Josh Rubenoff's Profile

Well, I'm definitely not pointing this out to defend Apple in any way. I just think that it's important to note that comparisons between those two campaigns are inevitably flawed because they ignore the markets the ads were intended for. Just to restate my case in an oversimplified way, and the reason why I'm sticking to this point: The personal computer market has been around for a few decades, Windows has dominated with a 90%+ marketshare for a very long time, Microsoft ran almost no advertising promoting their operating system until Apple ran a humorous attack campaign that significantly damaged Windows' reputation and Microsoft was forced to fight back by creating a marketing campaign. A tangible smartphone market has been around for a decade or so, maybe less. There were a few major competitors like RIM, and they ran advertising promoting their phones constantly because it was still a nascent market and they were trying to get people to buy a phone in the first place. When the iPhone was introduced at Macworld and became a mindshare leader by default with its insane amounts of hype, many cellphone companies ignored it because Apple was a new entry into the mobile space, and they didn't think Apple could hit a home run its first time around. (That's the only reason why I say it's a testament to the iPhone's design that they're running these ads, because clearly sales are no longer being driven by hype.) Apple runs ads promoting its own phone for a year, ignoring everyone else's products after other companies have been advertising for a decade in the same market. Suddenly, these companies are motivated to run attack ads against Apple after it gains only a 10% market share. If they wanted to run negative ads against a smartphone leader, try Symbian, which powers around 50% of smartphones worldwide. I understand that I'm writing an Apple blog and so any arguments I make are going to be interpreted as sympathetic to that company, but I don't think I have any bias here. Just trying to point out the two different contexts both campaigns were running in and attempting to explain my gut feeling that I don't think they're analogous.

I think the relative homogeneity in mobile device form factors can be forgiven by the great new software and UI innovations coming out of Apple's competitors. Customized Android builds like MotoBLUR and HTC Sense (as well as Palm's webOS), while perhaps not up to par with the iPhone's level of polish, certainly qualify for the "something new" you discuss above - at least from my own point of view.