13 ms·

Lying Microsoft Advertising

397 points by xenophanes 13y ago

glhaynes 13y ago
I clicked the title expecting it to be hyperbolic outrage at an advertising half-truth, but — yeah, that really is flat-out wrong. I can see how it could perhaps happen unintentionally, but Microsoft should definitely change the ad after they see this.
- xenophanes 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure it got flagged off the front page by other people who expected the same from the title. It dropped from #12 to #40 while the age went from around 17 to 19min and votes went up from 6 to 8. That can't be right without flags. It's now #31 with 13 points and 27min, might get back on. It was also #31 less than a minute ago with 11 points, but 2 quick votes didn't move it up. That seems odd. Maybe I don't understand how this works, I don't know. EDIT: and now it jumped to #7, still with 13 points. There must be some delay before stories move around, but I really don't get it. EDIT 2: #1 and Daring Fireball picked it up. I really don't get to complain anymore :D http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/05/23/screen-size-shenanigans http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/05/23/screen-size-shen...
  - jmspring 13y ago
    Seems like a lot of energy wondering about the dynamics of what people think about a posting.
    - xenophanes 13y ago
      Wondering about the HN algorithm, not about what people think. And I like to wonder about things. EDIT: It's #10 now. The three directly above it are all older with at least 100 fewer upvotes. It's gotta be flags. Apparently flagging front page stories lowers their ranking a lot. Interesting, IMO.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        The HN algorithm is more than just a function of time, upvotes, and flags. At the very least there is also a flamewar detection algorithm that shuffles flamewar inciting posts down. This algorithm, or similar, is also used to hide the 'reply' links during flamewars.
benawabe896 13y ago
It seems to me as though most of Microsoft's advertising lately feels a tad deceitful/disingenuous. Whether it's trying to convince that Bing really is better than Google (really it is I promise), or that Windows 8 just blows people away with it's ease of use, I feel as though the campaigns are trying to convince me that I am the problem. Maybe I'm being unfair... not sure, it's just how it hits me.
- Zikes 13y ago
  Their "Mojave" campaign gave me the same impression. They invited people into tents to try out their latest and greatest OS, called Mojave, and after the person sang the OS's praises they revealed that it's actually Windows Vista. The whole thing was basically Microsoft saying "you're all wrong, Vista is great and you just aren't smart enough to understand that unless we trick you into it".
  - famousactress 13y ago
    I think the strategy worked pretty well for margarine and instant coffee. It's a proven technique whenever you've given up hope on elating consumers, but still have a product you need to convince people isn't quite as disappointing as they expected.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  This is a big part of why I can't take Microsoft seriously these days. I don't know if it's a function of their corporate culture, but they seem utterly incapable of being honest - either in their advertising or even with themselves. Every major failure is couched as some kind of success. Windows 8 has been a flop no matter which way you cut it, but if you listen to Microsoft's external and internal messaging Win8 is a dramatic success that has sold like hotcakes. I'm pretty sure if Microsoft was in charge of Chernobyl they'd find some way to spin it into a successful advancement of nuclear safety. At some point you just have to come out with a mea culpa. Sorry guys, this was crappy, we will be better. Not every product is a smash hit, not every decision the right one - your ability to own up to these and fix these are infinitely more important to me as a customer than your ability to look me in the eye and call the sky purple with a perfect deadpan.
LilValleyBigEgo 13y ago
> How can the screen with a larger diagonal measurement be smaller? Because it's a different shape. Long and thin gets you a bigger diagonal but a smaller screen, for the same diagonal inches. And now you know why widescreen televisions keep getting wider and shorter.
manacit 13y ago
This, among other things, is what happens when Microsoft hires a Political Strategist to be their Vice President for Strategic and Special Projects[1] Frankly between their "Scroogled" campaign and all of their other advertisements, I'm starting to lose a lot of what respect I had for MSFT. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Penn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Penn
xenophanes 13y ago
LilValleyBigEgo, looks like you are hellbanned. All your comments are dead. https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=LilValleyBigEgo https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=LilValleyBigEgo You need to make a new account.
- lawnchair_larry 13y ago
  Wow, looks like he was hellbanned for a year and a half, still contributing, and I don't see anything wrong with the few posts prior to the ban. Account hasn't submitted spam. What an abuse of the hellban feature.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    To say that, don't you need to know that no other reason was in play? For example, he made a lot of unpopular comments before he was banned. Perhaps he made some other accounts to upvote himself to counteract this. My point is, you don't actually know that any abuse occurred unless you know why he was banned, and you don't.
    - Karunamon 13y ago
      It's still a net negative and downright disheartening to see an obviously contributing account nuked... HN has the most opaque moderation system of any community I've ever been in..
      - jamesaguilar 13y ago
        And, ironically, the community functions better than most others. Correlation or causation? Who knows.
        PavlovsCat 13y ago
        Correlation or causation? How about neither? How about HN's community being good despite the sometimes idiotic moderation that takes them for granted, simply because a bunch of smart people found together... ?
anxx 13y ago
It's only in the US that I have seen advertisements for a product include direct bashing of a competitor's product. I am not talking about a list of features where you show in which way yours is superior; that is still acceptable (although also deceiving much of the time). I am talking about ads like the Nimoy-Quinto Audi commercial where Nimoy had stupid problems fitting stuff into the Mercedes. This is such a jarring way to advertise, it's like watching a bully beat a defenseless kid - does anybody feel more sympathy towards the product this way?
- criley 13y ago
  I've always chalked it up not as advertising but as branding. Those commercials serve to build a brand around a product and keep current owners involved in the brand, through feelings of superiority or whatever. It's like CocaCola commercials: they don't need awareness through advertising, they want branding. Everyone knows what Coke is, but they want you to associate happiness with their product, so they keep branding. So when I see luxury brands bashing each other, I imagine that's part of what rich people pay BMW and Mercedes for. For that feeling of "I'm better than you because I own X", which the brands deliver through marketing like this.
- mullingitover 13y ago
  > This is such a jarring way to advertise, it's like watching a bully beat a defenseless kid - does anybody feel more sympathy towards the product this way? At least in this case, the iPad is so dominant that they probably feel there's no alternative but to address it directly. I'm sure the marketing team knows better, but they're making the comparison because they're in a position of extreme weakness. It's an act of desperation. The defenseless kid here is actually Microsoft.
- snprbob86 13y ago
  Apple ran the "I'm a Mac; I'm a PC" ads. Those started off as great advertising because they only pointed out bad things about Windows that everyone already accepted as bad things. Once those ads started becoming unnecessarily adversarial, they became bad advertising. Apple probably ran that campaign a bit too long. Depending on your point of view, Apple's products are either A) Clearly superior or B) Not obviously inferior. For a not insignificant number of people, their choice of smartphone is a personal statement. Attacking products that people love is not a good way to create converts. Attacking products that clearly suck works until a point. Then it starts to feel like a bully beating a defenseless kid. Microsoft's advertising feels more like a nerdy kid who spent all night thinking up clever and witty retorts, only to fail miserably in delivering them when face to face with the bully. The crowd of cool kids don't laugh with the nerdy kid, they laugh at them.
Ihmahr 13y ago
Remember the camera incident with their new phone?
- Spearchucker 13y ago
  I remember it well. It was indeed a PR gaff, not Microsoft's ad (Nokia shot that ad), but not misleading - the camera delivers. I know this because I use that camera daily, and it really is as stable (if not more) than that ad suggested it was.
- Tylerdt 13y ago
  It was Nokia, and the camera was really that good. http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/samsung-galaxy-s4-video-is-shakier-than-rivals-in-test-50011238/ http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/samsung-galaxy-s4-video-is-s...
Tylerdt 13y ago
I don't think PCs look like this either. http://i.imgur.com/lamAQ.png http://i.imgur.com/lamAQ.png
chollida1 13y ago
In chrome(Version 26.0.1410.64 m) the linked page just show up as blank. Is this some sort of odd way of saying that Microsoft isn't lying in their advertising?
- xenophanes 13y ago
  Refresh the page. Server problems, sorry. I added page caching a little while ago and also moved the image to dropbox instead of my own server (I hope that is OK to do).
danbruc 13y ago
(Sadly) advertising is just about that - bending the truth until it looks good; highlighting your strengths and not mentioning your weaknesses. If showing two images that are not to scale is the only thing wrong with this add, the headline is really exaggerated. And the diagonal is larger, nowhere did they mention that larger display means larger display area. So at best the used metric is unintuitive, meaningless and/or underspecified, but that's far from lying. Welcome to the world of advertising.
- mikeash 13y ago
  Just because everyone does it doesn't mean it's not lying and doesn't mean the headline is exaggerated.
  - danbruc 13y ago
    Admittedly the add is lying if you use the weaker interpretation (To convey a false image or impression.) instead of the stronger and more common one (To give false information intentionally.). Yes, the images do the former form of lying but the numbers are still correct. But if you start to use the weaker interpretation of lying to judge adds, than all adds not mentioning the product's weaknesses are lying and I guess the number of non-lying adds will settle very close to zero.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      How is showing two images not to scale not giving false information intentionally? The whole point of having the graphical representation is so that you can compare them visually, otherwise they could just list the dimension as a number. They intend for the reader to compare them visually, and the result of that comparison is an incorrect understanding of the relative size. The only way this isn't giving false information intentionally is if they made their diagram not to scale by accident somehow, which strikes me as unlikely.
      - danbruc 13y ago
        It does not give false information intentionally because they nowhere claim that the images are to scale - it is just your assumption that they should be to scale. Therefore it is (almost surly intentionally) deceiving by exploiting a reasonable assumption. But for me this is as much lying as a price of $9.99 is lying because it is trying to trick the customer into the impression that the price is way below $10.00. (Almost) every add uses beautiful images, good looking people, nice music and so on just to manipulate you. I don't say that this is a necessarily a good thing, but it is definitely a wrong thing to bash a single add for doing this and behaving as if nobody else does it. --- Because the text 10.1" is wider than 9.7" they could have ended up with similar images by just making them the same height and using the same padding on the left and the right (but they did not - the 10.1" image has more padding than the 9.7" image).
josefresco 13y ago
In defense of a wider/more horizontal form factor, it sure helps when displaying more than one app at-a-time. Which coincidentally is one of the main selling points of Win8. I know that sounds a bit snarky, but it sure sounds and feels better than fuzzy math.
- ajross 13y ago
  It's also better for most video content; an iPad watching a 16:9 TV stream is only using 75% of the screen. Apple itself has moved to a widescreen format for the iPhone 5, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a future iPad do that too. I think there's lots of value to squarer aspect ratios for desktop/text usage (c.f. the Chromebook Pixel moving slightly in the opposite direction), but for a media device like a phone or tablet I'd expect them all to converge on the aspect used by content. Obviously none of that has to do with the bad math in the MS ad. The iPad screen is, in fact, larger than the Asus one.
melling 13y ago
I don't have the book handy but I think Edward Tufte discussed this sort of lying in his classic book. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17744.The_Visual_Display_of_Quantitative_Information http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17744.The_Visual_Display_...
jere 13y ago
It's like the Megahertz Myth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz_myth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz_myth Their claim is technically true, if the way you agree to measure size is diagonally (this is how TVs are advertised after all), and also pretty meaningless and disingenuous. What I find interesting is that Apple on the other hand rarely seems to focus the message on numbers, even when they have a real numerical advantage.
- hjay 13y ago
  Apple seems to appeal to consumers by the appearance and experience more than anything. When they do mention numbers, it's always "x% faster, x% smaller!", which is really all anyone cares about -- "How much better is this compared to what I already have?"
- frogpelt 13y ago
  Technically, their claim is completely false. Could I also claim that a 12" by 1" touchscreen is bigger than a 10.1" since it has a 12.04" diagonal?
  - michael_h 13y ago
    Sure. The operative part of that sentence is: if the way you agree to measure size is diagonally
    - glhaynes 13y ago
      But the way we measure the size of things is ... by their size. We could just as well say their statement is true if we agree to define "bigger" as "smaller" and vice-versa.
      - jere 13y ago
        I think what you mean to say is "by their area" which is not necessarily true. Sometimes, we do measure things by a single dimension. Such as height. A person can't claim a world record on hobese. Area would probably be a more useful measurement for screens but historically, for better or worse, that's not they've been advertised and that's not how consumers are used to comparing them.
Tylerdt 13y ago
Video ad is here. Is there a size difference in the video too? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=86JMcy5OqZA http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8...
- xenophanes 13y ago
  Video looks accurate to me. iPad taller and less wide.
olegbl 13y ago
Clearly, no other company ever tried to tweak sizing or dimension of products in diagrams for their own benefit. Definitely not Apple. http://www.pcworld.com/article/238047/apple_offers_flawed_evidence_in_lawsuit_against_samsung.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/238047/apple_offers_flawed_ev... http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/195473/apple-files-inaccurate-evidence-dutch-samsung-case http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/195473/apple-fi...
- itg 13y ago
  So that makes this deceitful ad by Microsoft okay?
  - olegbl 13y ago
    No, but this article was a bit of sensationalist hype (which, btw, I thought was against hacker news conduct?) This kind of stuff should be taken in context.
    - CognitiveLens 13y ago
      sensationalist hype? It presents calculations of area, and states that the objective comparisons made by MS are objectively wrong. It doesn't even say that the ASUS tablet is worse or that the iPad is better. This is possibly the least sensationalist article I've ever seen that mentions both Apple and Microsoft.
      - FireBeyond 13y ago
        How is a diagonal length a calculation of area? There is no way to specifically determine area given a diagonal.
  - danbruc 13y ago
    Which add is not deceitful because it highlights strengths and hides weaknesses? It makes absolutely no sense to attack a single add, they all do it, so if you want to complain, complain about all adds.
guelo 13y ago
Here's a proportional image of a VivoTab-shaped rectangle on top of an iPad-shaped rectangle, http://i.imgur.com/UvhNuTA.png http://i.imgur.com/UvhNuTA.png I think the bigger dishonesty is the omission of screen resolution. The VivoTab is 1366x768 vs iPad's 2048x1536. That's three times more pixels crammed into an approximately similar area.
- redblacktree 13y ago
  Thanks. It's actually really hard to see from that image which one is larger.
  - mtgx 13y ago
    That's not the point. The op already says the difference is 3% (in iPad's favor). The problem is Microsoft says the Windows one is 36% bigger.
    - redblacktree 13y ago
      OK? I was glad to see the to-scale comparison. It helped me to see just how similar the two would have looked, had Microsoft drawn them to scale.
    - danbruc 13y ago
      They don't say that it is 36 % larger - they used images that are 36 % larger. But as someone else pointed out they are reusing the image for all models, for example also for the 11.6" one. Admittedly even the biggest display is less than 36 % larger than the iPad.
    - socillion 13y ago
      FWIW, it looks like Microsoft has edited the page to remove both the screen-size graphics and mention of touchscreen size.
      - frogpelt 13y ago
        They didn't change the pictures of the two tablets at the top. It is also misleading.
thezilch 13y ago
Hanlon's razor, or in Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774): "...misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent." The same box, in dimensions, was used for the ASUS VivoTab Smart [0], Dell XPS 10 [1], HP ENVY x2 [2], and Microsoft Surface RT [3]. WTF lies!?!? Nay, the page designer was probably just neglectful -- eyeballed or baselined each iteration from a single, different model. Also, every screen manufacturer or advertising will speak towards the diagonal length, where the VivoTab has a lengthier, "bigger" screen. [0] http://res2.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/274c5367-1fbb-43b6-aada-fa24829ca97d_10.png http://res2.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/... [1] http://res1.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/8180388a-dfce-4a93-8097-d0b25852ea70_10.png http://res1.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/... [2] http://res2.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/3b34067b-7685-4fba-abfc-d93ed7aefb20_10.png http://res2.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/... [3] http://res2.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/4db5bb15-2b36-42f8-93d4-fd33e68323be_10.png http://res2.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/...
- redblacktree 13y ago
  However, they do flat-out lie in the text. > At the bottom, Microsoft writes, "The ASUS VivoTab Smart is lighter than the iPad, has a bigger touchscreen...". False. It does not have a "bigger touchscreen".
  - recursive 13y ago
    It depends how you define "bigger". There is arguably some good-faith definition of "bigger" for which it's true. (like diagonal measurement)
    - redblacktree 13y ago
      I'm sure that their lawyers would argue that. I think that a reasonable person comparing screen sizes would be interested in area, not diagonal length.
codegeek 13y ago
reminds of the ad Microsoft is running that they call "Scroogled". They claim that Bing is better than google and even have ppl on TV test it out. I tried taking that challenge and bing fails 95% of the time compared to google results.
- HelloMcFly 13y ago
  Bing has won that test for my, my girlfriend, and 3/5 of my office mates. I still use Google most of the time out of habit, but I was still surprised by the results. I'm not saying I'm representative of any particular group, but I don't think the fact that it didn't work for you makes the whole campaign a farce.
  - thedufer 13y ago
    IIRC, they won by suggesting single-word search strings. For very easy searches, Bing slightly edges out Google, but no one cares, because both of them have the thing you're looking for on the first page. For those awful long-tail searches, Bing completely flames out, while Google often does a decent job. For a more interesting test, try describing things as if you know what you're looking for but can't remember the name (movies, products, etc.).
    - HelloMcFly 13y ago
      I can only speak for myself and say I was definitely not using single-word search strings. That would be awful uncritical of me.
  - pdubs 13y ago
    For "normal" things I ended up slightly leaning towards Bing; for programming and technical searching it was Google by a mile.
    - dagw 13y ago
      Google also wins massively for non-English search terms in my experience.
piyush_soni 13y ago
Well, I don't see where are they lying. There might have scaled the images differently for various reasons. Of course, they could have done it the proper way, but it can't be called outright 'lying'.
jonas_maj 13y ago
Apple's 4:3 screen for tablets are outdated and completely unusable. 16:9 is the way to go for any modern computing device. 4:3 is terrible for watching HD videos or browsing websites -- all of which are made with a 16:9 screen in mind.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  That’s true if you think tablets should only be used in landscape orientation. I like using the iPad in portrait mode, but on 16:9 screens portrait mode is very awkward for everything but reading novels. As for smartphones: the maximum width of those screens is dictated by the average size of a human’s palm. If you make the screens wider than 2.5", for most people it will be uncomfortable to operate the phone with one hand. Look at the Galaxy Note[1] (which is 3.3" wide), it’s practically impossible to use with one hand. [1] http://www.engadget.com/gallery/samsung-galaxy-note-ii-hands-on/5241440/ http://www.engadget.com/gallery/samsung-galaxy-note-ii-hands...
  - jonas_maj 13y ago
    For something you need to hold with both hands(which I assume how you use your iPad), I think the landscape orientation is more natural and comfortable. That's how we hold a book while reading lying down.
    - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
      The vast majority of books are taller than they are high. It’s way more natural to read books on the iPad in portrait orientation, and that’s also how it’s shown in iPad commercials[1]. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhC40QCZML0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhC40QCZML0
      - jonas_maj 13y ago
        When you open a book (which is the only way you can read it!), it is definitely wider than it is tall. And hence I find it much more natural to hold a tablet in the landscape mode.
alwaysdoit 13y ago
Why have we let the standard measurement of screen area be done with units of length? Sometimes I wonder if the proliferation of widescreens is due to actual demand, or just being more marketable.
- takluyver 13y ago
  At a guess, when all screens had similar aspect ratio, a length measurement was more convenient: you can measure it without a calculator, and people can hold their fingers apart and think 'about this big'. We don't seem to have the same kind of intuition with area measurements. I suspect widescreens have a bit of both. For watching videos or having two documents on screen, a widescreen does make more sense.
jonas_maj 13y ago
The ad in general is absolutely brilliant, and completely to the point. Windows 8 tablets are inherently more usable and useful than the iPad. Sure the app ecosystem is not quite there yet, but the core OS is definitely far superior, and the form factor is also better due to the 16:9 aspect ratio.
orangethirty 13y ago
This really shows how they are playing catch-up to Apple.
- nivla 13y ago
  Yes, In the mobile world everyone is playing catch up with Apple. In the desktop world everyone is playing catch up with Microsoft. In the search world everyone is playing catch up with Google. In business you play catch up with the industry leader till you become one. Its part of being a business. Your Point?
  - orangethirty 13y ago
    The point that you missed is that you can either play catch up, or you can change the game. MS has the resources to change the game, but they lack the ability to do it.
    - nivla 13y ago
      Similar to the desktop market, I think the tablet market is too saturated to change the game. You can only play catchups now.
runjake 13y ago
If you hate this, be sure to politely register your displeasure with @fxshaw on Twitter. Frank is the head PR guy for Microsoft. Whether you like Microsoft or not, they have some promising new products, but I feel like they are sabotaging their efforts with lies like this.
alipang 13y ago
Reminds of the old download page for Internet Explorer 10, which had some nice quotes like: "Chrome users ... try IE10!" Of course the ... hid something like "Yeah, if you're bored with Chrome, try IE10". Another nugget from the same page was the qoute "Incredibly fast!" with the source set as " - Tweet".
Bill_Dimm 13y ago
There are other, more subtle, sleazy things in that ad. Microsoft seems to choose how many places to display after decimal points in a "convenient" way. Large batter life is good, so Microsoft displays "9.5" for its product, but "10" (not "10.0") for the iPad, making it less visually obvious (same number of digits) that the iPad is better. Small weight is good, so Microsoft displays "1.3" for its product (not "1.30"), but "1.44" for the iPad, making the Microsoft number seem more favorable (one less digit) than it really is. Of course, numbers are numbers and anyone that is even half-way thinking realizes that 9.5 and 10 are virtually the same (within 5%), and 1.3 and 1.44 are virtually the same (within 10%), but altering the number of digits probably does have some psychological impact on people that aren't really thinking.
- jwoah12 13y ago
  You do realize that in both cases they are eliminating a trailing 0, right? It is a major stretch to try to say this is sleazy.
  - Bill_Dimm 13y ago
    A) Actually, I don't know that it is a zero that is being dropped, even though that may be likely. If numbers were being reported by a scientist, dropped digits would be an indication that the measurement wasn't accurate to any more digits than those displayed, so 1.3 might really be 1.3476 but their measuring device just couldn't measure it that accurately. B) I think it's pretty unusual to offer up a side-by-side comparison of numbers that aren't showing the same number of digits after the decimal point (hence, not a major stretch to call it sleazy). Do you ever see prices quoted as "$12.3" instead of "$12.30"?
    - jwoah12 13y ago
      A) I was just assuming that your numbers were correct. Regardless, though, the numbers aren't being reported by a scientist. They are being reported to consumers in an advertisement. I wouldn't call leaving off sig figs, or even rounding, sleazy in this case. But we probably just disagree on that. B) $12.3 isn't a very good comparison because in the context of currency, the numbers after the decimal really signify number of cents, not a fraction of a dollar (although they are equivalent).
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
geuis 13y ago
And no one has mentioned the second, more obvious "lie" that jumped right out. It says the iPad doesn't have Office. Well, that's because Microsoft hasn't released a version of Office for iOS. I don't know the right word for it, but that's not honest either.
- Negitivefrags 13y ago
  Lets say you have two TVs. One TV says "We have Smart Screen 5.0 technology unlike that TV" Would you say. "Thats a lie. The only reason that other TV doesn't have Smart Screen 5.0 technology is because you didn't offer to sell it to your competitor." I don't think you should be under any obligation, legal or moral to be forced to licence your competitive advantage to your competitor.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    > "We have Smart Screen 5.0 technology unlike that TV" Slightly offtopic: What drives me crazy is when Company A will say "TV A has FizzBuzz(tm) Technology, TV B does not!" and Company B says "TV B has BuzzFizz(tm) Technology, TV A does not!" When FizzBuzz(tm) and BuzzFizz(tm) are really just the same shit with different trademarks. It is probably "different" technology enough of the time, in that it does the same thing but in a different way with a different set of patents... but still.
  - geuis 13y ago
    Let me try again. You make FOO. You also make XXX, which runs on FOO. XXX is very popular. I make BAR. BAR is very popular, but can't run XXX. BAR and FOO are competing products. You say, "FOO is better than BAR because BAR doesn't have XXX." You don't make a version of XXX that works on BAR. You can't use the fact that you don't make Office for iOS as a short coming of iOS in advertising. That doesn't make your product better, it just means that you aren't making Office available. Any clearer now?
- rimantas 13y ago
  iPad does not have MS Office, but it does have iWork version for iOS.
patja 13y ago
They should make more of the lack of multiple user accounts on the iPad. Most families I know share an iPad among the whole household. The lack of separate user accounts is a major pain point.
- tmzt 13y ago
  I still remember when Steve praised Microsoft's fast user switching feature during an Apple keynote before introducing the OS X version. Maybe something like "App Profiles" that have access to only a subset of the installed applications would work.
ianmcgowan 13y ago
It also seems somewhat disingenuous to complain about the lack of office apps on iPad, when MSFT is clearly to blame for that lack...
- nivla 13y ago
  Well I would love an official Youtube app for my Windows Phone but Google doesn't make one and has no intention of. Can I blame Google?
NiekvdMaas 13y ago
I remember a keynote a Steve Jobs where he did something very similar: he presented a 3D pie chart, where the Apple part was highly distorted. Picture: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/Jobs_08_keynote_dsc_0143x.jpg http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/Jobs_08_keynote_dsc_0... Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/jan/21/liesdamnliesandstevejobs http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/jan/21/liesda...
- tgcordell 13y ago
  This isn't similar at all. Jobs and co are using the viewing angle of a 3d graph to have the Apple share be closer and 'larger' than the farther and now 'smaller' Other section. What Windows is representing and outlining here has no basis in fact.
  - sneak 13y ago
    > Jobs and co are using the viewing angle of a 3d graph to have the Apple share be closer and 'larger' than the farther and now 'smaller' Other section Actually, the tablet _is_ bigger in the diagonal measurement as they claim, which is the standard measurement of screen sizes. They're both subterfuge. Don't raise one above the other.
    - arrrg 13y ago
      The diagonal is longer, the screen is not bigger. That is a flat out lie.
      - bastijn 13y ago
        Without rooting for one or the other. Bigger is not a measurement. Bigger is relative to the method of measurement/definition, and its comparison with a second one. If screen size is measured/defined by its diagonal, than the screen is bigger.
        arrrg 13y ago
kostya-kow 13y ago
Advertisement always bends facts to one side or the other. Usually ads put extra emphasis on a positive thing, while omitting the negative. Even more often ads don't use facts -- they just play on people's feelings. In any case, the goal of advertising is to deceive the buyer, not not inform them. So I don't think anything should be expected from any company that needs to satisfy shareholders. I don't see how Apple's ads with a man asking stupid questions from kids, or Droid's ads with cool robots is morally better then what M$ is doing. But in this case, MS is just being stupid and ruins their image. They don't even pretend to be a company that tries to be morally good. If this becomes more popular with mainstream media, the ad will hurt MS much more then it benefits them, same as this piece of FUD that got to the frontpage of /r/linux: https://www.microsoft.com/hk/windowsserver/compare/windows-server-vs-red-hat-linux.mspx https://www.microsoft.com/hk/windowsserver/compare/windows-s... In my opinion, all ads should be banned. It's a huge useless industry of liers. Corporations that are good with ads are not necessarily good at making products, but they get unfair advantage. It also distracts the main effort of from making a good product.
codereflection 13y ago
Although it's just a legend, this article just made me think of the tuna "Guaranteed not to turn pink in the can!" marketing spin.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
kunai 13y ago
This is not only a problem that exists with Microsoft. Many PC makers push crap "widescreen" 16:9 displays with far less viewable area than a 4:3 screen, and obscenely little vertical res/height, and push it as a "feature." I'm sick of Apple being the only one with decent displays. Why do the PC makers insist on using 16:9 displays when they HAVE the money and the power to afford 16:10, 4:3, or even 3:2, a la Chromebook Pixel? If it's just to cut costs, then, Lenovo, Toshiba, HP, Dell, Acer, -- fuck you. http://xkcd.com/732/ http://xkcd.com/732/
- jlgreco 13y ago
  I used to assume it was about cutting costs, but I'm not so sure anymore. Samsung apparently has a 3200x1800 (16:9) at 13.3" laptop coming out. That beats the chromebook pixel by a decent amount and certainly cannot be cheap... I think they must have some market research that suggests people actually do want 16:9 for whatever reason.
ywang0414 13y ago
This is not much of a surprise at all. Corps have been doing this sort of lying right in our face strategy for years. Same as when T-Mobile started calling their HSPA network 4G and claiming they have the largest "4G" network in the nation. All complete BS but the masses are buying into it. It's just marketing after all. I really think there needs to be a mainstream service perhaps run by the government to regulate all these commercials. After all, information is the most valuable commodity. And shoveling mis-information down people's throats might as well be poisoning people directly.
kenjackson 13y ago
Looks like they changed the ad. Hardly seems malicious.
danbruc 13y ago
They just changed the images - now there are only numbers.
laureny 13y ago
> I got the link from Daring Fireball. Shocking.
nhebb 13y ago
Big picture wise, I don't think Microsoft's advertising group is very good. In this case Hanlon's Razor probably applies. I don't know what target market would find the Surface Pro dancing commercials compelling. (My guess is: none.) The new Office ads focus on silly things like deleting large numbers of emails, which is underwhelming from a sales-worthy feature standpoint. And then there were the early Windows 8 ads with the little girl creating art in the new Paint app. Anyone who has purchased color ink would look at that wall of art and see huge dollar signs (at least I did). I don't know if I would blame the ad group though. When the ads focus of the fluffy stuff, I take it as a sign that they struggled to find real features and benefits to push.
ebf 13y ago
They removed the screen images and changed the copy so it says >The ASUS VivoTab Smart is lighter than the iPad, has more ports, works with more printers, lets you see two apps at once, and runs Microsoft Office and other desktop programs. Glad this 346 upvotes and 216 comments compared to the Xbox threads that were flagged off the frontpage. Great discussion Hacker News!

397 points by xenophanes 13y ago

I clicked the title expecting it to be hyperbolic outrage at an advertising half-truth, but — yeah, that really is flat-out wrong. I can see how it could perhaps happen unintentionally, but Microsoft should definitely change the ad after they see this.

xenophanes 13y ago
I'm pretty sure it got flagged off the front page by other people who expected the same from the title. It dropped from #12 to #40 while the age went from around 17 to 19min and votes went up from 6 to 8. That can't be right without flags. It's now #31 with 13 points and 27min, might get back on. It was also #31 less than a minute ago with 11 points, but 2 quick votes didn't move it up. That seems odd. Maybe I don't understand how this works, I don't know. EDIT: and now it jumped to #7, still with 13 points. There must be some delay before stories move around, but I really don't get it. EDIT 2: #1 and Daring Fireball picked it up. I really don't get to complain anymore :D http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/05/23/screen-size-shenanigans http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/05/23/screen-size-shen...
- jmspring 13y ago
  Seems like a lot of energy wondering about the dynamics of what people think about a posting.
  - xenophanes 13y ago
    Wondering about the HN algorithm, not about what people think. And I like to wonder about things. EDIT: It's #10 now. The three directly above it are all older with at least 100 fewer upvotes. It's gotta be flags. Apparently flagging front page stories lowers their ranking a lot. Interesting, IMO.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      The HN algorithm is more than just a function of time, upvotes, and flags. At the very least there is also a flamewar detection algorithm that shuffles flamewar inciting posts down. This algorithm, or similar, is also used to hide the 'reply' links during flamewars.

benawabe896 13y ago

It seems to me as though most of Microsoft's advertising lately feels a tad deceitful/disingenuous. Whether it's trying to convince that Bing really is better than Google (really it is I promise), or that Windows 8 just blows people away with it's ease of use, I feel as though the campaigns are trying to convince me that I am the problem. Maybe I'm being unfair... not sure, it's just how it hits me.

Zikes 13y ago
Their "Mojave" campaign gave me the same impression. They invited people into tents to try out their latest and greatest OS, called Mojave, and after the person sang the OS's praises they revealed that it's actually Windows Vista. The whole thing was basically Microsoft saying "you're all wrong, Vista is great and you just aren't smart enough to understand that unless we trick you into it".
- famousactress 13y ago
  I think the strategy worked pretty well for margarine and instant coffee. It's a proven technique whenever you've given up hope on elating consumers, but still have a product you need to convince people isn't quite as disappointing as they expected.
potatolicious 13y ago
This is a big part of why I can't take Microsoft seriously these days. I don't know if it's a function of their corporate culture, but they seem utterly incapable of being honest - either in their advertising or even with themselves. Every major failure is couched as some kind of success. Windows 8 has been a flop no matter which way you cut it, but if you listen to Microsoft's external and internal messaging Win8 is a dramatic success that has sold like hotcakes. I'm pretty sure if Microsoft was in charge of Chernobyl they'd find some way to spin it into a successful advancement of nuclear safety. At some point you just have to come out with a mea culpa. Sorry guys, this was crappy, we will be better. Not every product is a smash hit, not every decision the right one - your ability to own up to these and fix these are infinitely more important to me as a customer than your ability to look me in the eye and call the sky purple with a perfect deadpan.

LilValleyBigEgo 13y ago

> How can the screen with a larger diagonal measurement be smaller? Because it's a different shape. Long and thin gets you a bigger diagonal but a smaller screen, for the same diagonal inches. And now you know why widescreen televisions keep getting wider and shorter.

manacit 13y ago

This, among other things, is what happens when Microsoft hires a Political Strategist to be their Vice President for Strategic and Special Projects[1] Frankly between their "Scroogled" campaign and all of their other advertisements, I'm starting to lose a lot of what respect I had for MSFT. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Penn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Penn

xenophanes 13y ago

LilValleyBigEgo, looks like you are hellbanned. All your comments are dead. https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=LilValleyBigEgo https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=LilValleyBigEgo You need to make a new account.

lawnchair_larry 13y ago
Wow, looks like he was hellbanned for a year and a half, still contributing, and I don't see anything wrong with the few posts prior to the ban. Account hasn't submitted spam. What an abuse of the hellban feature.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  To say that, don't you need to know that no other reason was in play? For example, he made a lot of unpopular comments before he was banned. Perhaps he made some other accounts to upvote himself to counteract this. My point is, you don't actually know that any abuse occurred unless you know why he was banned, and you don't.
  - Karunamon 13y ago
    It's still a net negative and downright disheartening to see an obviously contributing account nuked... HN has the most opaque moderation system of any community I've ever been in..
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      And, ironically, the community functions better than most others. Correlation or causation? Who knows.
      - PavlovsCat 13y ago
        Correlation or causation? How about neither? How about HN's community being good despite the sometimes idiotic moderation that takes them for granted, simply because a bunch of smart people found together... ?

anxx 13y ago

It's only in the US that I have seen advertisements for a product include direct bashing of a competitor's product. I am not talking about a list of features where you show in which way yours is superior; that is still acceptable (although also deceiving much of the time). I am talking about ads like the Nimoy-Quinto Audi commercial where Nimoy had stupid problems fitting stuff into the Mercedes. This is such a jarring way to advertise, it's like watching a bully beat a defenseless kid - does anybody feel more sympathy towards the product this way?

criley 13y ago
I've always chalked it up not as advertising but as branding. Those commercials serve to build a brand around a product and keep current owners involved in the brand, through feelings of superiority or whatever. It's like CocaCola commercials: they don't need awareness through advertising, they want branding. Everyone knows what Coke is, but they want you to associate happiness with their product, so they keep branding. So when I see luxury brands bashing each other, I imagine that's part of what rich people pay BMW and Mercedes for. For that feeling of "I'm better than you because I own X", which the brands deliver through marketing like this.
mullingitover 13y ago
> This is such a jarring way to advertise, it's like watching a bully beat a defenseless kid - does anybody feel more sympathy towards the product this way? At least in this case, the iPad is so dominant that they probably feel there's no alternative but to address it directly. I'm sure the marketing team knows better, but they're making the comparison because they're in a position of extreme weakness. It's an act of desperation. The defenseless kid here is actually Microsoft.
snprbob86 13y ago
Apple ran the "I'm a Mac; I'm a PC" ads. Those started off as great advertising because they only pointed out bad things about Windows that everyone already accepted as bad things. Once those ads started becoming unnecessarily adversarial, they became bad advertising. Apple probably ran that campaign a bit too long. Depending on your point of view, Apple's products are either A) Clearly superior or B) Not obviously inferior. For a not insignificant number of people, their choice of smartphone is a personal statement. Attacking products that people love is not a good way to create converts. Attacking products that clearly suck works until a point. Then it starts to feel like a bully beating a defenseless kid. Microsoft's advertising feels more like a nerdy kid who spent all night thinking up clever and witty retorts, only to fail miserably in delivering them when face to face with the bully. The crowd of cool kids don't laugh with the nerdy kid, they laugh at them.

Ihmahr 13y ago

Remember the camera incident with their new phone?

Spearchucker 13y ago
I remember it well. It was indeed a PR gaff, not Microsoft's ad (Nokia shot that ad), but not misleading - the camera delivers. I know this because I use that camera daily, and it really is as stable (if not more) than that ad suggested it was.
Tylerdt 13y ago
It was Nokia, and the camera was really that good. http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/samsung-galaxy-s4-video-is-shakier-than-rivals-in-test-50011238/ http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/samsung-galaxy-s4-video-is-s...

Tylerdt 13y ago

I don't think PCs look like this either. http://i.imgur.com/lamAQ.png http://i.imgur.com/lamAQ.png

chollida1 13y ago

In chrome(Version 26.0.1410.64 m) the linked page just show up as blank. Is this some sort of odd way of saying that Microsoft isn't lying in their advertising?

xenophanes 13y ago
Refresh the page. Server problems, sorry. I added page caching a little while ago and also moved the image to dropbox instead of my own server (I hope that is OK to do).

danbruc 13y ago

(Sadly) advertising is just about that - bending the truth until it looks good; highlighting your strengths and not mentioning your weaknesses. If showing two images that are not to scale is the only thing wrong with this add, the headline is really exaggerated. And the diagonal is larger, nowhere did they mention that larger display means larger display area. So at best the used metric is unintuitive, meaningless and/or underspecified, but that's far from lying. Welcome to the world of advertising.

mikeash 13y ago
Just because everyone does it doesn't mean it's not lying and doesn't mean the headline is exaggerated.
- danbruc 13y ago
  Admittedly the add is lying if you use the weaker interpretation (To convey a false image or impression.) instead of the stronger and more common one (To give false information intentionally.). Yes, the images do the former form of lying but the numbers are still correct. But if you start to use the weaker interpretation of lying to judge adds, than all adds not mentioning the product's weaknesses are lying and I guess the number of non-lying adds will settle very close to zero.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    How is showing two images not to scale not giving false information intentionally? The whole point of having the graphical representation is so that you can compare them visually, otherwise they could just list the dimension as a number. They intend for the reader to compare them visually, and the result of that comparison is an incorrect understanding of the relative size. The only way this isn't giving false information intentionally is if they made their diagram not to scale by accident somehow, which strikes me as unlikely.
    - danbruc 13y ago
      It does not give false information intentionally because they nowhere claim that the images are to scale - it is just your assumption that they should be to scale. Therefore it is (almost surly intentionally) deceiving by exploiting a reasonable assumption. But for me this is as much lying as a price of $9.99 is lying because it is trying to trick the customer into the impression that the price is way below $10.00. (Almost) every add uses beautiful images, good looking people, nice music and so on just to manipulate you. I don't say that this is a necessarily a good thing, but it is definitely a wrong thing to bash a single add for doing this and behaving as if nobody else does it. --- Because the text 10.1" is wider than 9.7" they could have ended up with similar images by just making them the same height and using the same padding on the left and the right (but they did not - the 10.1" image has more padding than the 9.7" image).

josefresco 13y ago

In defense of a wider/more horizontal form factor, it sure helps when displaying more than one app at-a-time. Which coincidentally is one of the main selling points of Win8. I know that sounds a bit snarky, but it sure sounds and feels better than fuzzy math.

ajross 13y ago
It's also better for most video content; an iPad watching a 16:9 TV stream is only using 75% of the screen. Apple itself has moved to a widescreen format for the iPhone 5, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a future iPad do that too. I think there's lots of value to squarer aspect ratios for desktop/text usage (c.f. the Chromebook Pixel moving slightly in the opposite direction), but for a media device like a phone or tablet I'd expect them all to converge on the aspect used by content. Obviously none of that has to do with the bad math in the MS ad. The iPad screen is, in fact, larger than the Asus one.

melling 13y ago

I don't have the book handy but I think Edward Tufte discussed this sort of lying in his classic book. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17744.The_Visual_Display_of_Quantitative_Information http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17744.The_Visual_Display_...

jere 13y ago

It's like the Megahertz Myth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz_myth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz_myth Their claim is technically true, if the way you agree to measure size is diagonally (this is how TVs are advertised after all), and also pretty meaningless and disingenuous. What I find interesting is that Apple on the other hand rarely seems to focus the message on numbers, even when they have a real numerical advantage.

hjay 13y ago
Apple seems to appeal to consumers by the appearance and experience more than anything. When they do mention numbers, it's always "x% faster, x% smaller!", which is really all anyone cares about -- "How much better is this compared to what I already have?"
frogpelt 13y ago
Technically, their claim is completely false. Could I also claim that a 12" by 1" touchscreen is bigger than a 10.1" since it has a 12.04" diagonal?
- michael_h 13y ago
  Sure. The operative part of that sentence is: if the way you agree to measure size is diagonally
  - glhaynes 13y ago
    But the way we measure the size of things is ... by their size. We could just as well say their statement is true if we agree to define "bigger" as "smaller" and vice-versa.
    - jere 13y ago
      I think what you mean to say is "by their area" which is not necessarily true. Sometimes, we do measure things by a single dimension. Such as height. A person can't claim a world record on hobese. Area would probably be a more useful measurement for screens but historically, for better or worse, that's not they've been advertised and that's not how consumers are used to comparing them.

Tylerdt 13y ago

Video ad is here. Is there a size difference in the video too? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=86JMcy5OqZA http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8...

xenophanes 13y ago
Video looks accurate to me. iPad taller and less wide.

olegbl 13y ago

Clearly, no other company ever tried to tweak sizing or dimension of products in diagrams for their own benefit. Definitely not Apple. http://www.pcworld.com/article/238047/apple_offers_flawed_evidence_in_lawsuit_against_samsung.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/238047/apple_offers_flawed_ev... http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/195473/apple-files-inaccurate-evidence-dutch-samsung-case http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/195473/apple-fi...

itg 13y ago
So that makes this deceitful ad by Microsoft okay?
- olegbl 13y ago
  No, but this article was a bit of sensationalist hype (which, btw, I thought was against hacker news conduct?) This kind of stuff should be taken in context.
  - CognitiveLens 13y ago
    sensationalist hype? It presents calculations of area, and states that the objective comparisons made by MS are objectively wrong. It doesn't even say that the ASUS tablet is worse or that the iPad is better. This is possibly the least sensationalist article I've ever seen that mentions both Apple and Microsoft.
    - FireBeyond 13y ago
      How is a diagonal length a calculation of area? There is no way to specifically determine area given a diagonal.
- danbruc 13y ago
  Which add is not deceitful because it highlights strengths and hides weaknesses? It makes absolutely no sense to attack a single add, they all do it, so if you want to complain, complain about all adds.

guelo 13y ago

Here's a proportional image of a VivoTab-shaped rectangle on top of an iPad-shaped rectangle, http://i.imgur.com/UvhNuTA.png http://i.imgur.com/UvhNuTA.png I think the bigger dishonesty is the omission of screen resolution. The VivoTab is 1366x768 vs iPad's 2048x1536. That's three times more pixels crammed into an approximately similar area.

redblacktree 13y ago
Thanks. It's actually really hard to see from that image which one is larger.
- mtgx 13y ago
  That's not the point. The op already says the difference is 3% (in iPad's favor). The problem is Microsoft says the Windows one is 36% bigger.
  - redblacktree 13y ago
    OK? I was glad to see the to-scale comparison. It helped me to see just how similar the two would have looked, had Microsoft drawn them to scale.
  - danbruc 13y ago
    They don't say that it is 36 % larger - they used images that are 36 % larger. But as someone else pointed out they are reusing the image for all models, for example also for the 11.6" one. Admittedly even the biggest display is less than 36 % larger than the iPad.
  - socillion 13y ago
    FWIW, it looks like Microsoft has edited the page to remove both the screen-size graphics and mention of touchscreen size.
    - frogpelt 13y ago
      They didn't change the pictures of the two tablets at the top. It is also misleading.

thezilch 13y ago

Hanlon's razor, or in Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774): "...misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent." The same box, in dimensions, was used for the ASUS VivoTab Smart [0], Dell XPS 10 [1], HP ENVY x2 [2], and Microsoft Surface RT [3]. WTF lies!?!? Nay, the page designer was probably just neglectful -- eyeballed or baselined each iteration from a single, different model. Also, every screen manufacturer or advertising will speak towards the diagonal length, where the VivoTab has a lengthier, "bigger" screen. [0] http://res2.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/274c5367-1fbb-43b6-aada-fa24829ca97d_10.png http://res2.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/... [1] http://res1.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/8180388a-dfce-4a93-8097-d0b25852ea70_10.png http://res1.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/... [2] http://res2.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/3b34067b-7685-4fba-abfc-d93ed7aefb20_10.png http://res2.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/... [3] http://res2.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/4db5bb15-2b36-42f8-93d4-fd33e68323be_10.png http://res2.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/6.2/2012-win8ga/...

redblacktree 13y ago
However, they do flat-out lie in the text. > At the bottom, Microsoft writes, "The ASUS VivoTab Smart is lighter than the iPad, has a bigger touchscreen...". False. It does not have a "bigger touchscreen".
- recursive 13y ago
  It depends how you define "bigger". There is arguably some good-faith definition of "bigger" for which it's true. (like diagonal measurement)
  - redblacktree 13y ago
    I'm sure that their lawyers would argue that. I think that a reasonable person comparing screen sizes would be interested in area, not diagonal length.

codegeek 13y ago

reminds of the ad Microsoft is running that they call "Scroogled". They claim that Bing is better than google and even have ppl on TV test it out. I tried taking that challenge and bing fails 95% of the time compared to google results.

HelloMcFly 13y ago
Bing has won that test for my, my girlfriend, and 3/5 of my office mates. I still use Google most of the time out of habit, but I was still surprised by the results. I'm not saying I'm representative of any particular group, but I don't think the fact that it didn't work for you makes the whole campaign a farce.
- thedufer 13y ago
  IIRC, they won by suggesting single-word search strings. For very easy searches, Bing slightly edges out Google, but no one cares, because both of them have the thing you're looking for on the first page. For those awful long-tail searches, Bing completely flames out, while Google often does a decent job. For a more interesting test, try describing things as if you know what you're looking for but can't remember the name (movies, products, etc.).
  - HelloMcFly 13y ago
    I can only speak for myself and say I was definitely not using single-word search strings. That would be awful uncritical of me.
- pdubs 13y ago
  For "normal" things I ended up slightly leaning towards Bing; for programming and technical searching it was Google by a mile.
  - dagw 13y ago
    Google also wins massively for non-English search terms in my experience.

piyush_soni 13y ago

Well, I don't see where are they lying. There might have scaled the images differently for various reasons. Of course, they could have done it the proper way, but it can't be called outright 'lying'.

jonas_maj 13y ago

Apple's 4:3 screen for tablets are outdated and completely unusable. 16:9 is the way to go for any modern computing device. 4:3 is terrible for watching HD videos or browsing websites -- all of which are made with a 16:9 screen in mind.

Samuel_Michon 13y ago
That’s true if you think tablets should only be used in landscape orientation. I like using the iPad in portrait mode, but on 16:9 screens portrait mode is very awkward for everything but reading novels. As for smartphones: the maximum width of those screens is dictated by the average size of a human’s palm. If you make the screens wider than 2.5", for most people it will be uncomfortable to operate the phone with one hand. Look at the Galaxy Note[1] (which is 3.3" wide), it’s practically impossible to use with one hand. [1] http://www.engadget.com/gallery/samsung-galaxy-note-ii-hands-on/5241440/ http://www.engadget.com/gallery/samsung-galaxy-note-ii-hands...
- jonas_maj 13y ago
  For something you need to hold with both hands(which I assume how you use your iPad), I think the landscape orientation is more natural and comfortable. That's how we hold a book while reading lying down.
  - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
    The vast majority of books are taller than they are high. It’s way more natural to read books on the iPad in portrait orientation, and that’s also how it’s shown in iPad commercials[1]. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhC40QCZML0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhC40QCZML0
    - jonas_maj 13y ago
      When you open a book (which is the only way you can read it!), it is definitely wider than it is tall. And hence I find it much more natural to hold a tablet in the landscape mode.

alwaysdoit 13y ago

Why have we let the standard measurement of screen area be done with units of length? Sometimes I wonder if the proliferation of widescreens is due to actual demand, or just being more marketable.

takluyver 13y ago
At a guess, when all screens had similar aspect ratio, a length measurement was more convenient: you can measure it without a calculator, and people can hold their fingers apart and think 'about this big'. We don't seem to have the same kind of intuition with area measurements. I suspect widescreens have a bit of both. For watching videos or having two documents on screen, a widescreen does make more sense.

jonas_maj 13y ago

The ad in general is absolutely brilliant, and completely to the point. Windows 8 tablets are inherently more usable and useful than the iPad. Sure the app ecosystem is not quite there yet, but the core OS is definitely far superior, and the form factor is also better due to the 16:9 aspect ratio.

orangethirty 13y ago

This really shows how they are playing catch-up to Apple.

nivla 13y ago
Yes, In the mobile world everyone is playing catch up with Apple. In the desktop world everyone is playing catch up with Microsoft. In the search world everyone is playing catch up with Google. In business you play catch up with the industry leader till you become one. Its part of being a business. Your Point?
- orangethirty 13y ago
  The point that you missed is that you can either play catch up, or you can change the game. MS has the resources to change the game, but they lack the ability to do it.
  - nivla 13y ago
    Similar to the desktop market, I think the tablet market is too saturated to change the game. You can only play catchups now.

runjake 13y ago

If you hate this, be sure to politely register your displeasure with @fxshaw on Twitter. Frank is the head PR guy for Microsoft. Whether you like Microsoft or not, they have some promising new products, but I feel like they are sabotaging their efforts with lies like this.

alipang 13y ago

Reminds of the old download page for Internet Explorer 10, which had some nice quotes like: "Chrome users ... try IE10!" Of course the ... hid something like "Yeah, if you're bored with Chrome, try IE10". Another nugget from the same page was the qoute "Incredibly fast!" with the source set as " - Tweet".

Bill_Dimm 13y ago

There are other, more subtle, sleazy things in that ad. Microsoft seems to choose how many places to display after decimal points in a "convenient" way. Large batter life is good, so Microsoft displays "9.5" for its product, but "10" (not "10.0") for the iPad, making it less visually obvious (same number of digits) that the iPad is better. Small weight is good, so Microsoft displays "1.3" for its product (not "1.30"), but "1.44" for the iPad, making the Microsoft number seem more favorable (one less digit) than it really is. Of course, numbers are numbers and anyone that is even half-way thinking realizes that 9.5 and 10 are virtually the same (within 5%), and 1.3 and 1.44 are virtually the same (within 10%), but altering the number of digits probably does have some psychological impact on people that aren't really thinking.

jwoah12 13y ago
You do realize that in both cases they are eliminating a trailing 0, right? It is a major stretch to try to say this is sleazy.
- Bill_Dimm 13y ago
  A) Actually, I don't know that it is a zero that is being dropped, even though that may be likely. If numbers were being reported by a scientist, dropped digits would be an indication that the measurement wasn't accurate to any more digits than those displayed, so 1.3 might really be 1.3476 but their measuring device just couldn't measure it that accurately. B) I think it's pretty unusual to offer up a side-by-side comparison of numbers that aren't showing the same number of digits after the decimal point (hence, not a major stretch to call it sleazy). Do you ever see prices quoted as "$12.3" instead of "$12.30"?
  - jwoah12 13y ago
    A) I was just assuming that your numbers were correct. Regardless, though, the numbers aren't being reported by a scientist. They are being reported to consumers in an advertisement. I wouldn't call leaving off sig figs, or even rounding, sleazy in this case. But we probably just disagree on that. B) $12.3 isn't a very good comparison because in the context of currency, the numbers after the decimal really signify number of cents, not a fraction of a dollar (although they are equivalent).

deleted 13y ago

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geuis 13y ago

And no one has mentioned the second, more obvious "lie" that jumped right out. It says the iPad doesn't have Office. Well, that's because Microsoft hasn't released a version of Office for iOS. I don't know the right word for it, but that's not honest either.

Negitivefrags 13y ago
Lets say you have two TVs. One TV says "We have Smart Screen 5.0 technology unlike that TV" Would you say. "Thats a lie. The only reason that other TV doesn't have Smart Screen 5.0 technology is because you didn't offer to sell it to your competitor." I don't think you should be under any obligation, legal or moral to be forced to licence your competitive advantage to your competitor.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  > "We have Smart Screen 5.0 technology unlike that TV" Slightly offtopic: What drives me crazy is when Company A will say "TV A has FizzBuzz(tm) Technology, TV B does not!" and Company B says "TV B has BuzzFizz(tm) Technology, TV A does not!" When FizzBuzz(tm) and BuzzFizz(tm) are really just the same shit with different trademarks. It is probably "different" technology enough of the time, in that it does the same thing but in a different way with a different set of patents... but still.
- geuis 13y ago
  Let me try again. You make FOO. You also make XXX, which runs on FOO. XXX is very popular. I make BAR. BAR is very popular, but can't run XXX. BAR and FOO are competing products. You say, "FOO is better than BAR because BAR doesn't have XXX." You don't make a version of XXX that works on BAR. You can't use the fact that you don't make Office for iOS as a short coming of iOS in advertising. That doesn't make your product better, it just means that you aren't making Office available. Any clearer now?
rimantas 13y ago
iPad does not have MS Office, but it does have iWork version for iOS.

patja 13y ago

They should make more of the lack of multiple user accounts on the iPad. Most families I know share an iPad among the whole household. The lack of separate user accounts is a major pain point.

tmzt 13y ago
I still remember when Steve praised Microsoft's fast user switching feature during an Apple keynote before introducing the OS X version. Maybe something like "App Profiles" that have access to only a subset of the installed applications would work.

ianmcgowan 13y ago

It also seems somewhat disingenuous to complain about the lack of office apps on iPad, when MSFT is clearly to blame for that lack...

nivla 13y ago
Well I would love an official Youtube app for my Windows Phone but Google doesn't make one and has no intention of. Can I blame Google?

NiekvdMaas 13y ago

I remember a keynote a Steve Jobs where he did something very similar: he presented a 3D pie chart, where the Apple part was highly distorted. Picture: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/Jobs_08_keynote_dsc_0143x.jpg http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/Jobs_08_keynote_dsc_0... Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/jan/21/liesdamnliesandstevejobs http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/jan/21/liesda...

tgcordell 13y ago
This isn't similar at all. Jobs and co are using the viewing angle of a 3d graph to have the Apple share be closer and 'larger' than the farther and now 'smaller' Other section. What Windows is representing and outlining here has no basis in fact.
- sneak 13y ago
  > Jobs and co are using the viewing angle of a 3d graph to have the Apple share be closer and 'larger' than the farther and now 'smaller' Other section Actually, the tablet _is_ bigger in the diagonal measurement as they claim, which is the standard measurement of screen sizes. They're both subterfuge. Don't raise one above the other.
  - arrrg 13y ago
    The diagonal is longer, the screen is not bigger. That is a flat out lie.
    - bastijn 13y ago
      Without rooting for one or the other. Bigger is not a measurement. Bigger is relative to the method of measurement/definition, and its comparison with a second one. If screen size is measured/defined by its diagonal, than the screen is bigger.
      - arrrg 13y ago

kostya-kow 13y ago

Advertisement always bends facts to one side or the other. Usually ads put extra emphasis on a positive thing, while omitting the negative. Even more often ads don't use facts -- they just play on people's feelings. In any case, the goal of advertising is to deceive the buyer, not not inform them. So I don't think anything should be expected from any company that needs to satisfy shareholders. I don't see how Apple's ads with a man asking stupid questions from kids, or Droid's ads with cool robots is morally better then what M$ is doing. But in this case, MS is just being stupid and ruins their image. They don't even pretend to be a company that tries to be morally good. If this becomes more popular with mainstream media, the ad will hurt MS much more then it benefits them, same as this piece of FUD that got to the frontpage of /r/linux: https://www.microsoft.com/hk/windowsserver/compare/windows-server-vs-red-hat-linux.mspx https://www.microsoft.com/hk/windowsserver/compare/windows-s... In my opinion, all ads should be banned. It's a huge useless industry of liers. Corporations that are good with ads are not necessarily good at making products, but they get unfair advantage. It also distracts the main effort of from making a good product.

codereflection 13y ago

Although it's just a legend, this article just made me think of the tuna "Guaranteed not to turn pink in the can!" marketing spin.

deleted 13y ago

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kunai 13y ago

This is not only a problem that exists with Microsoft. Many PC makers push crap "widescreen" 16:9 displays with far less viewable area than a 4:3 screen, and obscenely little vertical res/height, and push it as a "feature." I'm sick of Apple being the only one with decent displays. Why do the PC makers insist on using 16:9 displays when they HAVE the money and the power to afford 16:10, 4:3, or even 3:2, a la Chromebook Pixel? If it's just to cut costs, then, Lenovo, Toshiba, HP, Dell, Acer, -- fuck you. http://xkcd.com/732/ http://xkcd.com/732/

jlgreco 13y ago
I used to assume it was about cutting costs, but I'm not so sure anymore. Samsung apparently has a 3200x1800 (16:9) at 13.3" laptop coming out. That beats the chromebook pixel by a decent amount and certainly cannot be cheap... I think they must have some market research that suggests people actually do want 16:9 for whatever reason.

ywang0414 13y ago

This is not much of a surprise at all. Corps have been doing this sort of lying right in our face strategy for years. Same as when T-Mobile started calling their HSPA network 4G and claiming they have the largest "4G" network in the nation. All complete BS but the masses are buying into it. It's just marketing after all. I really think there needs to be a mainstream service perhaps run by the government to regulate all these commercials. After all, information is the most valuable commodity. And shoveling mis-information down people's throats might as well be poisoning people directly.

kenjackson 13y ago

Looks like they changed the ad. Hardly seems malicious.

danbruc 13y ago

They just changed the images - now there are only numbers.

laureny 13y ago

> I got the link from Daring Fireball. Shocking.

nhebb 13y ago

Big picture wise, I don't think Microsoft's advertising group is very good. In this case Hanlon's Razor probably applies. I don't know what target market would find the Surface Pro dancing commercials compelling. (My guess is: none.) The new Office ads focus on silly things like deleting large numbers of emails, which is underwhelming from a sales-worthy feature standpoint. And then there were the early Windows 8 ads with the little girl creating art in the new Paint app. Anyone who has purchased color ink would look at that wall of art and see huge dollar signs (at least I did). I don't know if I would blame the ad group though. When the ads focus of the fluffy stuff, I take it as a sign that they struggled to find real features and benefits to push.

ebf 13y ago

They removed the screen images and changed the copy so it says >The ASUS VivoTab Smart is lighter than the iPad, has more ports, works with more printers, lets you see two apps at once, and runs Microsoft Office and other desktop programs. Glad this 346 upvotes and 216 comments compared to the Xbox threads that were flagged off the frontpage. Great discussion Hacker News!