If you look at the old issues of Byte, you can immediately see the difference. Most of the ads are generic spec/price lists with maybe some crappy hand-drawn graphics. A few are photos and professionally drawn images with some attempts at metaphor, but they invariably look crude, heavy-handed, jokey, or cartoony.

The primary focus in the early Apple ads is the Apple user at home, with his partner. It's the first thing you see before you get drawn into the copy. It's an attempt to sell soft values, not just hardware specs.

This ownership of soft values is a huge difference that most of the industry still fails to get, and which Apple itself seems to be forgetting.

Apple is the only company ever to create technology products that appeal equally to men and women without relying on any traditional gender branding. (At least that used to be true until "rose gold" appeared.)

MS is sort of catching up now, two decades later. But it's not a natural cultural fit for them, so I'm not expecting a stream of great things.

Google is - well, the brand mascot is an android. That's all anyone needs to know.