1984 re-revisited

I admit to taking part in the fetishizing about each year's super bowl commercials. While on the whole, I found them less entertaining than in past years, I did find the Motorola Zoom commercial interesting.
First off it (re)invokes George Orwell's 1984; a novel now used as a catch-all phrase for a kind of dystopian Big Brother-controlled and oppressive society. Second off, it is essentially the same as Apple's 1984 Super Bowl ad. Hmm.

http://superbowlads.fanhouse.com/2011/motorola-xoom/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhsWzJo2sN4

I thought that these two ads fit perfectly into this week's discussion about the changing nature of Apple's commercial image and the broader issue of open vs. closed frameworks.

As Tim Wu points out in his chapter "Father and Son" from The Master Switch, Apple originally fancied itself a hip, rebellious and individualist company in the face of IBM's dominance over the computing market. Now apparently Motorola is using the same rhetoric of the countercultural individualist to sell itself in the face of Apple's increasing dominance. Who is the real techno-hipster today? Has Apple's move towards a more restricted and controlled product experience completely severed ties from its original philosophy and image? If nothing else, this is an interesting illustration of how Apple has evolved over the past two decades into a much different beast.

My 2 cents:

Once everyone buys your stuff, you can no longer fashion yourself the countercultural force of the market. Taken a step further, it becomes a little silly to complain about Apple's dominance in the market when you're sporting their devices.
I think that Apple's smooth and seamless devices are tasty pacifiers for the many would-be out cries against their (unsettling?) dominance.

Note: Apple has below 5% of the world market share of moblie-phones but over 50% of the market's total profits. Hmm.
Source: The Economist (Feb.12th-18th pg. 70)

Maybe as Wu proposes, we could sacrifice a little polish for increased choice, freedom and openness?