'I'm a Mac! I'm a PC!' TV ads 'might be done,' Justin Long says

For more than four years, actor Justin Long and "Daily Show" regular John Hodgman have been trading barbs in dozens of those "I'm a Mac," "...and I'm a PC" commercials — four years too long, if you ask me. But for those who loved all the "Get a Mac" ads, there's sad news from none other than Long himself.

The Onion's A.V. Club (via MacDailyNews) recently asked Long about the "status" of the long-running series of Mac commercials (which Apple has compiled for you in HD). Here's the answer:

You know, I think they might be done. In fact, I heard from John [Hodgman], I think they’re going to move on — I can’t say definitively — which is sad, because not only am I going to miss doing them, but also working with John. I’ve become very close with him, and he’s one of my dearest, greatest friends. It was so much fun to go do that job, because there’s not a lot to it for me. A lot of it is just keeping myself entertained between takes, and there’s no one I’d rather do it with than John.

There's no official word from Apple on the fate of the "Get a Mac" campaign (which first kicked off way back in 2006).

Now, I know a lot of MacHeads out there love watching the endless battle of wits between Long's patient, even-tempered, always triumphant Mac and Hodgman's priggish, cheerfully dunderheaded PC.

I'm not one of them. I hate the ads, to be perfectly frank. I think they're smug, cringe-worthy, way too precious, not that funny, and just plain tiresome. (I say all this, by the way, as a proud owner of two MacBooks, an Apple TV, an iPhone, and now an iPad.)

I finally snapped last April after watching an ad in which Long's Mac crowed of iPhoto's (then-new) "Faces" feature that it lets you "tag a face once, and iPhoto automatically find other pictures of that person for you!" At the time, I wrote (geez, was I angry):

Funny right? Well, no actually — instead, at the end of the ad, I found myself shouting "Arghh! Faces does not find all your friends automatically!!!" How do I know this? Only after hours of pointing and click on iPhoto, telling "Faces" that no, that portrait up on the wall of that restaurant is not my Uncle Jim, and that perfectly focused and lit "unknown face" right there? That's my wife, for Pete's sake, the exact same wife I've tagged like, dozens of times in iPhoto by now!

Wow ... OK, I'm calm again. Suffice to say that if Apple's "I'm a Mac! I'm a PC!" ads are truly done and gone, I won't miss them. Sorry.

Anyway, I'm going to pull on my flame-retardant suit here and brace myself as I ask: Are you (or were you) a fan of the "I'm a Mac! I'm a PC!" ads? Will you cry or jump for joy if they are indeed gone for good?

• The A.V. Club: Interview: Justin Long
• Apple: The "Get a Mac" ads

— Ben Patterson is a technology writer for Yahoo! News.

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