Apple, not Big Brother, is watching you.

At least that's what Motorola wants you to think.

Motorola ran an ad for its upcoming Xoom tablet during the second quarter of Super Bowl XLV on Sunday, taking a direct swing at Apple, the company behind the iPad that currently dominates the tablet market.

Created by the Anomaly New York ad agency, the ad features a lone man clad in a smart gray cardigan and black jeans, surrounded by hundreds of people clad in baggy white sweatsuits (reminiscent of Apple Store shopping bags) and signature white iPod earbuds. All of the people except for the man in gray – who is of course playing with a new Motorola Xoom tablet, in all of his individuality – are mindless drones, staring off into space as they commute to work by subway. What is the man in gray doing with his Xoom while he waits for the train? Reading George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, 1984.

If you're old enough, you may recall Apple's Orwellian Super Bowl ad, which ran during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII in – you guessed it – the year 1984. Directed by Ridley Scott, the commercial featured a similar sea of mindless drones staring off into space. And just like Motorola's commercial, the Apple spot presaged an upcoming product release. Two days later, Steve Jobs would introduce the Macintosh computer to the world at the company's annual shareholder's meeting.

Motorola's commercial eventually ends with the man in gray giving his tablet to an attractive young Apple-drone female, wow-ing her away from an homogenized iOS existence with an animated bouquet of flowers displayed on the Xoom's screen.

However cutesy the tone, it's a deliberate jab from Motorola at Apple's current ironic position as the undisputed "Big Brother-type" leader with a tablet market share at 75 percent.

The Xoom tablet will be the flagship device on which the latest version of the Google's Android mobile operating system will première. Android version 3.0, also known as "Honeycomb," was first demoed on Motorola's Xoom at CES in January.

Motorola is banking on the Xoom to best other 2011 tablet debuts, like Samsung's already-released Galaxy Tab or Research in Motions's forthcoming BlackBerry Playbook. And the company is backing the product with a fat bankroll. With the cost of Super Bowl XLV advertising running at a cool $3 million per 30 seconds of air time, we're willing to bet Motorola forked over at least $5 million for their 60-second spot.

Other major mobile advertisers included Sony Ericsson touting its new Xperia Play smartphone with a creepy commercial involving the Android robot and black-market thumb surgery, and Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC showcasing its 2011 line of 4G devices.

For those of you that don't remember, here's the original Apple ad from 1984:

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