Dan Markham

Leila Khaled (aka Rachael Ray) is a big fan of Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee, which is served everywhere in heaven by the seventy virgins.

Dunkin’ Dounuts should know better than to use a terrorist sympathizer in it’s advertisements.

I don’t know which is the more absurd thought: Rachael Ray as a terrorist sympathizer or Rachael Ray as a donut sympathizer. Only one of these things has come to pass, though. Although, I suppose that you could get by, in almost any city, on $40 a day, if you could survive on donuts and iced lattés. Genius. Pure genius.

This CNET article (via Gruber), about a grand plan, by Microsoft’s ad division, to open the flood gates (even further) and place ads on every device (even the Zune! … a personal device.) and service Microsoft owns, points to one of the main, and I think, under-appreciated differences between the Mac and the PC user experience.

With all it’s bubbles and windows constantly popping up every minute, telling you how vulnerable your computer is unless you get this or that upgrade or the gobs of nagging entreaties for trial software and their subsequent pushes for you to buy said software at the end of the trial period that you probably don’t remember signing up for because it was probably automatically done for you, using a PC can feel like slowly creeping down an L.A. freeway during rush hour frustrated by the molasses-like drip of cars slowly going nowhere and assaulted left and right by a plethora of garish billboards asking you to buy this, that or another thing. Every manufacturer of third party piece of shit software wants a piece of your attention on the PC. The PC is an advertisement venue much like a fashion mag: 99% ads, 1% content.

The Mac, on the other hand, feels tranquil by comparison; like cruising down a country road with the top down on a clear, sunny day. No nagging. No warnings of impending doom. Just you and your computer ready to sit down and get some shit done.

As Apple’s products get more and more popular and ubiquitous, more and more people are going to want a piece of the pie. Will it be a challenge for Apple to keep it’s user experience as simple and clutter free as it is currently? I don’t know, but I think Apple, with how much control it insists on wielding over the look, feel and behavior of it’s devices, is in a unique structural and philosophical position to do just that.