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Microsoft publishes, then hastily removes, 7 iPhone parody videos

by Mark Tyson on 16 September 2013, 11:20

Tags: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), iPhone

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On Friday Microsoft posted a series of Apple iPhone 5S/5C ‘design process brainstorming’ videos on its Windows Phone YouTube channel only to remove them a few hours later. Though seven videos were originally published, a series entitled “A fly on the wall in Cupertino?” only one of them remains, as a viewer with foresight decided to save it locally and upload it to another YouTube account. The reason for the video series removal was that they were not “well-received,” reports PCMag.

Having just watched through the only surviving iPhone design parody video from Microsoft’s Windows Phone YouTube channel, I am happy that the other six have been scrubbed from history and passed away to digital heaven. The #timetoswitch video that remains, embedded above, concentrates on excerpts from imagined iPhone design brainstorming sessions in which two eager employees offer up lots of chintzy colour ideas, and talk about the new plastic casing to Messrs Cook and Ive.

The new Apple iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S were revealed at the Apple Cupertino HQ last Tuesday. Many people, Wall Street analysts included, thought overall that innovation was rather thin on the ground and that the iPhone 5C was particularly expensive for a product which is supposed to beat a pathway to large scale adoption in China. However it looks like Microsoft’s latest #timetoswitch video assault has definitely failed to make capital of such widely held perceptions.

TNW reports that Microsoft has now released an official statement regarding the video series publishing and subsequent removal; “The video was intended to be a light-hearted poke at our friends from Cupertino. But it was off the mark, and we’ve decided to pull it down.”



HEXUS Forums :: 9 Comments

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Comedy was never Microsoft's strong point, but this is just childish, puerile and very immature. Seriously, Microsoft - just stop it.

The old Mac versus PC rivalry was entertaining for a couple of years because it was largely true and well orchestrated, but this seems to be taking (very weak) potshots at Apple purely for the sake of taking potshots. It's kinda like watching a child mocking another child in a silly voice.

Unless you have something which is genuinely lightyears ahead of the competition (which you don't), I'd knock this on the head and concentrate on what's important.
I really don't get why people like to make such a big deal about using plastics as a construction material (and lets not forget what the Lumia range is largely constructed from).

For starters, there's far more than one type of plastic; just because it's not made out of metal doesn't mean it's going to be made out of bin liners. And as for cost, plastics can easily be a more expensive option than aluminium.

And then, plastic tends to be one *heck* of a lot more durable when subjected to knocks/drops than either metal, which scratches/deforms/chips (the thin anodising at least), or glass, which cracks/shatters/chips. A well-chosen polymer will just temporarily bend a bit, absorbing the impact and avoiding passing the energy onto the screen like a metal case.

And yeah, the video is just embarrassingly childish.
I'm ashamed to say that I know people who wouldn't “get” that this is a mickey take - as in “see the amount of design that goes into an iphone, whereas your one just gets thrown together”.

That said, it's got a long, long, long way to go to come close in humour, sorry “humor”, level to that series of old Galaxy Note/S3 adverts, especially the Superbowl one. :D
Harmless fun.

I quite liked it. “Worth its weight in phone!”

natch
Noli
Harmless fun.
I quite liked it. “Worth its weight in phone!”
natch
“We wanted the gold standard in mobile phones, so we made it gold”. :D