New Apple advert makes fun of CrowdStrike bug
Apple has released a new instalment of its "The Underdogs" series, which promotes Macs in the world of work. This time it's about the Blue Screen of Death.
Scene from "The Underdogs: BSOD": The PC has crashed, the Mac is still running.
(Image: Apple)
It's been more than a year since the CrowdStrike bug paralyzed Windows computers all over the world. The incident has not been forgotten in Apple's marketing department – and is now using it for advertising purposes for the Group's business products. As part of "The Underdogs" campaign, which consists of ten-minute episodes at the production level of US comedy series, the new episode is about the Blue Screen of Death associated with the CrowdStrike error. The episode is titled "BSOD" accordingly.
CrowdStrike at the trade fair, Mac mini helps
As always, the series revolves around a small start-up from the packaging industry that has freed itself from a corporate world in previous episodes. This time, the group wants to exhibit their product at a trade fair in order to win over the buyer of an organic food group as a customer. Of course, this doesn't work out at first, and a competitor (with PC hardware and software, of course) sets up a side stand. In the end, a CrowdStrike error occurs throughout the trade fair, causing chaos, the PCs fail and the "The Underdogs" team can continue to use their Macs.
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The security expert in the team – in style via FaceTime – may then explain that Macs are not affected by the problem because the system isolates its end-point security routines from the kernel. However, this has not been entirely problem-free recently – Network changes in macOS 15 alias Sequoia caused outages in just such programs in September 2024. Apple finally solved the problem a few weeks later.
Trouble over episode from Thailand
"BSOD" also has a happy ending: the start-up heroes (and later the trade fair management) distribute Mac mini M4 machines, which allow the competition, which had previously been abandoned by Windows, to resume their work. The courted buyer is delighted by the start-up's softness (and naivety) and becomes a customer, ordering two million of the bags that the company produces.
Incidentally, "The Underdogs" was not entirely uncontroversial. Apple withdrew one episode shortly after its release due to protests over the clichéd portrayal of Thailand. In addition to various negative social media posts from individuals, politicians from the country also complained. Sattra Sripan, spokesman for the Tourism Committee of the Thai House of Representatives, for example, said that the people of Thailand were "very unhappy" with the advertisement. He even called on the population to "stop using Apple products and switch to other brands".
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