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Great actor choices, slightly annoying they use pretty much the same script as the US Versions though. Saying that though.. Tentacle? = GENIUS!

Wonderful! These are quite a bit better than the US version!

Extremely good. Better than the North American ones, even if they cover much of the same ground. The Mac in these versions doesn't come off quite as smarmy as Justin Long, maybe the Brits have taken viewers opinions to heart...

Now, let's have a North American PC vs. British PC smackdown ad. That would be really fun!

MDN word = truth. What more to say?

Pie chart is the best. Tomfoolery...High jinks...Wa ha ha ha ha!

'Office at Home', 'Tentacle', and 'Pie Chart' are the best.

I think the US ones are better, but these should still get the point across.

The only difference between the two is that in the UK version, the actors are more evenly matched in terms of acting ability and charisma. In the US, John Hodgman outclasses Justin Long.

Been a fan of Mitchell and Webb thanks to their clips on YouTube.

'Office at Home' kinda reinforces the myth that Macs are no good for business. No way – I use my Powerbook everyday for all kind of stuff and people still say to me "You got a Mac – does that work for business?" Apart from MS Office interoperability, when they see my Omnigraffle graphics versus Visio they're blown away...

I like them. They are funny. At least he mentions the words Mac OS X in one of them.

pie chart's tremendous. do like our u.s. actors better, though.

HK: I was kind of thinking the same thing. The Mac doesn't stand up for himself in that one and say that he is just as capable of doing office work.

Advertising

These ads are aimed at real people, advertising to IT, the business world, is completely different and is approached differently. IT buyers have different agendas, not all of them altruistic.

Think of the lack of advertised office functionality as a trojan horse, people using Macs at home take their experiences to work with them. Also pictures and movies are featuring more and more in the business world, Microsoft won round one with Plowerpoint, now it's Apple's turn with iPhoto and iMovie.

I think the US versions have a slight edge, but there's not much in it - I'm a Brit by the way.

The one thing that annoys me about all these ads. (U.S. and U.K.) is that they will give the computer-ignorant viewers - and that'll be the majority - the vague impression that Macs are incapable of handling business or office-type applications.

What HK wrote-times 20. Funny but not good. All my business is on my Mac.

Watching these drove home who the real star of the American commercials is. My reaction to Webb was "He is more subtle than Justin Long." My first reaction to Mitchell was, "That's not PC!"

Well it's nice to see it isn't fake.

I enjoyed the ads. I can understand some people saying they prefer the US actors because it's like when someone leaves a TV series and a new (similar) actor plays their part. Takes a bit of getting used to.

After watching "Peep show" though it feels more familiar to me than it would if I had never seen Mitchell and Webb before.

I got used to them after the second advert.

All good....

Now Apple. Get these on the telly box please

It's about time Britain had some Mac ads again.

Pie Chart is the best of this bunch.

Off topic:

There's a poll over at <http://www.guardian.co.tt> asking what your favourite operating system is (left column of the page). Why not hop over and post your vote?

Yes, let's swamp them. http://www.guardian.co.tt/

Pie Chart = excellent
The rest merely good

I'm British but think the American ads are better.
PC is too slapstick and superior, in US version he is believably hopeless with always just a hint of jealousy.

My vote British, but then I like David Mitchell and I think that they made a great casting choice for this.

"PC is too slapstick and superior, in US version he is believably hopeless with always just a hint of jealousy."

That's the impression I got as well. As someone else stated, it's probably because I'm not familiar with the characters, but I wasn't familiar with the US guys either.

PC seems too unlikeable, but it's a good ad in that it's getting talked about alll over the place.

"The only thing worse than being talked about is NOT being talked about"

I prefer the US version.

PC in the UK version is too slick and decent, he doesn't look like a number cruncher who lives in the dark...

The Apple web site has the US TV ads with German voices, too.

http://www.apple.com/de/getamac/ads/

US PC guy likable US Mac guy unlikable
UK PC guy unlikable, UK Mac guy likable

Overall, I like the US ads better.

I'd like to see an ad with US PC guy, UK Mac guy

Mmmmmmmm pie!

Apple doesn't WANT to be considered a Business Machine. Apple computers are excellent Consumer devices, but they are NOT business friendly. They're too much of a controlled environment for them to work in the business world, which requires flexibility more than ability for fun.

These ads reinforce Apple's strategy isn't to capture business. It's to capture hearts and consumers.

While iMacs can run businesses, it doesn't mean they should target big businesses. Most businesses I know of don't want to think different, they want big clunky machines that sound like jet engines and which justify running their IT staff into the ground, they want office applications that just work with zillions of buttons - that's what's important to them.

In other words, their men, and their business is like their car - a means of compensating for their smaller member. It's not about what's smart or better, it's a macho pissing contest, and it's why crap like the Dell XPS700 continues to sell.

I love my iMac, and I'm halfway to convincing my husband to switch - but businesses are a waste of time for now. Concentrating on the home user is smart because the average person does get it (sometimes) and soon enough Microsoft will have enough rope, and then Apple can start trying to take on IBM and HP.

Initially I thought these were some kind of a spoof parody of the US ads. They are really bad.

In some of them they even went so far as to "re-explain" the message by adding some redundant text to the scripts as if the target audiencewas really not going to get the point.

The tone is obnoxious and the dialogs (except for those copied from theUS ads) seem to be completely off topic. The analogy to PC vs Mac in Tentacle is barely perceptible.

The actors look like amateurs over doing their character. Physically they do not present the same differentiation as in the US ads. they essentially both look too sloppy. And the Mac guy looks anything but cool. He could probably have landed the Job as the PC in the US ads if ever Apple wanted to present the Hacker/Geek aspect of the user base.

All this being said, Ads are custom tailored to their target audience and I have no idea how the Brit's minds work so they may still be successful even though they seem like a botched up job to me. Kinda reminds me how M$ makes poorly implemented copies of Mac OS X.