Apple is very well known for its branding and advertising, but the latest commercial, for the new Intel based Macs has stirred up some controversy. The ad says that Intel's chips have, for years, been "trapped inside PCs--dull little boxes, dutifully performing dull little tasks," with a voice over proclaiming that now, the Intel processor will finally be set free.

Obviously, Intel would not have chosen those exact words to describe their non-Apple customers… "Never would we characterize our customers that way," Intel Vice President Deborah Conrad said. Conrad stated that although Intel did cooperate with Apple on certain details of the add, they only saw the end result just before Steve Job's keynote. "We didn't know what the end result was going to be. It's probably a good thing that we didn't see them earlier," Conrad said.

That having been said, Intel is not exactly opposed to some of the other computer makers out there starting to 'think different'… "We certainly hope that this innovation engine kind of picks up and that you do see the beige box makers going, 'You know, maybe we could do something that looks and feels like that.' That would be a good thing, I think, from our perspective."

On the other side of things, many Mac users are unhappy about the commercial because it does not show the machines being actually used. Many feel that Apple is loosing out on customers because it does not make 'infomercials' in which to show the Mac OS and applications at work, along with the many popular Windows applications that are also available on the Mac, such as Office.

Despite complaints from their users, Apple is very unlikely to start rolling out such commercials, preferring to go for the subtler approach, and overall the goal of the commercial is to get one wondering about the product and get them into the nearest Apple Store.