Apple’s big Arm-based M1 Mac announcements brought the company’s first Apple silicon-powered laptops in the form of the new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini. But the event also had a surprising guest star: actor John Hodgman reprising his role as the PC guy from Apple’s “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” commercials that it ran in the mid-2000s.
In the short video, Hodgman’s put-upon PC reacts to the announcement of Apple’s new M1-powered Macs, complaining about the improved performance and battery life that the new chip purportedly offers on the updated Macs, compared to what PCs can do. (Absent is Justin Long’s Mac character, who made up the other half of the ad spots.)
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The original ads — launched in 2006, just after Apple began its last major architecture transition to Intel chips — echoed a similar style, with Long’s character extolling the virtues of the Mac while the hapless PC character would argue that the Windows side of things was just as good.
It’s not clear whether Apple will be resurrecting the ad campaign for the new line of M1 Macs, but it was a cute way to end the announcement as the company sets off on its next era of laptops and desktops.