Yes, they'd sell more low-margin student-discount PowerBooks with bundled iPods. Hardly the stuff of capitalist dreams. The profits may not even cover the insane cost of TV advertising: a cost that is so high, I should add, because it is so good at targeting a wide market. I wouldn't consider a laptop computer truly mainstream, much less an Apple notebook, much less an Apple notebook exclusively for students. Apple would be paying a fortune to get their ad seen by millions of middle-aged housewives, chavs, retirees, unemployed people, pre-school kids, etc. The type of people that watch TV. Plus a handful of students who might buy a PowerBook because of the ad.
TV advertising is not particularly well-suited to Apple in general. The kind of people who value Apple qualities watch less TV than most, and too few TV watchers care about computers generally. The iPod is very different, and much more mainstream, therefore TV advertisement makes sense for it. And the TV ads, including this one, have been pretty good as far as I'm concerned. Not fiendishly clever (ads are sometimes too clever for the mainstream anyway), but stylish and minimalist, a bit like the product.
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