Microsoft has responded to Apple's complaint about the software giant's Laptop Hunters campaign by quietly tweaking at least one of the ads, taking down the old ad from its website and sites like YouTube, and replacing it with a new one. The only difference is that the new ad no longer mentions specific numbers because Apple recently lowered pricing on its Mac notebooks. "We slightly adjusted the ads to reflect the updated pricing of the Mac laptop shown in the TV advertisement," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. "This does not change the focus of the campaign which is to showcase the value and choice of the PC." A quick check through all the Laptop Hunters ads on YouTube shows that the fifth one was the only one to be changed out of the six ads.

The edited ad can be viewed in high quality at Microsoft.com/Windows (Silverlight required) or in the embedded YouTube video below:

Here's how the old ad played out. While in the Mac section, Lauren says: "This Mac is $2,000, and that's before adding anything." Her mother then asks "Why would you pay twice the price?," to which Lauren replies "I wouldn't," and heads back to the PC section. In the new ad, when in the Mac section, Lauren simply says "This one only has a 250GB hard drive. It seems like you're paying a lot for the brand." Ad Age was first to notice this subtle change.

It appears that Kevin Turner, Microsoft's Chief Operating Officer, wasn't lying when he said last week that Apple's lawyers called him and demanded that Redmond take down its Laptop Hunter ads. That part may have been accurate, but we're still looking into his claim about doing cartwheels down the hallway.