"They are all a bunch of losers anyway. IT = I'm Thick."

I hope you have that same attitue with blacks, jews, and other groups... That way you can always be better than EVERYONE!

From me and the rest of the Mac IT folks, especially the ones who apple doesn't target.. like that stupid education market... piss off!

Folks, I did not see the MacGuy as smug at all, just confident. In terms of whatever new ads Apple puts out, they are smart enough to understand that they are not selling "features." That is a dead-end race. They are, if we want to speak about it this way, in the business of selling "benefits." The Ad strategy then is to sell us not something we need, but something we desire and much more than a mere product. In technical terms, Apple is not after selling us the computer as a tool to accomplish discrete tasks. They ought to be presenting, and they have rightly been doing this, the Mac as a "ToolBox." The metaphor of toolbox vs tool makes a ton of difference to how we ultimately envision not just what we do with this toolbox, but how we lead our lives with the Mac and the iLife it makes possible as a technology of the self. Apple Ads then entice us with this technology of the self, and a concomitant lifestyle. That the Mac is a toolbox designed to open and tinker with my life (not just with my job tasks) has been clear to me since I used my first Mac in 1984, and why the moniker from MacUser at the time was "the computer for the rest of us."

Now the next commercials can have an upgrade 10.5 guy, and when PC says, "Who are you?"

The Mac guy says, "PC, it's still me, I've been upgraded".

Then the PC guy says, "can I get upgraded?"

"Someday PC, someday"

Saw hin on Leno one night. He said that "it is only a job and I do not know anything about computers" In this light, he comes across as phony.

...i didn't find him smug at all. but if he's done with it, big deal. more likely, apple is done with him.

either way, apple has new campaigns lined up for sure. you don't Apple in bidding wars for the guys in the multi-colored pentium bunny suits, or for Jeff Goldblum... wonder why?

;-)

To have the "PC guy" make the "switch" and have a new PC guy come to the commercials.

They should get a bad look alike of him to play the PC guy (as Vista PC guy) and then have a stronger faster cooler looking guy be the Mac guy (as leopard) :)

...NO AUTOGRAPHS! So the Mac Guy is a movie star huh? I haven't even heard of him 'till I saw the Mac commercials. Oh well. Back to obscurity I guess...

It's a shame to see him go. As far as many opinions of the Apple ads go, I think they are very clever, and use great metaphor to get across some great points.

And as for pcarrington, and his pompous "look it up" reference, your idea that people don't know what bombastic means, only shows your lack of intelligence. Did you learn that one this week?

Dwoodruff, you just wrote my post for me. I think that it's a brilliant ad campaign and I think that a real effort was made to portray the "Mac" as a nice guy. My feeling is that those who see him as smug are just feeling sympathetic toward the PC's constant failure to measure up. But the campaign can certainly benefit from an upgraded Mac, and there's certainly nothing wrong with an actor wanting to do other work.

I'd like to see the cute japanese girl replace the mac dude.