“A silicon slab (and Tim Cook) will permanently stand between u and the world.”
Apple’s new ad for its thinnest-ever iPad has provoked outrage across the internet, with netizens deeming it “tone-deaf” and disrespectful to creators.
The ad originally shared by Apple CEO Tim Cook on X features a large machine crushing everyday objects of creative expression, ranging from guitars to sculptures to gaming consoles, to reveal Apple’s latest iPad Pro. Receiving over 46.5 million views till date, the video succeeded in reaching a vast audience.
Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create. pic.twitter.com/6PeGXNoKgG
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) May 7, 2024
However, Apple’s new ad has sparked online outrage from creators and creative professionals – who so happen to be Apple’s core user base. Many of them, including award winning writers and filmmakers, believed that the ad highlights the supremacy of machines over human creativity, and interpreted it as a metaphor for how big tech has interfered with their work by co-opting art that humanity has used for generations.
The ad was especially unnerving in the context of the rise of AI in recent times, which poses a threat to jobs in the creative industry.
I felt sad when I saw creative tools such as musical instruments and cameras being destroyed. I don’t think the creators will like this video. Is it my Japanese sensibility that makes me feel this way?
— Takuta (@Takuta) May 7, 2024
Who approve this creative? Who create this? Everyone in the studio was excited to see everything destroyed?
Definitely this is the good case study the world big tech company lost brand equity instantly.
Promise to prevent my kids to watch this video.
— Mizuto Kato (@miz0521) May 7, 2024
Jobs would never have approved this. It conveys contempt for tools and the arts. Don’t doubt it’s unintentional but it’s in bad taste.
— Macroblock (@sainimatic) May 7, 2024
Everything beautiful, charming, and analog will be destroyed by a flat black screen
You must never see a sculpted bust
Never hear music from an actual instrument
Never feel the texture of real things
A silicon slab (and Tim Cook) will permanently stand between u and the world
— Jash Dholani (@oldbooksguy) May 8, 2024
Many other big names have also chimed in.
Actor Hugh Grant has deemed the Crush ad “the destruction of the human experience” by Silicon Valley.
Producer Asif Kapadia has highlighted out how tech giants often benefit from artists’ work without giving them fair compensation. “Like iPads but don’t know why anyone thought this ad was a good idea. It is the most honest metaphor for what tech companies do to the arts, to artists, musicians, creators, writers, filmmakers: squeeze them, use them, not pay well, take everything then say it’s all created by them,” he wrote on X.
This is the latest in a series of promotional slip-ups by Amazon, a company that was once considered a marketing visionary. Earlier this year, its marketing of the Apple Vision Pro struggled to help the device break through with customers.
