back to article Motorola Super Bowl ad rips Apple drones

Motorola has released a 15-second snippet of an advert for its upcoming Xoom tablet, a parody rip-off homage take-off send-up of Apple's iconic 1984 ad. As did Apple's 27-year-old Big Brother–busting Macintosh introducer, Motorola's full ad will debut during this Sunday's Super Bowl, America's annual orgy of hyperthyroid meat …

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  1. mafoo
    Joke

    Red Planet

    It's a shame to see planet moto suffered some cosmic disaster or nuclear armageddon before the camera got there.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Title Title

      "When doing a half-assed knockoff of an iconic Apple product, why not do the same to their famous Super Bowl ad, too?"

      Exhibit A, the deluded Mac user. He is so completely brainless that "1984" is now property of Apple and anyone using it is copying Apple, not Orwell.

      NEWSFLASH Apple's commercial was a half assed knockoff of an iconic novel.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    Tedious link

    Apple used Motorola 64k processors on the original mac, advertised by the original 1984 ad.

    1. David Kelly 2

      Freescale

      Clueless Motorola management ran their CPU business into the ground and later spun it off as Freescale many years ago. Freescale is doing better than Motorola did but is having a time digging itself out of the hole Motorola dug when they squandered a once superior product position.

  3. Anton Ivanov

    Not a future we want my a***

    As a result of the android infection the average phone processing power has increased up to 10 times over the last 2 years. Siimilarly, android brought some small device specific power management hooks into the linux kernel. Windows also did not stand back and caught up and some of the stuff has sneaked into BSD as well.

    Add to that the advancement in supporting libraries like webkit, qt, etc and the picture is complete. We are now at a point where you can take a general purpose OS and run it on a phone all right and it does not look like a cludge compared to the surviving "OS designed for smartphones". In fact it works better than the incumbent.

    So even if the courts decide that "Little Britain Java" which is a "no but yes but no java" must die people will just build phones with a different visual shell on top. It is a storm in a teacup:

    http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-%26-technology/iphone-v-android-debate-%27not-important%27-201101173436/

  4. JaitcH
    Unhappy

    Google, a company whose idea of freedom is to track your movements ...

    around the web in order to better sell ads based on your on-line peregrinations, as do Apple, App developers, cellco's and Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Jobs Horns

      Apple and Google are fighting it out

      to see who can be the new Evil Empire. Microsoft isn't even in the running any more.

  5. Tony Paulazzo
    Big Brother

    Innovation not catchup

    At least HP are sourcing their own software, the notion ink it's own design aesthetic. How does the xoom differentiate itself in the tablet market? Having a different logo on the case doesn't make you a unique individual, esp when the software is the other market leader, it just makes the hoodie colour different, green instead of white.

    And I'm guessing both Google and Apple would frown upon inter company fraternisation, even amongst their customers... Thou wouldst do well to hate our competitors for verily they are fanbois of the lowest order and not deserving of our love.

    Big brother because He loves homogenisation.

  6. heyrick Silver badge
    Coat

    Disappointed

    So this amusing earbud-wearing planet is on screen, with swirly stars and the words "One authority", then "One design", and then "One way to work". After that it went on about choices and stuff.

    Bah. It should have said "One ring to rule them all".

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    I was thinking all the way through that ad

    they could have summarised it with "Think Different", and how ironic that it used to be Apple's slogan.

  8. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Pint

    Some good stuff coming

    With all the runaway Apple success it has forced other manufacturers to finally wake up and start offering some stunningly spec'd gadgets. I am a bit of an Apple fan, but Android gadgets are really starting to lure me away and I have a strong suspicion my next toy will not be from "the church".

  9. frank ly

    It's amazing

    It manages to combine portentous and pretentious, all in one short advert.

  10. LaeMing
    Badgers

    I personally...

    ...don't see the 'copied Apple's 1984' in those adds. The only similarity is that they all use the well-established (long before Macintosh) 1984esque meme. Does apple now own all the IP rights to the idea of an oppressive technocratic society?

    Next we will be getting told the US invented democracy and capitalism and everyone else copied them.

    Oh, wait...

    1. Phil Hare 2

      Democracy

      That's the freedom to buy whatever's for sale, right?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Oh no

      They don't own the idea but, as any fanboi will tell you, Apple make a far better oppressive authoritarian control freak society than anyone else and it looks good too.

      1. Rattus Rattus

        "oppressive authoritarian control freak society"

        But Apple's control-freak vision really does have a lot more in common with Brave New World than 1984. Get your iSoma.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Summer?

    "and is followed by an oh-so-cute female earbud wearer. Hmm..."

    Hmm.... indeed! Looks like Summer Glau to me. Fitting.

  12. Wibble
    Badgers

    What's a superbowl?

    Is a superbowl something full of sugar, fat and other bad stuff that will eventually kill you from McBucks/PizzaKing? The parody that is the oversized people in a field attacking each other is enough.

    1. ThomH

      No, it's like a regular owl

      But somewhat superb.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Second ad

    Had they ended it when they reached 'it's time for more choices' they'd have a fantastic teaser that would have got people talking.

    As soon as they follow up with 'dual core' and '1080p' they've lost most of the market.

    Which is why Apple ads are so effective, there's almost no discussion of the technology, it's all about the experience and emotion of using the product. That makes a connection with the customer. And that's why iPhones and iPads are so successful.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Buy this car, its red!

      Yes you are spot on iPhans don't care about whats inside the iPhad as long as it looks great and everyone can see they have one, thats all that maters, who needs flash anyway, I mean really..

      "Which is why Apple ads are so effective" well I'd say its more because Apple dont 'sell'* technology they 'sell'* chrome, glass, gloss white and piano black... now you could call that effective... I don't! Im not interested in the shiny bling, Im a proper geek I want to know whats insid, and how well it will work and what it can do for me..

      *by sell I mean advertise, make features of, exagertate for distinction etc.. the technolgy is just part of the 'magic'

      1. Sean Baggaley 1
        Grenade

        Yeah, we get it...

        ... you don't like Apple's products. Why don't you and your ilk piss off and go back to interacting with computers via punched cards or paper tape? If that's still not butch and manly enough for you, there's always physical switches, I guess, but that's just moronic.

        Seriously, it's getting tiresome. The whole fucking POINT of Apple is their user-focused design. Perhaps if the various FOSS factions had spent a bit more time doing that, instead of their endless posturing and willy-waving about whose distro is the most hardcore, they might actually have achieved something of note.

        As it is, almost all the major advances Linux (and UNIX in general) have made were done by *private, commercial corporations*.

        I can go out right now and buy an HTC (with Android or Windows Phone 7), a Motorola (with Android), an LG (with Android), a Samsung (with Bada, or Android—I'm sensing a pattern here), or a Nokia (with Symbian. Or Series 40. Or some version of Linux...) And that's before we get into the Alcatels and their ilk.

        Only one company uses iOS, and they release only one damned phone a *year*.

        There's clearly no lack of choice in the market, although if Google get their way, I can assure you that there'll be far more people whining about how hard it is to buy a phone that *doesn't* run bloody Android. The very basis of Motorola's ad is therefore demonstrably untrue.

        Not least because Apple don't make cheap shit for the lower end of the market. They're happy to leave that to Google's victims—sorry, "partners".

  14. Barry Lane 1

    Weird!

    But now that I've seen the Motorola ad, I want to rush out and buy Apple stuff.

  15. Philippe
    FAIL

    What was that about?

    Moto might have tought. "We copied the tablet, now let's copy the Ad...badly"

    At least they didn't show the inflated price of the thing, otherwise the conclusion would have been.

    "So, for $800 i can buy flowers on my Xoom.

    Will they be better flowers than the ones i can buy on a $500 iPad ?"

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