Apple released a new ad yesterday showcasing its latest iPad Pro. To seemingly demonstrate how thin the new iPad is, the ad features musical instruments, art supplies, sculptures, games, and records being crushed by a hydraulic press. After the machine has destroyed all the other objects, it leaves to reveal the iPad intact.
But the ad isn’t having the effect that Apple might have wanted: Some on X said the symbolism of destroying cultural and artistic objects is dark and upsetting.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, attempted to cast the ad in an inspirational light in a tweet yesterday.
“Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create,” Cook tweeted, implying that multiple creative endeavors—like making music or creating art—can be accomplished using an iPad.
Responses to the ad on X were visceral and overwhelmingly negative.
“I’m a creator, a traditional artist, a Macintosh user of many years, yet I never even understand why would I need an iPad,” an X user replied to Cook’s tweet. “This destruction is extremely distasteful and would never convince me but otherwise.”
“It is a heartbreaking, uncomfortable, and egotistic advertisement,” another person said. “When I see this result, I’m ashamed to buy Apple products since nineteen years.”
“Crushing symbols of human creativity and cultural achievements to appeal to pro creators,” an X user replied. “Maybe for the next Apple Watch Pro you should crush sports equipment, show a robot running faster than a man, then turn to the camera and say, ‘God is dead and we have killed him.’”
Others said the ad and its spirit are a symbol of the current state of the tech industry, which is now dominated by artificial intelligence.
“This new ad by Apple perfectly depicts what Big Tech has sadly come to stand for: crushing human creativity in the name of technological innovation and selling it to us as progress,” an X user wrote. “It‘s tone-deaf at least, malicious at worst, in the current climate of AI replacing human arts.”
“An ad showing beautiful tools of human creativity being crushed to be replaced by the newest and thinnest gadget feels antithetical to Apple,” another person said. “I’d expect this from an AI company, not Apple.”
Some people even suggested that Apple reverse the ad in order to remedy it: From an iPad, the tools of human creation can grow.
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