by , 8:00 AM EDT, July 16th, 2003
If you were wondering when Apple would put out a television commercial to tout its new Power Mac G5, wonder no more, as it debuted last night. In the commercial, a peaceful scene is interrupted by an out-of-breath man being flung against a tree, still sitting in his chair and still clutching his mouse. The camera then cuts to the source of the man's trip, a house with a gaping hole nearly all the way through. The camera slowly moves through the path of destruction, ending up at -- you guessed it -- a Power Mac G5 sitting atop a desk. The commercial then concludes with a voiceover by Jeff Goldblum, calling it the "world's fastest, most powerful personal computer," echoing Apple's previous G5 marketing.
The commercial does not seem to be posted on Apple's site as of this writing, but luckily some kind soul with a video capture card recorded and compressed it into MP4 format, and posted it on his or her .Mac homepage. The MP4 weighs in at 3.6MB, and requires Quicktime 6 or higher.
If anyone knows during what show(s) this commercial aired, or has a link to the commercial on Apple's site, please post a comment below.
It will be interesting to see if there is any sort of public backlash against the claim that it's the fastest personal computer on the planet from normal folks who don't hang out at tech sites. That brouhaha seems to have been relegated to the Windows, Intel, and AMD fan sites, and our guess is that those consumers who notice Apple's claim will not care how the tests were conducted.
It's going to continue to be an interesting summer.