In a new ad titled “Less talking, more doing”, Microsoft takes direct aim at Apple’s iPad. Microsoft even uses Siri’s voice to try and persuade users on why choosing a Microsoft Windows 8 tablet is a much better choice.
Microsoft begins with focusing on how Windows 8’s Live Tiles automatically update themselves, while Siri says, “sorry, I don’t update like that.” The ad shows off a user watching a video on both an iPad and a Windows 8 tablet.
Microsoft then goes on to highlight Windows 8’s multitasking feature by showing a user watching a video on both an iPad and a Windows 8 tablet. The user gets the urge to open Outlook while enjoying the video, to which Siri responds with, “I’m sorry I can only do one thing at a time.” Microsoft has a good point here. Apple has been very slow in evolving the way iOS multitasks. It’s largely unchanged since its first release. iOS users can only have one app open on the screen and need to use the task switcher to switch back and forth between apps.
The ad then shows a user working on a PowerPoint document on the iPad and Windows 8 tablet. Microsoft took some inspiration from infomercials by showing how the experience of using an iPad can be so frustrating. The user tries to tap, resize, and edit, but gives up in frustration. While using the Windows 8 tablet, the user gets to fly through creating and editing a PowerPoint presentation, while Siri responds with, “I guess PowerPoint isn’t one of those things, should we just play chospticks?” The “chopsticks” reference is from a previous iPad commercial highlighting how many amazing apps are available for its tablets.
The ad finally ends by displaying the price of both tablets. The iPad 64GB’s price tag is $699, while the Asus VivoTab’s price is $449. It’s kind of amusing that Microsoft didn’t feature its own Windows 8 tablets, the Surface Pro and Surface RT in the ad. There’s a reason Microsoft doesn’t use one of its own Surface tablets in the spot because if it did, there would be too much fine print to deal with.
The Microsoft Surface RT 64GB costs consumers $599 and only comes with 23GB of available space, while Apple’s iPad 64GB comes with 57.2GB of available space. Microsoft’s Surface Pro, which runs the same OS as the Windows 8 tablet in the commercial costs $899 for 64GB of which 23GB is available to the user. Microsoft can always feature a lower priced tablet running Windows 8 and compare it to the iPad, since it’s promoting Windows 8. It’s too bad Microsoft couldn’t showcase its own tablets going head to head with the iPad. I guess we all know the reason why. Check out the ad below.
