Oliver Haslam on October 20, 2022, 4:11 pm

HP Used A macOS Screenshot Promoting Its Laptops

Installing macOS onto a PC isn’t something Apple is ever going to get behind but that hasn’t stopped HP from promoting its “perfect laptop” with a screenshot showing exactly that.

The screenshot, part of an ad for HP that has appeared on Reddit, shows Google Chrome running on a Mac, complete with Apple logo in the top corner.

There’s no doubt that this is macOS, which begs the question of how this came about. MacRumors suggests it’s a “Photoshop job gone wrong” and it’s difficult to argue with that assessment.

The ad ignores the fact that its PC is running macOS and continues with its advertising blurb, suggesting that HP’s laptops are great no matter where you use them. “For the digital nomads and work from anywhere-but-home types (yeah, we see you), HP has perfect laptops for wherever you’re working from,” the add proclaims.

Apple famously did allow PC makers to use its operating system decades ago, but that didn’t work out and it was something that Steve Jobs ultimately put a stop to. Now it’s not allowed at all, although some people do find ways to hack macOS into a PC. The result isn’t always a stable one, and updating to new versions of macOS often breaks everything all over again.

We can only imagine that HP isn’t aware of its mistake in this instance, but it isn’t the first time we’ve seen Photoshop fails like this. HP will hope it’s the last.