Mac vs. PC in France

On November 16, one of the French state-run TV channels had a “news” story on Mac and PC users. This story appeared on the evening news program on France 2 (the evening news is shown at 8 pm), and lasted about two minutes. It showed both an interesting comparison between the two tribes, but also showed a bit of bias in the reporting itself.The story began by mentioning that as Christmas approached, many people were considering the purchase of new computers. The anchorman pointed out that the Mac and PC worlds were considerably different, and the story went on to show just how different they are.

It opens with a shot of a man in his late 50s, an “Applemaniaque”, as he enters a sleek showroom containing nothing but Macs, and who then gets on his knees in front of the new 30″ monitor. The showroom is empty, other than this worshipper, and he explains how much he feels like a kid in front of a Christmas present.

The journalist, in voice over, talks about the basic differences between Macs and PCs, then gets a few comments from the Apple dealer, before cutting to a shot in front of a store on a dingy street that sells PCs and components. In the rain, in front of a store window covered with sheets of paper showing parts and prices, a geeky PC user explains how you can’t “change” much in a Mac, but you can change whatever you want in a PC.

Then on to modding. Shots of a PC user who has a water-cooling system for his PC; not only is it hot, but you can hear the noise in the background during the shots. Then he shows a web page about someone who has hacked an old PC to be a mouse cage…

Cut to a group of young Mac users, with iBooks and PowerBooks, saying “who cares if you can change things? You don’t need to change anything with a Mac.”

What is most interesting about this story is that it does not mention such mundane things as viruses, spyware, adware and other security problems, but that it shows PC users standing in the rain in front of a seedy store, and Mac users in a sleek Mac-only store, or gathered together with their iBooks and PowerBooks. A bit of bias from the reporter? Perhaps…

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