American actor Justin Long, known for his role as the “I’m a Mac” guy in Apple commercials nearly 20 years ago, once again switched sides to promote Windows PCs.
This time around, Long appeared in a short 30-second skit near the end of Qualcomm’s Computex 2024 keynote. The skit shows Long using a MacBook and being bombarded with notifications and pop-ups. Long then searches for where to find a Snapdragon-powered PC before looking at the camera and saying, “What? Things change.”
The skit comes on the heels of Microsoft’s Copilot+PC event, which saw the company put its new Surface Laptop sporting Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chip up against Apple’s M3 MacBook Air. Microsoft has been quite focused on pitting Copilot+PCs against MacBooks and, if the Snapdragon X Elite is as good as Micorosft and Qualcomm claim, then Apple’s M-series chips might finally have some real competition.
That being said, it’s too early to say if things really have “changed” all that much. And it was only a couple of years ago that Long appeared in an Intel ad comparing Windows PCs sporting its chips to MacBooks. That ad came out shortly after Apple dropped Intel in favour of its own in-house M-series chips and had a slightly desperate aura.
The latest skit featuring Long depicts various macOS notifications warning of app compatibility issues, low disk space, battery problems and more, mixed in with regular notifications like emails from Long’s mom. But only some of those issues actually relate to the chip and none of them are proven yet in real-world testing.
For example, battery life is an interesting comparison point since, historically, Apple’s MacBooks have offered better battery life than comparable Windows PCs thanks to the M-series chips, which have offered both efficiency and power for years. Microsoft and Qualcomm claim Copilot+PCs are better in this regard but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Likewise, taking a shot at app compatibility is rich, given that compatibility has been a major pain point for Windows on ARM for years. Windows has a new ‘Prism’ emulation layer that aims to improve compatibility problems, but Microsoft’s benchmark for Prism was making it as good as or better than Apple’s Rosetta 2.
All this marketing, especially Long’s skit, feels premature. Either the new Qualcomm chips and Copilot+PCs are all that, or these companies will have an embarrassing few weeks when reviewers finally get their hands on devices later this month.
Header image credit: Qualcomm (screenshot)
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