viral marketing sensation of unprecedented adulation for the evil empire? Pull the other one! It's (yet another) moronically gauche failed propaganda gaffe.

      1. Cliff

        Re: Not that bad

        >>>Found its way onto youtube by accident then I suppose...<<<

        Probably, yes. I used to work for MS, I've seen some other internal-only films leak out before. Remember the David Brent MS internal vids? They guarded those superjealously, not even available on the intranet, they still managed to leak. This is the kind of thing you might see on one of the screens dotted around the public areas.

        Accidental viral really isn't their style. Doubt you'll be convinced, but really very likely to be exactly as I mentioned above.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good god..

    As much as an M$ fan that I am, I hope to god they never decide to pen a script for a movie..

    After 30 seconds of that I had almost lost the will to live.....Where's my knife......

    Intentionally bad or not, that just added a new definition to scraping the barrel...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good god..

      >As much as an M$ fan that I am..

      Your chosen mode of reference suggests you're not all that much of a fan.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Good god..

        Its simple

        Its just a tool he uses

        as opposed to

        a Baptism and blind compliance- it is a religion in socially acceptable behaviour that one

        must adopt to be considered part of the brethren.

    2. Dave 126 Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Good god..

      >Good god... As much as an M$ fan that I am, I hope to god they never decide to pen a script for a movie..

      Don't worry, the (overly) MS-controlled Halo movie project was cancelled, and the attached director and producer went on to do District 9 and Elysium (Neill Blomkamp and Peter Jackson), and the writer Alex Garland, to whom MS paid a load of money for a Halo script, did Dredd 3D instead.

      A pretty good outcome, methinks!

  10. Ken Darling

    Interview? An Hilarious....

    Who wrote this article? Whoever it was is needs to go bad to school to learn simple English. And the editor/copy editor should seriously reconsider his/her position.

    1. Those two people were pitching an idea to DIFFERENT honchos (there was more than one). There was no interview.

    2. 'Hilarious' does not have a silent H, so it's 'a hilarious'.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: Interview? An Hilarious....

      That rather depends upon ones accent.

      It's an 'ilarious video, isn't it Private?

      Or rather, it's not.

      Clearly an internal video that somebody posted onto the general intertubes without thinking about it, then got a telling off and pulled it.

      Rather like that infamous Rainbow recording...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Interview? An Hilarious....

      "2. 'Hilarious' does not have a silent H, so it's 'a hilarious'."

      Strictly, in English, it *is* "an hilarious..", "an historic.." and so forth, darling Ken. Just because you kant tork proper doesn't mean you shouldn't make an arse of yourself.

      1. Colin Wilson 2

        Re: Interview? An Hilarious....

        No - it's definately 'A Hilarious' and 'A Historic'. 'A Hotel', too. I heard a woman saying 'we're staying in an four-star hotel' the othe day. Doh!

        I think the 'An Historic' way of saying it came about because the Americans were trying to suck up to the French once or something - a bit like why they drive on the wrong side of the road.

        Or maybe it's an old fashioned Policeman's English thing - adding aitches because it's better than dropping them, to show you're 'heducated'!

      2. Peter Reid

        Re: Interview? An Hilarious....

        In written English you'd never write "riding an horse", or "wearing an hat". Any word that is defined as having an aspirated 'h' at the front (such as 'horse', 'hat', 'hilarious', 'hotel' or 'historic') always takes 'a' rather than 'an' as the article...

        Whether or not someone drops 'h's when pronouncing the words is a completely different thing... we add or remove all sorts of stuff when we speak. (For example, a linguistics study I took part in some years ago showed that large numbers of people -- especially when speaking quickly -- say "hambag" rather than "handbag"... and we don't notice. Apart from "The Importance of being Earnest", of course, when it would stand out a bit.)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Interview? An Hilarious....

          1763 H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Painting III. i. 12 "John Freeman, An historic painter, was a rival of Fuller."

          1. Peter Reid

            Re: Interview? An Hilarious....

            Well, yes... there are loads of examples of 'an', out there. But if you asked someone to pronounce the word "historic", then almost everyone -- with the exception of Dick van Dyke in "Mary Poppins" -- would include the 'h'. And the general rule still applies. It's fascinating to work out just why some words like 'historic' are treated differently (even when it's harder to say 'an' with the 'h'). Lots of Cockney historians, I guess. :-)

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's all fitting in to place now.

    So let me get this right, MS paid actors to do this, camera and sound operatives, a "creative director" no doubt?

    Did they hold "back of head" and "black shirt wearing" castings for the middle head?

    Someone approved this expenditure, script, and signed off the end result?

    FFS,

    seriously

    FFS.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "off the mark"

    "off the mark"? Great way to associate yourself with Donald Rumsfeld.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can't view, no Solaris plugin for JW player.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    purile

    They are a bunch of children. Mine's better than yours playground immaturity. It beggars belief that a corporation the size of MS would ever think that this was the right way to do business. It would be bad enough if the videos were supposed to be public, but if they were for internal MS viewing only, what message does it send to their employees - I would be embarrassed and mortified. Grow up, MS.

    1. b166er

      Re: purile

      Erm, have you ever seen the House of 'Commons' in session? Microsoft may run a private enterprise, the House of 'Commons' (allegedly) runs a country and they behave exactly as you describe.

      1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: purile

        The 'playground' that is PMQ's is pretty childish. If you look at the debates on other topics and the Select committee proceedings I think you will see a lot more sensible debate. I'm willing to give them 30 minutes of playground humor a week.

        If you want proper reasoned and well informed debate then go into the House of Lords.

        no theatrics of headline grabbing there. The way they go through legislation line by line and think about it makes 'the other place' shameful by comparison. But like all politicians, they get things wrong from time to time.

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