Apple iCar Parody Video — Funny or Meh?
I’ve been sitting on this story for a few days, partly because I’ve been super busy (what’s new?) and partly because I’m not fully sure what my take on it is.
The idea of an Apple electric car is quite tantalizing. Hence the reason I wrote a long article about it, and the reason Chris and I discussed the topic on our first Cleantech Talk podcast. It’s tantalizing for me because 1) Apple has a ton of money and both software and hardware expertise that could lead to an awesome product, 2) I’m an Apple convert who thinks they make some of the best tech products around, and who now can’t believe I spent years messing with fundamentally broken PCs.
Making fun of Apple and Apple fans is quite common, and I was convinced for years that its products were overpriced. However, once making the switch, I can only recommend them.
The parody below is sort of funny, but it also tries to be funny by reinforcing myths that are just old and boring at this point, about Apple as well as about electric cars. The range joke, for example, really let me down (and it even had the ignorance of calling an electric car’s motor an engine). But parts of the video did crack me up.
Check it out if you’re now interested, and feel free to chime in with your own take:
Tip of the hat to Teslarati.
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Love the “ad”. Anything poking fun at Apple is good in my book.
It’s because of user error. AHAH
I did like that one 😀
“Castigat ridendo mores”. It keeps us sane.
Cute parody commercial. Perhaps not as cleanly done as the Conan O’Brien iPad 2 launch parody of a few years back (sadly, not longer available to link to,) but,
yes . . . kind of sums up Apple’s “we’re smarter than you are and have no qualms telling you so” sort of mild arrogance. Software manufacturer Adobe is similarly smug and it’s fun to watch them and Apple go at it, since they really don’t like each other all that much these days.
I’ve been using Apple computers at home since 1998 and consider myself an Apple fan, but not really a rabid fanboy. Since about that same time, I’ve used Windows machines at work and – other than administrative functions that our IT department performs on those computers – I probably know those Dells as well as the iMacs. Even though my workplace is still mostly a Windows environment, there was a large purchase of iMacs several years ago and I was happy to get one on my desk last year (I should add that, on a typical workday at my radio station announcing job, I have to interact with no fewer than 5 separate computers
and all the rest are currently Windows.)
The reason I like Apple is because their computers are very much like television sets: you plug them in and they typically work well without much additional tinkering. Those who enjoy swapping out video cards every other month or otherwise want to physically upgrade their computers usually gravitate toward Windows – or, if they’re particularly hard core do-it-yourselfers, Linux – and generally scoff at Apple’s insistence in taking the machine as offered and not to mess around with them.
That’s fine. But many, such as myself, came to computers late in life and didn’t wish to adopt them as a new hobby. We wanted to learn how to edit a word processing document, hook up a printer and get on the internet with a minimum of fuss or bother. Apple’s approach to this has always been more user friendly. End users who have adapted to the more arcane Windows procedures from day one and have never done it on an Apple are fluxed, simply because the easier Apple procedures are unfamiliar them. To be fair, I do note that recent iterations of Windows software is more “Mac like” in regards to user interface and, simply because computers in general are more complex than they were back in the late 1990s, Macs seem to be getting more “Windows like” as the years march on.
The problem with Apples, of course, is those tightly-built and beautifully thin machines are a pain to work on when something does have to be replaced. Recently, my workplace iMac developed a hard disc problem and our IT guy came in to install a new one. He chose to do the work right on my desk and I had a unique opportunity to witness the project first hand. Knowing how relatively simple a job this would be on a Windows tower, I was immensely impressed with how detailed a procedure it was on a machine where everything is hidden behind the screen with no visible fasteners present. I was also impressed that the 2007 vintage hard drive – one that actually featured a spinning disc – was replaced with a solid state drive (ie: no moving parts) with similar data storage capacity, but physically about one third the size.
Where am I going with all of this? Simply that I don’t think Apple is going to be getting into the automobile manufacturing business. Cars are physically enormous and the profit per unit is meager. It isn’t like making Cuppertino-designed iPad in China and importing shipping cartons back here. My guess is that Apple will market it’s technology to existing auto manufacturers as cars become both more electric and electronic. So will Microsoft. We’ll all joke about having to reboot our cars or install new software at every stoplight and, if poorly implemented, those jokes may become reality at times. But who else but the Apples and Microsofts of the world are going to do this? The current trend is for Tesla – arguably the most electronically sophisticated car out there right now – to steal away some of Apple’s workforce. But one has to imagine that a more above-the-ground relationship between computer and auto manufacturers will be established, if it isn’t moving there already.
Cute ad. Funny !
I have to say “Meh”. Maybe I’d think it was funnier if I knew more about Apples. Was the presenter’s phony bald head supposed to be quite so obvious?
Will that be built by slave labor and organ harvesting victims in China too? You betcha applesheep.
Another weak attempt at something called humor … I would like to request 3 minutes of my life back.