Taiwan's Action Pad uses Steve Jobs look-alike to drum up support, but has it backfired?
In the months following long-time Apple CEO Steve Jobs's untimely death, we've seen him resurrected in many forms. He's already been brought back in plastic and bronze, but we never thought we'd see him reborn as an Android supporter. Leave it to a Taiwanese tablet maker to dream up such a thing, and recreate an iconic Apple keynote presentation in the process.
The makers of the Taiwanese Action Pad tablet went to great lengths to honor (or mock?) the world-famous Apple co-founder by dressing a Taiwanese lookalike in Jobs's popular black turtleneck and Levi's blue jeans. For good measure, the Jobs-alike is even equipped with a heavenly halo and angel wings.
The fake CEO trots about a stage that looks very much like the ones Apple uses for its major product announcements, but it's not an iPad in his hands — it's the overseas knockoff. The ad boasts that the Action Pad is "the new generation of the pad," and shows off various app icons ranging from an RSS reader to the recognizable Android mascot.
In a move that you'd never see the real Steve Jobs make, the angelic speaker touts the benefits of the Android 2.3 operating system that comes standard on the Action Pad, and even goes so far as to say "Thank God I can finally play another pad."
While it might seem less than tasteful, the ad doesn't actually use Jobs's name or any copyrighted material that could land the Action Pad's manufacturers in legal trouble. However, that hasn't stopped many commenters from lambasting the parody on video hosting sites where it appears. Even diehard Android fans are coming out against the clip, calling it "very disturbing," and "extremely disrespectful."
The tablet itself is nothing particularly special: It appears to be wifi-only with no 3G or 4G mobile connection options, and its Android 2.3 operating system is somewhat outdated as nearly all new Android slates come with a much newer version. Whether the off-color commercial will help the Action Pad gain traction remains to be seen, but with many calling for a boycott of the company as a whole, it might prove more of a curse than a blessing.
This article originally appeared on Tecca
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