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Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'

• asadm 2y ago
  to me that ad screams “i will squish all your humanly creativity into this faceless slate”.
  • thsksbd 2y ago
    And so did everyone not totally immersed in tech.
  • swat535 2y ago
    That's not the message I got at all, it was like how all of these can be accomplished by this single device. I suppose it would have been cooler if it was the other way around: "iPad somehow expands outwards, filling the room with those things"
    • arvinsim 2y ago
      It's not the message that offends people. It's how the message was delivered.
    • bmoxb 2y ago
      It was clear to me that that's what they wanted to express but their chosen visuals didn't convey that well at all. Expanding outwards from the iPad would have made a lot more sense.
  • ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
    20 years ago people were amazed that your phone, mp3 player, calendar, email and 100 other things were all in one device. Now it's dystopian.
    • sneak 2y ago
      I think the #1 third party app is probably more responsible for this sentiment than the device itself. People can’t emotionally separate their hatred and disgust at corporate social media taking over and censoring and monetizing the public square with the physical device that it leverages. On one hand, we have Facebook and Instagram. On the other, every person interacting with a cop has a cloud-uploading HD camera at the ready. For every Twitter, everyone can video call their parents/grandparents at any time for as long as they want for ~free from ~anywhere.
• deagle50 2y ago
  using "missed the mark" should have a prison sentence
  • nickff 2y ago
    You think someone using a common idiom should be in prison, while you can't be bothered to use punctuation?
    • alistairSH 2y ago
      Or capitalization.
    • deagle50 2y ago
      lack of punctuation isn't used to avoid accountability. my comment was clearly hyperbole.
• silisili 2y ago
  I've already opined my thoughts on the video, no need to redo here. Strictly speaking about the article, it feels more like 'go away' lip-service, especially seeing as the bottom contains the ad - still up on Apple's official YouTube. If they really felt it 'missed the mark' and were sorry about it, they'd have probably taken it down.
  • bmitc 2y ago
    I'm always reminded of this from South Park: https://youtu.be/15HTd4Um1m4 https://youtu.be/15HTd4Um1m4
  • gabesullice 2y ago
    Apologizing bought them another round of "earned media". Not only did the ad get press, now the apology gets press, exposing the message "there's a new, thinner iPad" to people who didn't see the ad before. I personally don't care if the ad was good or bad. I'm not an interested shareholder and I'm not in the Apple ecosystem. But I just learned there's a new iPad via HN. Maybe they'll take down the ad next week for a third bite at the apple. The first line of the article might read: 'Apple has cracked under pressure after the company's botched launch of the thinnest M4 iPad ever. The company took down its "Crush!" ad on Monday.'
    • Pikamander2 2y ago
      The week after: "Apple Slammed For Reinstating Infamous iPad Crush Ad"
  • trustno2 2y ago
    Yeah they still feature it online and on their official website. It's just "we take your concerns very seriously" fluff reply.
• thejazzman 2y ago
  It really exemplifies the culture change from Steve's obsession with the INTERSECTION of humanities and science. Silicon Valley on a mission
  • PurestGuava 2y ago
    Steve Jobs would have probably fired whoever suggested this ad, at best. He always saw the Mac as an enabler of and conduit for peoples' creativity, not a replacement for other forms of it. Jobs' death is truly tragic in the context that Apple - and by extension, the rest of the tech world - could have gone in a very different direction if he were still around. He would probably be screaming his head off at the idea of generative AI.
  • nonrandomstring 2y ago
    > Silicon Valley on a mission Seriously and sincerely, I'd like to hear a dozen definitions of what people think that "mission" is in 2024. I think we long departed from "making the world a better place". And yet the change simply cannot be explained by greed, money, or obsession with growth. Surely a lot of the venture capitalists that frequent this forum must be as confused as the next person if they still hold on to the ideal of "doing good with money". What I see is the rise of a terrifying quasi-religious anti-humanist cult with overtones of masochism and self-hatred (of human life). I'm no big fan of Steve Jobs, but clearly he would be horrified by many of the anti-human sentiments expressed daily in forums like this. Is it too late to redefine digital technology as humane, and return to the roots of SV [0] ? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology
    • CatWChainsaw 2y ago
      Between e/acc+singularity, hyper-libertarianism and the actual locked-in, rent-seeking, culture-choking techno-feudalism we're getting, it's always been pretty obvious to me that the "mission" is to become the secular equivalent of a god, and then reign eternal, just like the world-building genre of games primes them for. Too bad it's a big club and everybody here won't be in it, eh.
• russellbeattie 2y ago
  Another day, another stupid "controversy" where a few Twits complain on social media simply to get attention and publications pick it up as if it's a real issue. Why waste our time? Here's the ad: https://youtu.be/ntjkwIXWtrc https://youtu.be/ntjkwIXWtrc
  • Apocryphon 2y ago
    As noted elsewhere in this discussion, the ad attracted particular criticism from Japan for what it sounds like cultural-spiritual sensibilities. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cld0rxlqgggo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cld0rxlqgggo > People based in Japan appear to be prominent amongst the critics, which some said "lacked respect". > Some said this was based in "tsukumogami” - a term from Japanese folklore describing a tool which can contain a spirit or even soul of its own. > "The act of destroying tools is arrogant and offensive to us Japanese," one person explained, while another said musicians value their instruments "more than life itself". https://twitter.com/AngelicaOung/status/1788241764383678900 https://twitter.com/AngelicaOung/status/1788241764383678900 > Everybody hated That Apple Ad but the Japanese REALLY hated it. I’ve never seen so many upset Japanese ppl commenting on a single thread
    • russellbeattie 2y ago
      So, let's reverse this. A Japanese company's online advertisement offends some American sensibilities (not a stretch to imagine). So a few hundred Americans comment on the video and on Twitter. Would that deserve a news article and a statement from the company?
      • Apocryphon 2y ago
        They might, depending on the slight. It's a culture that emphasizes politeness and propriety after all. You might’ve chosen one of the least effective counter-examples for this one.
      • silisili 2y ago
        Apple is advertising to a global audience here, and are big in Japan. I think the closest thing I can think of is Sony, perhaps, doing an offensive ad(to Americans) with the PS5/6. I do think it'd be written about and they'd apologize, though it's a little different because Sony has a specific US subsidiary which acts like its own company.
• ahefner 2y ago
  Never apologize.
  • SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
    It will never be enough.
• noitpmeder 2y ago
  It's a bit insane to me that Apple felt the need to "apologize"... so they made a crappy AD that didn't appeal to some audiences... is this really grounds for retractions/apologies these days?
  • thorum 2y ago
    It didn’t just not appeal to some audiences. It actively alienated one of the primary audiences of their product. Of course that requires a response.
    • thsksbd 2y ago
      And alienated them in a very very primal way. Artisans love their trade tools.
      • rob74 2y ago
        Yeah, imagine telling a guitar or piano player that they can trash their respective instruments, because "all they need now is an iPad". Doesn't sound good, does it?
        • guappa 2y ago
          Feels good to the people who can't play an instrument :)
          • thsksbd 2y ago
            lol, touche
          • alt227 2y ago
            Yep, thats the other horrible part of this ad. Apple is essentially saying 'Don't worry about learning to play an instrument, use an iPad instead!' which is just disgusting. The modern world has lost too much dicipline and creativity already. It doesnt need more people being encouraged to take the lazy option.
• treme 2y ago
  [flagged]
• zitterbewegung 2y ago
  I thought the ad was great but to actually have to apologize for it ?? I am a self admitted Apple fanboy but while I don’t see eye to eye on this I really don’t see the offensiveness . But in the grand scheme of things it might sell more iPads due to the Streisand effect.
  • pertymcpert 2y ago
    A lot of people have strong emotional connections to their artistic tools like instruments. It's a very common reaction to feel discomfort at the sight of an instrument being destroyed. Emotional attachments are irrational, but the point of an advertisement isn't to be rational otherwise they'd just show a spec sheet as a still in a video. Apple really fucked up here. Did no one on their marketing team bring this up?
  • refulgentis 2y ago
    When I was a young'n, Apple was very big on treating artists and creatives as a set of people they were humbled to have stumbled into helping. Marketing was driven by ideas like avoiding "speeds and feeds", in the words of Steve, and emotionally connecting with users: ex. famous lore is an Apple ad is never "Buy the New Galaxy Plus Pro S6 with the 120 megapixel 240x Zoom!" it's "Soft tinkling music as smiling father takes video of 5 year old sledding down hill in snow" I'm not saying they always obeyed those principles in every single ad until yesterday, but you'd be hard pressed (lol) to explain to someone a decade ago why Apple's first ad for a once-in-3-years iPad launch was...crushing a bunch of creative tools to communicate they shaved half a millimeter off. It's funny being old because the thing that confuses me is why people have reactions to reactions, ex. people saying "based, why should they have to apologize anyway, it wasn't offensive"...it clearly wasn't offensive in that sense! It was just bizarrely off-brand.
    • PurestGuava 2y ago
      > It's funny being old because the thing that confuses me is why people have reactions to reactions, ex. people saying "based, why should they have to apologize anyway, it wasn't offensive"...it clearly wasn't offensive in that sense! Some people just really seem to object to the idea that anyone could ever experience an emotion and have it not be based on some kind of cold rationality. The idea of feeling something in your gut, something visceral, is anathema to them.
• 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  > (Apple) released a “Crush!” commercial that shows things like a piano, record player, paint, and other works flattening under the pressure of a hydraulic press. At the end, only one thing remains: an iPad Pro. I thought it was gonna be something else.
• spiderice 2y ago
  I’m just happy to see the overwhelming consensus on the internet is “apologizing for what”. Apple shouldn’t be apologizing at all. The add was cool.
  • OhioMan2943 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • Vt71fcAqt7 2y ago
      I flaged this post because it seems to violate HN's guidelines. Am I missing some context here?
  • thsksbd 2y ago
    Cool? Putting aside the controversial content, the aesthetic was cliche. Same edgy lighting, same colors saturation. It was terrible.
    • spiderice 2y ago
      [flagged]
  • divan 2y ago
    It was very painful to see musical instruments and cameras/lenses destroyed. These things are so dear to many creative people that it feels like watching someone's arm being cut off. No matter how cool the camerawork is, it just sends a very negative message about the product and their marketing team.
    • mindwok 2y ago
      I play guitar and I didn’t find it painful to watch. I thought it was a cool idea illustrating all those instruments being compressed into a tiny device.
      • 2y ago
• anon373839 2y ago
  The ad was strangely off-brand for Apple. But I suppose they’ve been trending edgier and moodier in their advertising lately. I just don’t get why - they had a really effective brand to begin with. BMW, too, used to have an impeccable brand.
  • fooker 2y ago
    Expanding to markets outside the US, if I had to guess. Minimalism doesn't sell everywhere.
• thsksbd 2y ago
  It was a creepy ad. They zoomed in when a doll's eye popped out.
• alistairSH 2y ago
  Uh what’s the problem? The ad isn’t great, but why the pitchforks?
  • pertymcpert 2y ago
    A lot of people have strong emotional connections to their artistic tools like instruments. It's a very common reaction to feel discomfort at the sight of an instrument being destroyed. Emotional attachments are irrational, but the point of an advertisement isn't to be rational otherwise they'd just show a spec sheet as a still in a video.
    • alistairSH 2y ago
      It was an entire room in a press. I didn’t even notice an instrument…
      • jprete 2y ago
        You didn't see the trumpet that was the focal point of the first few moments? The piano with paint cans prominently shattering right after that? The guitar towards the end?
        • alistairSH 2y ago
          Honestly no. First time I saw it, I just thought “huh they’re crushing somebody’s office”. Didn’t pay any attention to what was inside.
          • pertymcpert 2y ago
            Wait....how did you watch the ad and not look at the images in any detail? There were multiple close ups of instruments.
            • alistairSH 2y ago
              Dunno... I guess I just saw the first shot, thought "huh, they're crushing a room" and zoned out. It all just registered as "stuff in a room" not "expensive musical instruments".
• hestefisk 2y ago
  I’m struggling a bit to see why this ad is controversial.
  • Grazester 2y ago
    It's the times we live in. People have just become overly sensitive it seems. Apple needs to apologize or risk a cancel culture backlash.
    • switch007 2y ago
      Apple has absolutely no issue capitalising on “woke” in their tv shows. Like, really going all in.
      • SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
        There are a couple I think are fine. Mythic quest and Severance, but that what was it? Foundation series, omg, I couldn’t make it a whole episode.
    • nonrandomstring 2y ago
      > People have just become overly sensitive it seems. I hear this said a lot, but know of no psychological evidence that people have actually become more "sensitive" (by which I mean neurotic, defensive etc). What's happened is that people became better informed, educated, and communicative. They're more comfortable with expressing. And that's mainly down to technology which facilitated cultural change. It is natural for that to turn inward. This is the evolution of critique. It took many years from Gutenberg to Vanity Fair. Literary criticism only emerged once the medium itself was mature. The same thing is happening in technology as Lewis Mumford predicted. Technological critique. has come of age with AI. Anybody so unsophisticated as to ignore that, like Apple, is doomed. No one gives a shit how "thin" or "powerful" your gadget is. They care what it means to them and their values. Apple, of all organisations, should be mindful of that.
      • Boogie_Man 2y ago
• TheGamerUncle 2y ago
  When I was younger, I used to believe that the antiquated image of the hipster or upper-class white Starbucks artist who owns a Mac was a cliché, an invention of the boomers. But as I have had to deal with some creative teams. I have come to loathe and disdain this kind of person I did not think even existed a decade ago. The sad truth is that a lot of people of a certain demographic will prefer to die before even switching to Windows, let alone Linux or something open. And sadly, a small part of the tech world is the same; they think that their experience with Windows and Android more than a decade ago is reflective of how they work now. Thus, Apple could spit on their faces, and yet they will still like it. Sadly, nothing to do with people who just suck up to modern Apple.
• Apocryphon 2y ago
  Aside from the destruction of low-tech artistic tools triggering non-tech people aspect, tonally the ad was also overly edgy, which is off-brand for Apple. As noted elsewhere, it felt like a video game commercial from the '90s: gratuitous in its attention-seeking. https://twitter.com/cuniiform/status/1788013085392859171 https://twitter.com/cuniiform/status/1788013085392859171 And it's actually already been done before, by Nintendo: https://twitter.com/rsnous/status/1788047377556791321 https://twitter.com/rsnous/status/1788047377556791321 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzAo9HzOgtQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzAo9HzOgtQ
  • madrox 2y ago
    1984 was edgy for its time. I think the difficulty is that the iPad is no longer an edgy product. The least edgy thing you could be these days is an iPad owner, and this ad wasn't the one to change that.
    • Apocryphon 2y ago
      "1984" was edgy in a cool way, but that's not the type of edginess I'm evoking. Most '90s video game commercials that were edgy did so in a puerile, juvenile way as befitting the target audience. And not just video game ads, there was definitely a big "xtreme" trend as well. The Apple ad taps into that xtreme vibe by embracing destructive energy to depict a physical contrast. Which is visually attention-grabbing, but it puts the focus on the act of destruction, and reduction, and people who like the destroyed objects feel miffed. "1984" I'd say was edgy in a rebellious way as you point out, which I'd argue gives it more substance. The sledgehammer hitting the screen isn't even the focus, it's the climax to a sequence that carries more of a meaningful message than "wow look how much functionality we fit into this thin shell."
      • robertlagrant 2y ago
        > "1984" I'd say was edgy in a rebellious way as you point out, which I'd argue gives it more substance. The sledgehammer hitting the screen isn't even the focus, it's the climax to a sequence that carries more of a meaningful message than "wow look how much functionality we fit into this thin shell." Well, it just wasn't focusing on empty slowmo destruction of a big screen. It had an emotional message behind it. A bit like original Star Wars vs Rebel Moon.
• edkennedy 2y ago
  Missing from this extremely short and underreported article is how badly this played out in Japanese market. The culture they have states that musical instruments, creative tools have some energy and imbued sense of spirit to them. So destroying these elements of culture is really really blunt and gauche to them. The majority of the push back came from Japanese people, and then artists empathizing with their sentiment.
  • superb_dev 2y ago
    Given that context, it’s nuts that this ad was approved for the Japanese market
  • smugma 2y ago
    I’ve seen a few comments about this. Is there any English page that documents this in more detail? I find it really interesting.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • rjh29 2y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto
    • bitwize 2y ago
      See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mottainai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mottainai
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • Apocryphon 2y ago
    Really interesting to consider that this might be one of the few incidents that Shintoists, or at least "cultural Shintoists," have gotten offended at a western production. Makes me wonder if this is why Apple went out of their way to apologize for the ad. I think if this ad just had non-culturally-specific backlash, they would've simply moved on. But because this impacted a specific market's sensibilities, maybe they felt the need to do a public mea culpa.
• Osmium 2y ago
  Good, the ad was really disturbing. An ad is just an ad and not the biggest deal in the scheme of things but that was really unpleasant to watch. For me, it was the visual of needless destruction and waste as much as the meta-message.
  • PurestGuava 2y ago
    It's the needless destruction that really gets to me. I have a fairly visceral reaction to seeing things that someone put time, effort and scarce resources into making get destroyed for no reason, and Apple's ad hit so many nerves in that respect. It's just a complete waste, and that's before we get into the whole subtext of "tech is going to destroy 'IRL' art forms" that many people got.
    • poochkoishi728 2y ago
      How do you know they weren't broken items anyway?
      • PurestGuava 2y ago
        I don’t, but it’s still unpleasant to see. Not everything has to be perfectly rational.
        • Clubber 2y ago
          Irrational outrage and anger isn't a trait to strive for I wouldn't think.
        • daniel_reetz 2y ago
          Especially emotional responses.
  • simiones 2y ago
    What baffles me the most is the choice to include human figurines (the bust, the statue, the smiley right at the end). The imagery of human figures getting crushed is going to look disturbing even to the least environmentally conscious viewers.
• iamwil 2y ago
  I saw it felt nothing other than a morbid kind of "will it blend?". I think the ad is fine. It did its job. I mean, people are talking about it. They just can't use the same schtick again. But there's no need to apologize for it.
• madrox 2y ago
  This really shows how much sentiments about technology have changed in the last five or so years. If this ad came out in 2018 it would have been received differently, I think. The buzz has worn off. People don't see doing everything on your device as progress. iPads are no longer novel. Apple has been so used to growing new markets that I don't think they even know how to market when they're on top. All their best ads have been when using their products speaks to being a rebel. Nowadays the least rebellious thing you could be is an Apple user.
  • Apocryphon 2y ago
    The (m)Ad Man's Dilemma
  • thorum 2y ago
    Many artists now view the tech industry as a credible threat to their work and livelihood, because of AI. If you want them to buy your products, it’s probably a good idea to show some sensitivity to that concern.
    • john2x 2y ago
      I hope that it's this. Artists are trend setters, and often define a generation's culture. Alienating them is (or should be) a huge mistake in my mind.
      • bitwize 2y ago
        Alienating artists should be off the fucking table for Apple, for whom creatives are the core customer base. But it's 2024, everything is enshittified, God has forsaken us.
  • pseudalopex 2y ago
    > This really shows how much sentiments about technology have changed in the last five or so years. If this ad came out in 2018 it would have been received differently, I think. The buzz has worn off. People don't see doing everything on your device as progress. iPads are no longer novel. I think not. 2018 was not so different. People talked about what is now called enshittification. Apple, Google, and Facebook introduced screen time controls because concerns had grown year after year. I think an ad showing the same objects sucked into a tablet would have been received much better now. I doubt the lurid destruction of art, creative tools, and symbols of culture and history would have been received much better in 2004.
• Animats 2y ago
  Was that made with Unreal Engine 5? The physics has that look.
• ExMachina73 2y ago
  I'm still waiting for Jim Beam to apologize for their "Sweet Caroline" ad.
• ak217 2y ago
  This reminds me of a Google Chromebook ad from a long time ago where they destroy 25 Chromebooks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm-Vnx58UYo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm-Vnx58UYo It felt so sad and tone deaf, a celebration of disposability. I don't think Google ever felt the need to apologize for that one, but then again it was a lot less... graphic than this new Apple ad. It's safe to say Apple outdid Google in this competition.
  • nox101 2y ago
    The google ad was showing you your data, what's important to you, is safe. The Apple ad is showing things people love being destroyed and replaced by a inferior replacement
• rpy 2y ago
  If a bunch of CGI objects being crushed is disturbing to people wait til they see this movie of a train coming directly at you.
  • smugma 2y ago
    What about the video makes you think it was CG?
    • rpy 2y ago
      Are you suggesting the emoji squeeze toy conveniently rolled perfectly to the edge of the hydraulic press at exactly the right moment and then its eyes uniformly popped out? A perfectly uniform explosion of dust actually burst out the press? Seems doubtful.
      • jprete 2y ago
        Using real objects for 90% of that effect is probably the cheapest way to go. The two things you mention could be added in.
      • ch_sm 2y ago
        I don’t know if that’s the case here, but Apple has a long history of doing real-life photoshoots of their products that end up looking like CGI. It’s an extremely clean, perfectionist aesthetic. Realistically, it’s probably a real-life shot with CGI sprinkled in.
      • tiagod 2y ago
        Just because it's not CGI, doesn't mean there isn't a lot of trickery involved. They could have filmed the emoji toy part as stop motion, for example.
  • latexr 2y ago
    > wait til they see this movie of a train coming directly at you. The reports of fear about that movie have been greatly exaggerated. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/did-a-silent-film-about-a-train-really-cause-audiences-to-stampede https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/did-a-silent-film-abou...
• xnx 2y ago
  9to5Google pointed out that the Apple ad is a near exact copy of this LG ad from 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo The (accidental?) plagiarism of the ad is nearly as bad as the vibe.
  • lioeters 2y ago
    So not only was it tasteless and out of touch, it wasn't even original. Can't help but feel that it's a reflection of where Apple is at these days.
    • jen729w 2y ago
      Because Apple are famous these days for copying other people’s ideas? I don’t believe that this is the general consensus.
    • cm2187 2y ago
      On the other hand if your product has become a commodity and the new version barely changes from the previous one, you are entering detergent advertising territory.
  • CamperBob2 2y ago
    Wow, you're not exaggerating. That actually does bring a legitimate accusation of plagiarism to the table. Compare 0:13 in the LG ad to 0:37 in the Apple version. Never mind that the artwork itself looks straight out of DALL-E 2, with its orange-bluish cast. Who is calling the creative shots at Apple these days?!
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • cjk2 2y ago
      The amber/teal stuff is mostly because it makes the foreground warmer and the backgrounds colder drawing the audience's focus. Or so the theory goes. I think it's just more of a case of "fuck it, no one is going to complain if we do this" Check out the transformers films - those are the canonical punch in the face in that department.
• WWLink 2y ago
  Apple: We're so environmentally friendly! Also Apple: We still use these fancy boxes that are a pain in the ass to recycle and will more than likely just end up in the trash anyway. They can't be reused for literally anything else because of their size, shape, and way they're glued together. Also, the materials aren't eco-friendly. But who cares because we stopped giving away power bricks and wrap the cables in paper instead of plastic! So Eco Friendly! Also Apple: Let's take this pile of useful nice stuff, some of which has collector value, and smash it all to make a commercial. Also they really need to get out of their own ass here. The iPad isn't a piano. The iPad isn't a guitar. You cannot replace any of those musical instruments with an iPad. You can't paint on canvas with an iPad, so destroying paint is silly. I won't go with "sensitive" here. I see it as tasteless waste. That commercial is tacky AF. What are they trying to market the iPad to? "Fuck your feelings" types that just bought a new cybertruck and have more money than brains?
  • pompino 2y ago
    They are also notoriously anti-repair, block access to spare parts (despite their recent fake pro-repair marketing) so all their repairable products end up in landfills. People are focusing on the irrelevant ad, but the real harm is elsewhere.
  • thiht 2y ago
    > The iPad isn't a piano. The iPad isn't a guitar. You cannot replace any of those musical instruments with an iPad. You can't paint on canvas with an iPad, so destroying paint is silly. Literacy truly is dead… Do you know the iPad is not even built by pressing guitars and toys and paint together?
    • WWLink 2y ago
      I'm a computer engineer, yes of course I do. What are you?
  • card_zero 2y ago
    To be fair, you probably can paint on canvas with an iPad, if the canvas is sufficiently large and you use the impasto technique.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• hnburnsy 2y ago
  Someone posted the ad in reverse, the implication that the new iPad could unleash creatively instead of crushing it. https://9to5mac.com/2024/05/09/ipad-pro-ad-backwards/ https://9to5mac.com/2024/05/09/ipad-pro-ad-backwards/
  • jprete 2y ago
    Doing something like that for real (not just a quick edit to demo the idea) would have been a way cooler ad.
    • Apocryphon 2y ago
      iPad Pro: Emerge (cue Fischerspooner)
  • epiccoleman 2y ago
    The backwards version of the ad is leaps and bounds better. I'm sure some ad "creative" type somwehere is kicking themselves for not having the same idea.
• ChrisArchitect 2y ago
  [dupe] Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40312595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40312595
• fshbbdssbbgdd 2y ago
  Anyone know when was the last time Apple apologized for anything?
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• mgdlbp 2y ago
  Brings to mind the OK GO music video with all the exploded guitars that they stated were already junk. Spilled paint is reminiscent of their videos too. They also smashed pianos in the Rube Goldberg video, and a TV with a sledge. Now I wonder if that was a 1984 reference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BTnGgzO-tU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BTnGgzO-tU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w
  • hayley-patton 2y ago
    Sledgehammering a little TV was done in the video for Gary Numan - We Are Glass which predates the 1984 ad, which supposedly led to the video being banned from Top of the Pops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWR8vitO6wQ&t=67 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWR8vitO6wQ&t=67
  • willis936 2y ago
    OK GO did it in artistic expression (with a message of "be excellent to each other" even), not in a promise to destroy the concept of art.
• ykonstant 2y ago
  Related concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_no_aware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_no_aware
  • compressedgas 2y ago
    Not really. There is another Japanese term that I once read an article about that I don't recall and haven't been able to find again which meant: > the anger one feels when sacred objects are desecrated.
    • rjh29 2y ago
      Maybe mottainai?
    • white-moss 2y ago
      "boutoku" (冒涜) ?
  • phmx 2y ago
    And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mottainai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mottainai I guess
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• smarri 2y ago
  It just seemed really wasteful
• ypk2 2y ago
  I used to play piano and guitar. This ad is soul-crushing.
  • stef25 2y ago
    Exactly, you need to have a seriously good argument to backup crushing a piano
    • criddell 2y ago
      If I had access to a hydraulic press, there’s plenty of times I might have crushed my guitar over the years. Learning an instrument has been very difficult and frustrating for me.
    • sneak 2y ago
      https://youtu.be/QvW61K2s0tA https://youtu.be/QvW61K2s0tA How about OK Go exploding tons of guitars? Making video art is more than a legitimate reason to destroy props. This feels like a silly discussion.
      • alleskleber 2y ago
        "The guitars are all defects. They're manufacturing defects. You know, we want to blow up guitars but we don't actually want to keep musical instruments out of the world." https://youtu.be/2dFdNUz2cQc?t=73 https://youtu.be/2dFdNUz2cQc?t=73 OK Go identified the potential issue beforehand and found a solution that would work for them.
    • wilsonnb3 2y ago
      They aren’t some kind of mystical magic talisman, just a bunch of wood and metal. Might as well say you need a seriously good argument to crush a dining room table. People struggle to find someone to take their crappy upright pianos for free because they are worthless. Violin players refer to cheap student instruments as violin shaped objects. You can have a trumpet shipped to your door with same day delivery for $90 on Amazon.
• bmitc 2y ago
  I don't think one needs to be Japanese to be offended by that ad. Also, it's amazing at how accurate it is describing Apple's general corporate approach.
  • ammo1662 2y ago
    They just apologize for not be able to express "users can express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad". They don't care about destroying those things.
    • Dylan16807 2y ago
      Making and breaking a pile of props is a pretty normal consequence of filming something. The actions of the crew are not the problem.
      • ammo1662 2y ago
        Yes, but it is the point what people complain about. This "apology" just ignore that.
        • Dylan16807 2y ago
          I'd say it's the disrespect the ad shows that is the problem. But you're right that "missed the mark" is not really an apology for anything in particular.
  • bagels 2y ago
    I don't think one needs to be offended, it's a choice.
    • bmitc 2y ago
      Is less about being offended and more about having a negative emotional response, which is perfectly natural and often involuntary.
  • 2y ago
• seydor 2y ago
  Wow , pretty horrible ad, and not in a good way. Was it CGI or real ?
  • gjjydfhgd 2y ago
    It's pretty obvious it's real. Cheaper than CGI and better looking.
  • laserbeam 2y ago
    Probably a mix. The paint is likely real. The eye popping rubber ball emoji is likely CGI. Edit: I take that back. My money is on full CGI. I can’t imagine how a brass trumpet would break when placed above an arcade with no physical deformation on the arcade below it.
    • Terretta 2y ago
      > can't imagine... One way would be practical effects. Multiple items / layers filmed separately for controlled crushes, then combined in post.
    • rpeden 2y ago
      A trumpet is a lot weaker in that direction than you're assuming, and a plywood arcade cabinet is a lot stronger than you're giving it credit for. I'd be very surprised if a bunch of thin brass tubes transmitted enough for force to cause any deformation in an arcade cabinet when being crushed in that direction.
  • Nition 2y ago
    I thought it was clearly 100% CGI, but there certainly is a mixture of opinions here.
• mirekrusin 2y ago
  If they would stop producing all those ads nobody would notice.
• o_m 2y ago
  To me it was weird to see a company who tries to brand themselves as environment friendly destroy what seems to be perfectly fine objects, just for an ad. Even if it was CGI or if the objects were defected.
  • flanked-evergl 2y ago
    Was it weird, though? Environmentally friendly branding for companies has never required a company to be environmentally friendly, it's almost always just about being fashionable and avoiding accountability.
  • cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
    You’re just looking for things to feel emotional about now. “Even if it was CGI”. That’s really just leaning into an uncharitable interpretation for the sake of it.
• aredox 2y ago
  Funny to see the difference between the comments here and the comments on this HN thread that was flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40310893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40310893
  • badcppdev 2y ago
    I liked this comment from that thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40310941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40310941 Linking to a reversed version of the Ad. Definitely making it better
    • repelsteeltje 2y ago
      So much better indeed! (Though this version of the ad won't persuade me either to buy an iPad)
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• thinkingemote 2y ago
  Your internal view of the brand is being changed or challenged. This causes a type of psychological stress. The iPad is only a machine but Apple the brand has carefully created a brand with emotions feeling and thoughts around it. People invest themselves in their ideas. the ad isn't concerning for what it does in the ad, but for how it is changing the internal feeling of the brand. It is like remembering when thinking about a car changed for you. From just a car as a kid to something else, something with more meaning. It's why all car adverts are about emotions.
  • draugadrotten 2y ago
    > It's why all car adverts are about emotions. This is my favourite emotional car ad - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sWPHKU1XZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sWPHKU1XZU Apple products does not inspire to such emotions, not anymore. The apple fans are not going to be waiting 20 years for poop emojis.
    • Jordan-117 2y ago
      Deep Philosophical Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybZ9PVcf6X8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybZ9PVcf6X8
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • gjjydfhgd 2y ago
    Very insightful take. But the ad also caused me stress, and I own no Apple devices, nor am I a fan. So there must be more.
    • thinkingemote 2y ago
      hmm, thinking quickly, two things. Firstly the brand feelings exist even with people who don't own anything to do with the brand. Again with the cars, car adverts mainly seek to install sentiment in non car owners. Secondly, I think the ad "as art" on it's own is disturbing and menacing.
• XorNot 2y ago
  I get how the creative team got here, but boy I'm surprised it aired: I would've thought you'd focus group something like this in the target market?
• thrownaway561 2y ago
  i don't get they need to apologize. I watched the ad and though it was very creative and the the squeezy ball at the end was funny. why is everyone getting so up in arms and offended by this? I guess this is our society now where people just look for things that they want to trigger and offend them.
• bjornsing 2y ago
  Feels hard to imagine Steve Jobs tweeting this video... I guess the lesson is: it’s very hard to preserve mission and vision without the visionary.
  • amatecha 2y ago
    I recently got a new iPhone. I'm picturing Steve Jobs yelling at this thing nearly every day. It's mind-blowing how poor the user experience has become compared to early versions of iOS! :\
    • xattt 2y ago
      “What the hell is this Vision Pro shit? Do people really want to be riding rollercoasters while they’re taking a crap?” [1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/jobs-dismissed-ipad-mini-as-only-good-for-surfing-on-the-loo/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/jobs-dismissed-ipad-mini...
      • pquki4 2y ago
        Judging by the (assumed) sales number of iPad mini, Jobs was not really wrong. And actually iPad mini screen size is around 8 inches (with tiny texts already), 7-in would have been much worse. Well I have said too many useless words here.
    • behnamoh 2y ago
      At some point the companies just want to milk their customers. Nokia did it, but where is Nokia now?
    • vundercind 2y ago
      iOS 6 was peak user interface, especially for non-computer-geeks. It was brilliant. It’s been downhill ever since.
  • vertis 2y ago
    Just load up a LLM with everything he ever wrote or said publicly and privately (◔_◔)
• cess11 2y ago
  Have they done outrage advertising to get reach before? How about expressing ads in YouTube genres, is that a new thing for Apple?
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• jaimex2 2y ago
  It's been ages since I've clicked on The Verge. Surprised its still around.
• ChildOfChaos 2y ago
  This is all really silly. Don't people have anything better to get upset about? I wish companies/Apple didn't cave every time a couple of people start crying. It must be really annoying to work in such industries, you spend a large amount of time making something and then have no idea if people will get upset about it or not.
  • swores 2y ago
    Nothing to do with the industry - it's marketing, it's designed to make people like the company/product more, and the very nature of marketing and people means that if you do a bad job it can have the opposite effect. This is just how marketing to humans is, and anyone creating a promo video for any type of product knows that the goal is to increase positive sentiment and the risk to try to avoid is increasing negative feelings instead.
  • 23B1 2y ago
    Marketing is a corporate behavior that is tied to sales, brand equity, expansion, product innovation, and financial performance. Criticizing it is as legitimate as criticizing accounting practices or device capabilities.
  • can16358p 2y ago
    This ad is a perfect example of the fact that if people want to get offended, they will literally get offended by anything: an ad, a color of something, a made-up pronoun not being present in a list, or anything else.
• self_awareness 2y ago
  I think the ad is great and funny. It says: you don't need those anymore. Just buy the iPad. Look at all this space you'll save. All the items you won't need to buy. Minimalism, utility, fun. I think people who get offended by seeing objects being destroyed are being hyper-hypocritical, because I bet you all replace your phones every few years, replace your cars every few years, replace all of your stuff even if the older versions work fine. But here you get offended. Take a good look in the mirror is all I can say.
  • tiagod 2y ago
    We all know what the ad is supposedly saying. But there's something called context. This add doesn't exist in isolation. In my view, is not offensive due to the destruction of the objects, but by the deeper meaning of crushing the cultural representations of human creativity with this machine.
    • self_awareness 2y ago
      The ad literaly presents a better way to express creativity (according to Apple). How would anyone can think it tries to crush it? I wouldn't use the word "deep" in your example, but rather "shallow". Also, everything can be offensive if you dig deep enough. And if you dig really deep, then even knowledge will start looking as only faith.
  • guappa 2y ago
    > I bet you all replace Yeah, AFTER they stop working, not when they are perfectly good :)
    • self_awareness 2y ago
      Still, most of it often still works, why not give it for repairs, instead of replacing it?
      • guappa 2y ago
        Because modern tech is not repairable.
• gizajob 2y ago
  This would never have happened on Steve’s watch.
• zython 2y ago
  If you play it in reverse it works much better while simultaneously being more or less still the same commercial.
• joduplessis 2y ago
  I just found it a bit lacklustre & uninspired.
  • TonyTrapp 2y ago
    Maybe it was all done on an iPad after they crushed all their creative tools?
• advael 2y ago
  I think Apple and many other tech companies are still trying to brand themselves as mavericks who are upending a stuffy establishment, a mythology which is exemplified well by ads like this. I think the gaucheness of it was very intentional, and exactly the kind of provocative boasting that appealed to a certain kind of young, counterculturally-inclined creative people when Apple was first running ads on TV I think when you're a trillion dollar company, one of the major players in an industry that has very much become The Establishment, and are speaking to artists for whom technology companies - and Apple in particular - have been constantly "innovating" in ways to decrease their share of the fruits of their labor for the last twenty years, and the last 3 or so have been a constant news blitz of smug techbros claiming all creatives should accept whatever scraps they can get because they're about to be replaced by ML models that are from their perspective sophisticated stochastic plagiarism bots that seem to frame the entire premise of releasing your work online as the setup for a long con... Yea, maybe it's gonna read as a bit tonedeaf
• tecleandor 2y ago
  They missed the opportunity of, instead of destroying everything, "compressing" it all in an iPad to show "all the things that you can fit inside that tiny device" or something like that. The destruction seemed pointless.
  • Hamuko 2y ago
    What? They are quite literally compressing those things in the video. And if you apply compressive force to a bunch of objects using a massive press, the objects would obviously get destroyed.
    • tonylemesmer 2y ago
      I take tecleandor's comment to mean "metaphorically" compressing rather than actually doing it.
      • Hamuko 2y ago
        But they are metaphorically compressing them. If you put a grand piano under a hydraulic press, it doesn't turn into an iPad at the end like it does in the ad.
        • iainmerrick 2y ago
          If you're being serious, I guess that shows how this could have passed review without anyone going "hang on, is this ad really saying what we want it to be saying...?"
        • carstenhag 2y ago
          Compressing in software terms means it doesn't get destroyed. Just compacted. You can uncompress it and it gets restored, maybe with a small loss. In the ad, the furniture etc was completely destroyed.
      • tecleandor 2y ago
        Yep, I was meaning compression="making it tiny and fitting them inside an iPad" not as in "compression force until it explodes".
• Grimeton 2y ago
  Apple a company, that: - spies on you while telling you they protect your privacy - removes feature after feature from their devices, telling you that you want this and that it's better w/o it for you - locks you in more and more controlling every aspect from hardware to software to development environment and the store - acts in bad faith every time someone threatens that fenced garden And you people worry about an ad that just tries to justify why 50 bucks in hardware have to cost 1000+ dollars?
• hoc 2y ago
  "The only problem with Apple..."
  • sunshinerag 2y ago
    Who would you give as an example of taste. Microsoft?
    • hoc 2y ago
      Why Microsoft? Belt holsters in future Apple keynotes just do not seem that impossible anymore. (Phone holsters, of course.)
• stuaxo 2y ago
  Someone made a reversed version and it works well (it's the only version I've seen)... yeah, crushing musical instruments just comes across as needlessly destructive.
  • Mtinie 2y ago
    I had not considered that option, thank you for sharing that someone had. Conceptually it makes a lot more sense in reverse. “Look at every type of creative tool and instrument *contained* within this thin iPad” is inspiring. “Look at how we’ve crushed all these creative tools and instruments” is decidedly not.
    • formerly_proven 2y ago
      iPad rests on table. Kid/Teen/le artist sits down and touches the screen. iPad explodes into stage of “creative instruments”, le artist is le jamming. Cut to title card.
      • Mtinie 2y ago
        Exactly! Promote it as a modern day, virtual “Bag of Holding” and you win over the table top gamers, too. :)
    • HPsquared 2y ago
      Someone made a nice reversed version: https://youtu.be/XYB6JJoDSuk https://youtu.be/XYB6JJoDSuk
  • fetzu 2y ago
    Yes, this version would have been so much more positive and I can picture someone pitching it during a meeting and just being shutdown because « you have to end with the product, not start with it. »
• sourabhv 2y ago
  Yeah the add shows off iPad as something more than it probably is. I don't like the destruction part but meh... to me the ad speaks nothing special or wow except the exploding paint buckets, which was fun. But there is nothing to apologize for. Its an ad, they are not coming into your home and breaking your piano and guitars, chill. Don't like it? Don't buy it.
  • iainmerrick 2y ago
    People aren't buying iPads (at least not as much as iPhones, Macs and Watches), that's exactly the problem (for them) that they're trying to solve.
• g3z 2y ago
  Maybe it's a sign that I am approaching 40s but who got offended by that, come on, it's just an ad
• lionkor 2y ago
  I like it. You throw away all your hard-earned, expensive instruments, tools, and crush them to be sure. You then go buy an iPad, and the circle is complete: You're now a next-generation Apple consumer! Just turn on YouTube kids and watch slime videos for the rest of your life. Reject culture, consume the slop.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • xyst 2y ago
    Join the Apple ~~~jail~~~ ecosystem, or die.
  • baq 2y ago
    Still less dystopian than the vision pro with a dad running around his kids with a walled-garden-camera-helmet. Once may have been a mistake, twice means there's some psychopath marketing VP at the helm OR a joker trying to see far they can go before somebody actually watches ads they're doing before they go live.
    • amelius 2y ago
      Twice means this is really the company vision, not just a bad marketing officer.
      • chongli 2y ago
        There is no vision. All I’ve seen from Apple since Steve died is continued momentum in the same direction.
    • k7sune 2y ago
      “What’s a computer?” Should count as one too. But back then we just scoffed at the idea that an iPad can replace a computer. Now somehow we are offended or even terrified by the same absurdity that an iPad can replace a real musical instrument.
• arnaudsm 2y ago
  I bet they were about to release a behind the scenes video to brag how they did everything practically with no CGI
• juanani 2y ago
  [dead]
• endisneigh 2y ago
  Man, people get offended about everything these days.
  • 7thpower 2y ago
    Yes. I am questioning whether I have some emotional deficiency because I just don’t get why people are reading so far into it and, to me, it perfectly encapsulates how people are constantly looking for something to be offended by. I thought the ad was bad, but for different reasons. The ads and presentation have become so over produced that it feels like some giant inside joke for a company that is out of touch. I think their culture has mostly become (or maybe always was) sniffing each others farts and telling them how great that last one was. So I suppose it is somewhat ironic in the sense that I imagine their own leadership are the most likely to be offended by the symbolism in the first place. Anyway I can’t wait for the M4 MacBooks. Take my money, Tim.
    • throwaheyy 2y ago
      > Yes. I am questioning whether I have some emotional deficiency Yeah, you probably do. Take a hobby or art form that you’re really passionate about and have spent a lot of time on. Something that when you’re doing it, all is right in the universe. Doing this activity your tools become an extension of yourself. They are valuable and beautiful things to you, and you become somewhat attached to them. Now someone crushes these, your favourite tools and instruments and equipment, in a hydraulic press and says that an iPad can replace them. If you still don’t see how this could be unsettling to someone who gets so much enjoyment and purpose out of them, and instead view this as looking for a reason to be offended, you probably have some sort of emotional deficiency. You could be autistic, or have psychopathic or sociopathic tendencies.
• LASR 2y ago
  Yeah what was that ad even. I am not a creative. But I do play the piano from time to time. It’s an old 15 year old Roland electric piano. I wouldn’t like to see it crushed. Even if it is obsolete. I bet a lot of actual creatives do have sentimental values attached to their tools. Destroying things needlessly is very much off brand for Apple.
• benrutter 2y ago
  When I watch the trailer, it feels very cringe. I can absolutely see what they're going for- something like "you're iPad contains the power of all these cultural tools", but visually that connection isn't there. It just looks like "Hooray! Culture has been destroyed, now there is only iPad!"
  • passion__desire 2y ago
    I took the message that all that culture is now available in an even slimmer form factor. This is the problem with art. Unambiguous messaging is impossible as one casts a wider net of interpretation
    • benrutter 2y ago
      Very true- I wonder if the prevailing interpretation would be different if this was 20 years ago. The destruction of all those tools would probably have a much more "punk rock" interpretation from people if Apple weren't the megacorp they are today.
      • bitlevel 2y ago
        I found it super ironic how they blathered on about all of the recycling going on in their products, then blatently show all those items being destroyed when they could clearly be recycled. I do think that the 'rendered' idea was the best - almost thinking differently, or something...:S
        • gizmo 2y ago
          It's an animation of items being destroyed. It's very fake and Apple used an exaggerated cartoon style animation so it couldn't get mistaken for reality. It's like getting mad at road runner for dropping a piano on Wile E Coyote.
          • hu3 2y ago
            I think real instruments were destroyed. Am I wrong?
• gizmo 2y ago
  I don't understand the outrage. It's cgi, and very obvious cgi at that. The items bend and explode in an exaggerated cartoon fashion. It's whimsical. No instruments have been destroyed. No actual paint has been spilled. We don't get mad at destruction in a pixar movie. We cheer when rock stars smash their actual guitars after a live performance. We don't live in a culture that abhors destruction. Do people just not recognize CGI? Is that's what's happening here?
  • n1b0m 2y ago
    It’s not about the CGI, but the sentiment it expresses. Hugh Grant summed it up well: “The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley.”
    • gizmo 2y ago
      But that's not what I see! What I see is a beautifully crafted CGI animation that passionate people worked super hard on. The ad is technically very well done and the music suits it perfectly. And the message is about tech as a product for creative expression as opposed to content consumption. The ad isn't about destruction just because it features destruction. We don't apply this standard to movies, books, or any other creative work.
  • chrisweekly 2y ago
    > We cheer when rock stars smash their actual guitars after a live performance. speak for yourself. also, see the flurry of comments elsewhere in the thread about the irrelevance of CGI to the message being sent
    • gizmo 2y ago
      Audiences do, in fact, cheer when a rock star smashes his guitar. And for me it does matter it's CGI. Because actual destruction is not the same as simulated destruction. Cartoon violence can be funny but real violence never is.
  • rocketvole 2y ago
• wwilim 2y ago
  If they had just replaced the crushing with CGI cartoonish squeezing and flattening, it would have been all good
• wordofx 2y ago
  [flagged]
• new_user_final 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • halgir 2y ago
    You can care about two things at the same time.
• croes 2y ago
  The spot is a copy of a LG spot from 2008 https://twitter.com/asallen/status/1788428991118164356 https://twitter.com/asallen/status/1788428991118164356
• mikewarot 2y ago
  Without Hanna and Lauri, you can't have a good hydraulic press moment. It was obvious from the moment it started that it was CGI, so... no actual destruction occurred. Rewatching it, it seems rather random, like they wanted cinematographic moments, without any actual narrative. It was designed to be forgettable. Not a good use of marketing budget.
  • exodust 2y ago
    Actual destruction isn't relevant. The idea of destroying musical instruments because a new iPad is in town, is jarring. The ad lingers on pointless destruction. Why not spend the time showing the new iPad? It's sad when advertising is stuck so far up its own clever-hole, it loses grip on reality. Edit: I just watched it again. It's definitely not obvious CGI, not sure how you can say that. Camera lenses shattering, paint spilling, wood splintering realistically.
    • mikewarot 2y ago
      As I was saying... the press wasn't realistic. Here's Lauri with his 300 Ton Press on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk-zi8grFdw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk-zi8grFdw
    • mikewarot 2y ago
      The press itself is ridiculous, you can't have two skinny cylinders like that pressing out a platen that wide and expect to get any reasonable forces. Maybe it's too much time watching the limitations of the 150 ton press, but it all just seemed like someone's idea of what a press is, instead of an actual press... in hyper-real cgi.
  • zarzavat 2y ago
    It certainly was not obvious to me that it’s CGI, I had to go back and check after reading your comment, and from what I’ve seen online most people think it’s real. If their intention was to communicate that it’s CGI then that was an abject failure.
• Havoc 2y ago
  I do like that they did a simple apology. Most corporates these days will go out of their way with Weasley corporate speak to avoid saying as much
  • dguest 2y ago
    Did they pull the add?
• hartator 2y ago
  I think the part that was really upsetting is they crushed real good objects. After all of that talks about climate friendly. They could have crushed 3D renderings and up the clip with “rendered on iPad. No harm was done on real objects.” And that would have been a good ad.
  • FpUser 2y ago
    >"And that would have been a good ad." No it would not. It would still be as disgusting as it is now.
    • alt227 2y ago
      > No it would not. It would still be as disgusting as it is now. For me the disgust was purely in waste of perfectly good items. Those instruments could have provided a whole music department for a struggling school or youth center. The paint could have even been used to brighten the place up. But No, Apple just squashed it all to show off.
      • FpUser 2y ago
        >"For me the disgust was purely in waste of perfectly good items." For me it is in your face ruthless "fuck you and what you do, submit to us" nature of the ad. We are different people.
      • SlightlyLeftPad 2y ago
        How do you feel about the thousands of hours hydraulic press youtube videos each with millions of views?
        • alt227 2y ago
          They are not created by a trillion dollar company as advertising to sell more product.
          • labcomputer 2y ago
• thih9 2y ago
  > missed the mark It didn’t! It is a good clip. It accurately shows how tools are being replaced with digital and cloud. It’s a violent process and precious things get destroyed along the way. It totally hit the mark. But true, it doesn’t make people want to go grab an ipad, so I get why they don’t want to use it.
  • alt227 2y ago
    > It accurately shows how tools are being replaced with digital and cloud. No it doesnt, it shows thats what Apple thinks which is the whole problem here.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  • pquki4 2y ago
    > It accurately shows how tools are being replaced with digital and cloud. No it doesn't. Throwing away all other sentiments, I really would like to see a 100lb digital piano replacing a 500lb upright piano while keeping its action, feel and sound, if not a grand piano. That hasn't happened yet, not even remotely, after all these years of technology advancenent. Anyone who is serious in learning and performing piano would be doing that on a real piano. And of course iPad isn't even in the conversation -- what can you do with a touch screen? Which is exactly why I find this ad ridiculous.
    • Tarq0n 2y ago
      When world-class artists come to the NPR studio, a place with high end upright and grand pianos, to perform; many of them bring Nords Korgs or Rolands. Why do you think that is?
      • pquki4 2y ago
        We are not talking about the same kind of piano here. And different artists value different things or just need other features, and the "authenticity" of an upright piano is very likely what they are looking for, which is totally fine. This really is another topic. Sorry.
• deadbabe 2y ago
  The people who liked the ad tend to be the same kind of people who think AI art is cool.
• anonzzzies 2y ago
  Always wonder how blind these company people are? If they would've shown this (the plan/proposal of the marketing agency) to anyone, they would've said it's a bit... Strange?
• major505 2y ago
  People complain about anything this days... Offtopic about the ipad, Im curious, does you guys use tablets like the ipad in anyway in your dayily lifes? After phones seem to be getting bigger, I see no use for a dedicated device like an Ipad.
  • ErneX 2y ago
    I do, I have an Air on my desk on a Logitech keyboard cover, it’s like a mini laptop where I do casual web browsing, access my piCorePlayer web UI to play music from my NAS or use Spotify/Apple Music to play tracks through the piCorePlayer. I also watch YouTube frequently on it.
    • major505 2y ago
      I used in the start, but since Im always using bluetooth headphones, It was a pain in the ass to change in wich device is connected.
  • thih9 2y ago
    Note that your comment too could be seen as complaining - and you yourself say that you’re not the target audience. I also don’t use an iPad after switching to a pro max phone. But ideally I’d like a smaller phone and an iPad mini; maybe next iteration.
  • xyst 2y ago
    No it’s a glorified iPhone in my opinion. I had planned to use it to write code on the go but found it extremely limiting. All of the power inside the tablet and it’s locked behind the Apple jail. Have seen a few people use it as a laptop replacement though. They bring Bluetooth kb and mouse. But the experience seemed very janky to me. I asked to observe their experience and person was just web browsing lol.
    • major505 2y ago
      PRetty much. I have a Android Tablet. The only way I could use for work was to SSH into my server. But using nvim all the time have its limitations. Sometimes you need an IDE. So I just give up, and now is collecting dust.
• kypro 2y ago
  Could someone who feels passionately about this help me understand why? In my eyes the ad was clearly trying to be playful and metaphoric. I feel like people are are taking the ad far too seriously and literally then jumping to the conclusion that it's implying a message that very obviously wasn't intended. I'm not saying the ad couldn't have been better, but I can't understand the controversy here at all. Yet, I seem to be in a small minority. Could someone explain specifically what it is that they find upsetting about the ad? And not just "they crushed real objects", but specifically why it is that you find that so troubling, etc? Objects get broken all the time for media for lesser purposes and with much less creativity. Is it the context here that is the problem?
  • Clubber 2y ago
    It's probably a manufactured outrage campaign.
• freetime2 2y ago
  I liked it, for the same reason I’ll occasionally watch videos on YouTube of things getting crushed in a hydraulic press. Morbid curiosity, I guess. It also looks like a decent amount of craftsmanship went into shooting and editing it. I would be curious to know how much was real vs. CGI. I can understand how people could find it distasteful with its almost pornographic depiction of destruction. But still, it feels like people are almost going out of their way to get offended by this. That being said, I think Apple is smart to apologize. It doesn’t cost them anything, it softens some of the negativity surrounding the story, and probably got the new iPads an extra day of coverage in the news cycle.
  • Clubber 2y ago
    >But it feels like people are almost going out of their way to get offended by this. After all the news about this, I finally watched it. I don't get why people are complaining. It's either a ploy by Apple marketing to get people to watch it, or manufactured outrage by news sites trying to get clicks. What an artificial world we live in today.
• TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
  One of the tells of narcissism is love bombing followed by entitlement followed by covert and overt devaluation and antagonism. Seems we're at the late stage now.
• sph 2y ago
  Jesus... this is not even worth to being called a 'first-world problem', yet this apparently seems to be an important issue to most of HN and "social media," judging by the comments herein. I believe the apt suggestion is to go and "touch grass."
• tokai 2y ago
  It's othering to the extreme seeing people get so riled up by this. Some years ago the "kids in Africa could have eaten that inedible-object" meme was popular to make fun of people that gets angry about other people destroying or throwing away their own property. Guess we need to bring it back. If you get a strong emotional response to this ad your emotional priorities are seriously out of calibration.
• FpUser 2y ago
  BTW Dang, why am I flagged for submitting info about the same thing?
• epolanski 2y ago
  I really don't understand why the internet needs to turn everything into a stupid argument.. Who cares of an Apple ad...
  • zulban 2y ago
    I wonder how much of the outrage is just manufactured by a marketing firm. I noted that mainstream outlets were writing about the outrage when the youtube clip had just 70,000 views.
    • epolanski 2y ago
      This as well. This outrage made the ad seen 10 times more than it would've been otherwise.
  • madhato 2y ago
    I honestly don't even feel like I live in the same world as the majority of commenters on the Internet anymore. To be outraged because apple crushed some stuff for an ad is a new low, or I guess a new high for fake hysterically.
  • can16358p 2y ago
    People want to get offended by literally everything, even a harmless ad. They just want to attack something.
• IAmGraydon 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • FpUser 2y ago
    >"The group that whines about this kind of thing" Can't speak for artists, but I do not whine. I just simply find it tasteless and disgusting.
  • layer8 2y ago
    It's not a "group", the ad was distasteful, and one has to wonder how it got approved.
  • drowsspa 2y ago
    Imagine being so deep in the woods in anti-victim-culture culture that you concoct an association even in such an unrelated complaint like this distasteful ad.
  • maxbond 2y ago
    > The group that whines about this kind of thing will find a reason to whine regardless of content. Serious question - do you feel that all complaints in society are from the same group? And that group is, "the group of people who complain?" That doesn't seem a bit circular to you? Do you think that kind of attitude might blind you to who is complaining about what and why?
  • helpfulmandrill 2y ago
    It isn't victim culture to not like an advert. Apple's customers don't like the advert. There's not point in Apple arguing with them. Its like trying to argue with someone about whether a joke is funny. If they didn't laugh the first time, having a debate about it just makes it worse.
    • NotYourLawyer 2y ago
      Not liking it is one thing. Being offended and hurt is another.
• steve1977 2y ago
  "You‘ll see why 2024 will be even worse than '1984'"
  • raverbashing 2y ago
    1984 "See why you need Apple to crush the boring industrialist vision" 2024 "Giant faceless industrial hoodrolic press goes brrrrr on art and creativity" (with apologies to HP Channel)
• discopicante 2y ago
  I'm wondering if this is a consequence of employing your own internal ad agency – maybe you are at risk of being out of touch with the audiences you are looking to reach. Apple ads (created by TBWAChiatDay) used to be part of the Zeitgeist: 1984, Think Different, iPod silhouette, Mac vs. PC, etc. Now the only Apple ads that people talk about are the cringiest of the cringe: this iPad ad, the 'Mother Earth' bit from last year's iPhone/Watch keynote, etc.
• icar 2y ago
  I think this ad is exquisite. I wish people reacted this euphorically for more important things.
• nbzso 2y ago
  You cannot talk brand identity here. Most of the people here don't know what pays those big salaries. They think that clean code, scrum, pair programming, CI, CD are the critical points of a corporation. Yes, I am arrogant. Because I read here from 2008, and I know some things. Apple is just too big of a corporation to be adequate anymore. This ad is a total f*k up. Apple is build over the work and ideas of creative people. This is the direct result of nepotism in a corporate ladder and design by committee.
• refurb 2y ago
  This ad worked perfectly. I never would have heard about it had people not gotten upset by it. Apple "apologizes" then counts the money as it flows in.
• readmemyrights 2y ago
  The biggest thing that makes me wonder about this ad is: "why?". It certainly costed more to make than an average ad, regardless if it was CGI or real, it should be obvious to anybody who has ever itneracted with humans why crushing a bunch of instruments and tools they use would be a bad idea, all to get it mention more often thanks to society's backlash? Apple isn't some newcomer who needs all the attention they can get, every man, woman, child, dog and cat who can afford apple products has heard of them and I doubt hearing about the brand new iPad pro a million times more is going to change their decision to buy it or not. Most of their userbase is people up to their eyes in the apple ecosystem, all they have to do is send a push notification about the newest iProduct, initiate the planned obsolescence procedure, and watch the cash pour in, the rest would just need to see an ad about the amazing new health app or whatever with a suttel subtext of "and if you don't buy this you're a poor low-status chump lol". But again, I don't run a trillion+ dollar tech company so what do I know? This also reminds me of those 4chan pranks where they tell people that the new software update made the iPhone waterproof or they can charge it by putting it in a microwave. This time they wouldn't even have to make fake ads: "look, apple said new iPad can't be crushed, post a tiktok of yourself stomping your iPad nothing can go wrong!" (disclaimer: the previous text in quotes is in quotes for a reason; don't do that to any of your devices. There's no warranty to the extent permitted by law, etc etc).
  • fullshark 2y ago
    1. Conveys the idea that the ipad has all these creative / cultural digital services on it 2. Conveys the idea that it's thinner than ever 3. Seeing stuff get destroyed by a hydraulic press is attention grabbing, and gets you to look at the TV during that commercial break. I get why they did it, it's striking. They just didn't understand just how massive the freakout in the creative arts industry is right now over technology companies, and why it would cause a backlash.
    • marcosdumay 2y ago
      On #1, people were very well aware of it already. All this ad does is making them reconsider the company's intent and see it as an enemy trying to destroy the services, instead of a friend making them easier to get. On #2, it doesn't do that very well. For a start, the press never smashes the tablet itself. This commercial is very well done with the purpose of making people revolt. Every element is perfect. I wonder if there was some miscommunication and the authors expected the scenes to be used in a different way.
• bilsbie 2y ago
  They should have just run the video in reverse and it would have gotten the same point across and been a lot rosier.
• mindwok 2y ago
  It’s not my place to tell anyone how they should feel about anything, but the number of comments here suggesting people had a strong emotional reaction to this does kinda worry me. How do those of you who feel so strongly about this ad get through daily life? If I was feeling so upset about something like this, life would be pretty bad. Genuine question. EDIT: I appreciate the amount of good-faith discussion on this comment. To be clear, if your reaction to the ad was along the lines of ‘this is distasteful and I don’t like it’, I totally get that. I’m referring to some of the comments I saw that likened it to ‘stress inducing’ or ‘like watching someone’s arm get cut off’ which are much more emotive.
  • thinkingtoilet 2y ago
    I agree. This a the quote from the article, someone called it the "destruction of human experience". We have to be a little bit tougher than this, right?
    • red_trumpet 2y ago
      I agree that one can see the ad as depicting "destruction of human experience". This does not mean that my day is ruined after viewing the ad. Disliking the ad and calling it what it is does not mean one is not tough.
    • waynesonfire 2y ago
      and i'm shocked that your response is to tell people to man up cry babies. maybe try reflecting why there was a reaction to the ad from a human experience perspective. there is a reason apple appologized instead of telling them to man up as you're suggesting.
      • camillomiller 2y ago
        The fact that you think it’s normal to use the word “shocked” to describe how you feel after reading an anonymous comment on an internet board about a tv ad ironically reinforces the entire point.
      • 2y ago
• keepamovin 2y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc Omg. It's like the Apple X indie-horror-movie crossover. Hmmm, this is why Steve Jobs is needed. This ad is such Ballmeresque — meaning Tim must be asleep at the wheel, or, more likely, on his Vision Pro while his Tesla takes over directions. haha! :)
  • keepamovin 2y ago
    Tho honestly on further reflection I kind of liked that ad. Edgy and cool and YouTube esque in an ironic way. I think I was just channeling a common resentment for it… I don’t actually think it’s terrible. Sorry, Tim and Apple haha! :)
• keepamovin 2y ago
  They have apologized! Send them to re-education!!! Cancel the execution.
• DavidPiper 2y ago
  This ad feels unnerving for, I think, non-obvious reasons, beyond just the raw destruction of artistic tools. In music and sound effects from horror genres and other "scary" things, playing very high pitches with very low pitches makes us anxious - our brains are wired to perceive high pitches as safe and low pitches as menacing[1]. If they're both happening at the same time, our brain gets stuck trying to figure out WTF IS GOING ON, which makes us anxious. A similar thing happens with this ad: cheerful music while apparently senseless destruction (the reveal doesn't happen until the end) is taking place. IIRC one of the Fallout games did this too - post-fallout world but upbeat country music as the theme? The gasoline fight scene in Zoolander. Etc, etc. Anyway, these kinds of juxtapositions are SUPPOSED to make our brains feel uncomfortable. I imagine this was interpreted by the ad people as "edgy" or "surprising" or "innovative". But it's still going to make people who aren't sensitised to it feel uncomfortable. Anyway just my take. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-u9YDDrTFo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-u9YDDrTFo
  • 12_throw_away 2y ago
    This is a really good observation, it's uncomfortable to watch and listen to even beyond the really obvious but apparently unintended symbolism. The music is off, the sound is off, so many weird decisions here ... some ad exec using ChatGPT instead of doing their job?
  • mhink 2y ago
    Yeah, I got these vibes too, but especially from the cinematography. It was kinda _lingering_ on all the little ways each item strained and broke under the weight of the press, almost like it was something to savor. It was weirdly voyeuristic, in a way.
• tkdev2 2y ago
  I liked the Ad. Bunch of snowflakes who got offended by it.
• farceSpherule 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • red_trumpet 2y ago
    One may argue that Apple is to blame for both instances ;-)
• NotYourLawyer 2y ago
  Is there anything people won’t get offended about? It’s a harmless ad, kinda funny. How do you make it through the day if you’re this thin-skinned?
  • bsagdiyev 2y ago
    From upset to upset I suppose. Being perpetually upset has to be tiring.
• jgrahamc 2y ago
  What Apple should have done is play off of "Honey, I shrunk the kids". Get Rick Moranis out of retirement to accidentally shrink all those instruments and everything else into an iPad.
• rchaud 2y ago
  I've never seen a commercial that could also work as Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat" metaphor. One size fits all, indeed. This dystopian ad is far more emblematic of Apple today than the bland Disneyfied ads they normally make. All these arcade cabinets, vinyl records and expensive instruments are things Apple has tried to flatten into a skeumorphic touchscreen simulacrum for years.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• geoffbp 2y ago
  All publicity is good publicity? Maybe not?
• tejohnso 2y ago
  It's en vogue to elevate your personal negative experiences above all else, and to make them known as publicly as possible. It's not always honest. You can go online and rage about how offended you are about something, and then ten seconds later be laughing about whatever nonsense tiktok decided to show you. It's disingenuous theatre for social media points.
• matei88 2y ago
  There is no such thing as bad publicity. If the purpose of an ad is to get people talking about your product, than i say that Apple hit its mark.
• skc 2y ago
  I still think Apple should be pretty damn proud of the fact that so many generations later they still have a brand so powerful that this misstep can cause such a furor. Any other company would have been able to put out this ad and nobody would care.
• fragmede 2y ago
  By playing it backwards the things come into being instead of being destroyed. https://www.threads.net/@fragmede/post/C6yYhCHRlM9 https://www.threads.net/@fragmede/post/C6yYhCHRlM9
• rglover 2y ago
  That was a genius ad...what's all the fuss about?
  • can16358p 2y ago
    People need to be offended by something. They chose a random innocent Apple ad this time.
• todd8 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • bambax 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • amgcbus 2y ago
      I was flowing you until the analogy of crushing babies.
      • davidmurdoch 2y ago
        Same. Replace condoms with abortion clinic and the analogy might a little more accurate - but only because I suspect some will see it as story about murdering souls and some will see it as beneficial and necessary. But even then it's still quite a stretch.
      • bambax 2y ago
        I chose the analogy to try to reach people who don't find absolutely revolting the sight of musical instruments or photo lenses being destroyed. I have spent most of my childhood dreaming that someday, maybe, I would own a prime photo lens and a trumpet. To see a big company make a mockery of those artefacts of human creativity almost makes me cry (it actually hurts a little).
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    • heeton 2y ago
      There's a real element of media literacy (or lack thereof) that we have to consider in this issue. What was the intent of the media? This is obviously open to interpretation, but to me I see the intent being that all these tools for creative expression are being combined/squashed/pressed into this thing which is very thin. That's why they chose the press. They also chose the press because it looks visually interesting, they are trying to make a fun ad. I really can't imagine that anyone in that ad was trying to imply that the iPad destroys those objects, or that those objects should be destroyed, or are now valueless. They are saying that this device contains the functionality of all these big items squashed into one crazy tiny thing. Amazement at what it can do, NOT a desire to destroy or make obsolete real pianos. From that viewpoint, it's clear they VERY clumsily applied a metaphor (combining + crushing into the iPad) with a visually fun thing (the explosions), resulting in people thinking they want to destroy pianos. But importantly (if one takes the above as true, which you may not), you can't then say that the ad is trying to "tell that those tools are valueless, obsolete, objects of ridicule", that's not the intent of the author.
• pard68 2y ago
  Great ad. The part where the little stress ball rolls out and gets crushed was a good laugh. I wonder if this was CGI or if they really crushed that stuff.
• dunekid 2y ago
  Looks like someone watched too much of those hydraulic press vs things videos. Of all the ways to send the message that iPad is a creative device, which can become the instrument of choice, they went with this.
• sebastianconcpt 2y ago
  The 3D Printed world made Flat and sold as a UI improvement.
• righthand 2y ago
  Actually what’s great about it is that the tone is the exact opposite of the famous commercial where the individualist shatters the mind control movie. However they both share this soulless concrete aesthetic. Apple is now the soulless corporate machine. Love to see Apple fail and not realize it’s own failure, that is modern Apple.
• unobatbayar 2y ago
  Personally, I liked everything about the ad.
• ClarityJones 2y ago
  I surprised Apple approved the add, because it depicts the brand as a soul-crushing industrial force. The machine is a beast of steel and hydraulic pressure, which constantly bears down against a variety of fun and inspiring things. I don't really care about the particular items that were destroyed, but the theme is clearly one of destruction. We don't see the iPad being made. We see what is literally depicted as a remanent. That's not how Apple should want their brand or their products viewed. Edit: What's concerning is that Apple is smart. People watched this ad and I have to assume they thought what I thought. So... what's the psychology of deciding to convey this message? Is it a threat? Is it narrative-forming? Is it subversive admission (canary) from within the company? I mean... it's very reminiscent of the 1984 ad, except with Apple being the machine. Of course, it's also possible that they just made a mistake of judgment and missed the mark, as they say. IDK
• mrcwinn 2y ago
  It’s a metaphor for squeezing all the great things into a thin device. It’s unreal, the reaction to this.
• donatj 2y ago
  I enjoyed the ad for the same reason I and millions of others enjoy The Hydraulic Press Channel [1], its just fun to watch stuff get squished. I imagine that's "what they were thinking", for the cadre that keep asking "what were they thinking?" I genuinely have trouble seeing how in good faith the ad could have been interpreted as anything other than "This is all the stuff that's being put into your iPad" - https://youtube.com/@hydraulicpresschannel https://youtube.com/@hydraulicpresschannel
• nojvek 2y ago
  Take the Apple Ad in Contrast to the Microsoft Ad that aired during Super Bowl. The whole time I thought it was an Apple Ad and then it was Microsoft Copilot ad. The made me dream, made me feel I could do more. The ad was about the viewer. https://youtu.be/SaCVSUbYpVc https://youtu.be/SaCVSUbYpVc See the Apple Siri Ad - it’s about how the device enhances the viewer to do more. https://youtu.be/8HaEmu-qkD4 https://youtu.be/8HaEmu-qkD4 Apple has now turned into what they despised. I absolutely loved the Epic ad that was a take of the original Apple ad which was based on 1984. Apple - https://youtu.be/VtvjbmoDx-I https://youtu.be/VtvjbmoDx-I Epic - https://youtu.be/euiSHuaw6Q4 https://youtu.be/euiSHuaw6Q4 It’s fair to say if Steve Jobs was still calling shots, this Ad would have never aired. The Ad shows everything wrong with Apple. They’ve become a soulless corporation.
• zameermfm 2y ago
  Ad was distasteful and horrible. Biggest problem I see is that, Nobody in the apple decision making body thought this 'missed the mark', it took a global reaction for them to get it. Wonder how deep they are in their lair with a pigeonholed view of the life.
• sneak 2y ago
  Good art is art that makes you feel something. The ending of Requiem For A Dream is good art, as is this ad. It may be unfit for purpose as an ad, given how many people reacted with negative emotions, but I don’t think they did anything wrong that warrants an apology (except perhaps to their shareholders for running what may turn out to be an ineffective ad). Then again, all publicity is good publicity. I liked that the ad had a hollywood destruction-for-destruction’s sake spectacle to it. I wondered how much was CG and how much wasn’t, and how much stuff was actually destroyed. Some of the closeup shots must have been practical, or CG these days is way better than I realized. It ultimately doesn’t matter, though. Destruction on this scale is irrelevant.
• nico 2y ago
  This has been at the front of HN for 10+ hours and has almost 300 points Seems like there really is no bad publicity
  • userbinator 2y ago
    But will this publicity help Apple sell more iPads?
    • Workaccount2 2y ago
      Probably. People forget that it's something like 5% of people who participate in online discussions, and it tends to be the most vocal outrage prone people. I would guess the average person will see the headline, watch the ad, and think "Meh, it was kinda neat....anyway let me check out what the new iPad offers."
• millzlane 2y ago
  The message they were trying to convey was clear. All that shit you can replace with an iPad. I think they hit the mark. You can make a basket of puppies sound like the end of the world with the right words. There is nothing wrong with that ad.
  • hn92726819 2y ago
    I'm curious if they CGI'd your basket of puppies in there (after all, you can take puppy pictures on your iPad!), would you not be bothered by it at least a little bit?
  • kristofferR 2y ago
    Why not crush the basket of puppies? You can watch videos of puppies on an iPad.
• maxrobeyns 2y ago
  My initial reaction to the ad, upon watching it in the launch event was "huh, that's a fun reference to the Hydraulic Press Channel". The slapstick elements (trumpet noise, squishy balls) made it come across as light-hearted, rather than an ominous display of force by a large company crushing artists' tools. This idea of 'squashing all these tools down to a thin slab of glass' made sense given their somewhat unusual focus on the thinness of the device. It was a bit of a throwback to the early 2010s smartphone innovation, where the size of the devices was the yardstick by which manufacturers would outdo each other. I would charitably interpret it as an uninspired marketing team trying to spin some version of Jobs' classic "the iPhone is simultaneously an iPod, phone and internet device" - however the party trick is old, and nobody's impressed anymore. Perhaps the blowback is a sign of a wider weariness that people have accumulated towards big tech companies over the past few years, mixed with a nebulous malaise about 'AI' and what it means for the status quo and people's livelihoods.
  • matwood 2y ago
    > It was a bit of a throwback to the early 2010s smartphone innovation It was also a throwback to the original iPhone announcement bringing all these separate functions into one.
  • JohnFen 2y ago
    The clear meaning I got from the ad was: we want to destroy everything and make you buy our product instead. I know that wasn't what they were going for (I'm pretty sure, anyway), but it's very hard for me to interpret it differently. I never connected it to the hydraulic press channel at all for some reason.
    • mattgreenrocks 2y ago
      You either get the symbolism of "let's crush all remaining vestiges of creative culture" or you don't. If you don't, that's fine. Policing the extent of people's reactions doesn't make for constructive conversation, and, ironically, is merely a different form of "over-reaction."
• squigglydonut 2y ago
  This is why I am embarrassed to tell people I work in tech.
  • Clubber 2y ago
    >This is why I am embarrassed to tell people I work in tech. Because of the ad, or because all the people complaining about the ad?
    • squigglydonut 2y ago
      Simply because of the ad :(. It's so cold. I think people are justified to feel that way but it's clinging on to old era Apple. For awhile now apple has lost it's humanity. It's sad but I think it's over and I think it's time for something new.
• stephc_int13 2y ago
  One of the reason this ad was so badly received is that Apple reputation has been degrading for a while now. And we're seeing the tipping point, they are in their villain arc, not sure if they can repair that. Reputation is built by the drop, and consumed by the bucket.
  • hobbescotch 2y ago
    Their Apple vision ad was very dystopian feeling and to me looks like the same team did this one. They seem really out of touch. Very negative vibes in these recent ads.
    • stephc_int13 2y ago
      Ultimately, this is Tim Cook. The guy is a control freak, pretty much like Jobs was, but with different views and taste. I find Tim Cook presence extremely chilling, highly sociopathic vibes.
• Smithalicious 2y ago
  It's a great ad. 620 comments on hacker news, got me to watch it voluntarily even though I never see ads. Even got me to share it with someone else. Ads don't exist to make you feel good, they exist to make you notice them.
  • marcosdumay 2y ago
    Except that it makes some of the most relevant Apple customers see them as an enemy that is out to crush their dreams... and are sharing it so their friends get the memo and feel the same way.
  • kccqzy 2y ago
    I watched it and then resolved to never buy an iPad again. I'm sharing it with people who will make the same resolution.
• romille 2y ago
  Pretty sure this backlash is orchestrated as part of the campaign itself to boost the visibility of the ad. The proof is: here we are talking about it.
• breadwinner 2y ago
  Here's a better implementation of a similar concept. Instead of crushing musical instruments and other nice things in your life, those nice things merge into... a Blackberry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iQ9oepKScE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iQ9oepKScE
• yousif_123123 2y ago
  I didn't like the ad. I think the people creating it wanted to imply that it's as if they took all these things and put it in an iPad, where you can still achieve all the creativity while carrying a thin device. I don't think it's impossible to convey that message without destroying instruments and creative tools that are precious to so many. Maybe if they had made the animation very fast it would've appeared as a joke and not something intended to be taken literally. Also could've had some artist exit a studio, take the iPad, do a whole bunch of stuff, then go back to the studio and kind of test out/use the tools while reading from the iPad or something like that. I know some people are saying the reaction is too strong, but trust me if you practice on a piano daily you will not feel good watching it get crushed. I don't even work in marketing or own any Apple devices.
  • mateus1 2y ago
    It is also a false equivalence. An iPad will never replicate the beauty of a human playing a piano or a violin. It’s dumb consumerism trying to make us believe that life comes down to buying rather than living.
    • wilsonnb3 2y ago
      > An iPad will never replicate the beauty of a human playing a piano or a violin. I mean, one of its primary uses is to replicate the beauty of a human playing piano or violin via videos and recordings. Aside from that, isn’t this just an appeal to tradition? An iPad is a tool just like a piano or the violin, people make beautiful music with them all the time. I am sure there were curmudgeons saying that the piano and violin would never replicate the beauty of the human voice when they were the top technology of the day.
      • eweise 2y ago
        They might make beautiful music but not beautiful piano music. The piano must exist in order to be recorded into the ipad, and recording isn't unique to ipads. You could play the piano samples via midi from the ipad but hundreds of other devices can also do that and that still wouldn't replicate from the player's perspective, actually playing a piano or and audiences experience of actually hearing a piano.
• boringg 2y ago
  It was a depressing advertisement. I don't know why you would want that to be your message as a company. I know that wasn't their intention but thats what the message came across as. Some arm of the company doesn't allow people to speak up if they have reservations about something -> thats how that one made it through the quality filter. AKA there were people on the inside definitely knew that there would be a backlash on this but probably weren't allowed to speak up.
• baby 2y ago
  Overreaction of the century
• sircastor 2y ago
  For folks questioning or arguing why someone might have a strong emotional reaction to this, and still carry a phone in their pocket, or still use Apple products daily, or even just like Apple… Humans are complex. We do things that aren’t in our best interest, we make bad calls, change our minds, have split opinions about things. We’re hypocrites. And that’s okay. We live in a complex world where the consequences of any decision have vast positive and negative effects, setting off further complex consequences. It can be overwhelming and while we probably want to live by a single, dependable, rational, reasonable code-of-ethics, often we’re just trying to make it through the day.
• dghughes 2y ago
  That was real stuff not CG? Ohh. Yeah that seems unnecessary these days of ultra-real computer graphics.
• olliecornelia 2y ago
  [dead]
• karaterobot 2y ago
  This feels like another example of people getting mad at a depiction of a thing rather than at the actual thing. Like getting mad at violence in movies, or at books with racism in them. Yeah, big tech is actively trying to take away your livelihoods, and you can interpret this commercial as accidentally symbolizing that. But the problem is that it's actually happening, not that they filmed a skit about it. The commercial doesn't make it worse, and you don't get anything in return for all the effort required to get pissed off about it. Even if posting an angry rant on Twitter doesn't burn a lot of calories, you'd still be better off doing almost anything else.
  • fullshark 2y ago
    How do you attack the actual thing? Some are trying with copyright lawsuits and potential gov't policy proposals I guess but it's much easier to attack a single company and get an army of outraged allies over something easily digestible (an advertisement).
    • karaterobot 2y ago
      I agree that there's two things: doing something about it, which is hard, and complaining about it, which is easy. What I'm saying is, if you're going to complain about something, might as well complain about the real problem rather than a harmless symbolic representation of the problem.
• knbrlo 2y ago
  Even if it didn't have the intended effect of making everyone feel good, at least everyone is talking about it so in a sense it worked in Apple's favor.
• throw20away 2y ago
  [flagged]
• jamesbfb 2y ago
  The comments on the wider internet reminds me of the 90s and 2000s when bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Silverchair were being ridiculed for smashing up their instruments on stage. We’ve come full circle.
• jononomo 2y ago
  I thought the ad was arrogant and dystopian.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• surfingdino 2y ago
  It's about Apple not reading the room. The creative community see that AI vendors assume that they have the right to ingest IP without compensation, train their models on it, resell derivative works based on it, and there is nothing that can be done about it. Then Apple releases this stupid ad suggesting that all tools of the creative profession will be destroyed after they get packaged into a tablet that can do nothing by itself unless it is loaded with samples and algorithms based on the creative works of others. In short, artists are being told that while AI is stealing value from them and their creations, Apple will steal their tools and creations and put them behind the iPad paywall. It's one more middle finger to the creatives from the company that used to say "Think Different". Stupid and unnecessary.
• soci 2y ago
  What’s most surprising is how the ad went live without nobody pressing the ”Retry” button to build a new ad idea, neither in the chain of command at Apple nor at the creative agency, if any. It’s like everybody everybody, one after the other in the chain of decisions, eluded their responsability. Why?
• throwaway984393 2y ago
  [dead]
• smm11 2y ago
  Next up they'll show a giant press destroy the world, other than one guy's house, then the guy puts on V2 Vision Pro and is in "the world" again.
• vlark 2y ago
  It's tone deaf, for sure, but it's really a bad ad because Apple isn't showing any originality but simply ripping off an old LG ad: https://9to5mac.com/2024/05/09/controversial-ipad-pro-crush-ad-lg/ https://9to5mac.com/2024/05/09/controversial-ipad-pro-crush-...
• bongoman42 2y ago
  Personally, given how much people have shared the ad, I would say it was a successful ad. I pretty much try to avoid all ads, and rarely remember any, but this one came in my twitter feed at least 50 times if not more and all of these were organic reshares by folks I follow. Given how Apple purchases work I think it would only positively impact their bottom line. Overall, I didn't like the ad at all but it is memorable at a visceral level.
• dogman144 2y ago
  This ad said the quiet part out loud about what the average technologist thinks of the average liberal arts pursuit. It just had to manifest as an ad from an insulated marketing dept for it to finally happen “in the open.” No surprises, and it was nice to see it out stated clearly.
  • vessenes 2y ago
    I, like a lot of people, just hated the ad, although I liked it in reverse. If there's a single product company that hires technologists who also love the arts, it's Apple -- this campaign was just mismanaged by someone who missed the point, and didn't understand Apple's history very well. Also, apparently, the ipad is really thin, so maybe they got overexcited :)
    • chankstein38 2y ago
      Agreed, I definitely think the reverse is better. It gets the same point across while implying the new ipad is bursting at the seams with all of these cultural tools. I wasn't offended by the destruction or anything just straight up kind of a dumb commercial.
    • dogman144 2y ago
      A technology company that loves the arts and shows it by paternalistically crushing all of its implements and saying “trust us this iPad is better than your heirloom piano or silly books.” Right on trend. They might love it, but they don’t understand it, and per the last 20 years love unemploying it.
  • duped 2y ago
    It's hard to remove this ad from the context of the current market for artistic services, which have always been undervalued by non-artists (eg: "give me this for free so you get exposure!"), which is under assault from AI startups that think they're making the world better by killing the most human parts of our economy. Artists are really being stung by AI right now. And Apple, ostensibly the darling tech company for artists, puts out an ad literally crushing artistic tools and telling you to buy an iPad to replace them. By the way, it has the most powerful neural engine ever. It's not just tone deaf, it's insulting.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• INTPenis 2y ago
  They made a cheetah run along a Jeep. Who cares? This is only outrage because people want to be outraged at Apple. And I don't own a single Apple product telling you this.
  • hk__2 2y ago
    See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40314035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40314035
    • INTPenis 2y ago
      No, you see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40322371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40322371 It was all just stolen from an LG ad in 2009. And nobody got upset at that. So clearly this is about Apple as a brand evoking emotions and fake outrage.
• robbyiq999 2y ago
  Waiting the for future disclaimer; “No Bric A Brac was harmed in the making of this ad”
• bittercynic 2y ago
  Very few ads feel like art to me, but this one did. The message to me is anti-tech, though. All these wonderful things are taken away from us, and instead we just get an iPad. I mean, I have an iPad, and it's a cool gadget, but it's obviously no replacement for any one of the instruments getting crushed.
• password54321 2y ago
  Wasn't the exploding emoji an obvious giveaway that this wasn't supposed to be taken that seriously and was partly in jest? I think we may just have a lot of pent-up anger.
• largbae 2y ago
  They got more attention with this apology than they would have gotten with any ad, at least from this crew.
• can16358p 2y ago
  Some people just like to get offended by literally everything, even an ad with objects crushing. Sigh.
• nsxwolf 2y ago
  I liked it. It was fun to watch stuff get smashed and paint explode all over the place. All that stuff gets squished into the iPad. Get it? I got it.
  • can16358p 2y ago
    Yup I loved it too, yet the Internet People need to attack something, so they picked this ad today.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• readingnews 2y ago
  Does the Verge even proofread? In a linked article (https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/9/24152987/apple-crush-ad-piano-ipad https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/9/24152987/apple-crush-ad-pi...) they claim: >> Watching a piano, which if maintained can last for something like 50 years Something like 50? I know people who own pianos which are "something like" 150 years old, and I do not know many people with a piano. Some are _centuries_ old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortepiano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortepiano
• brentm 2y ago
  We're a very fortunate generation of people to be so concerned over this ad.
• jesprenj 2y ago
  I think the ad is very cool and I like it.
• trollied 2y ago
  LG did the same ad 15 years ago & nobody got worked up about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo
• yungporko 2y ago
  i didn't think it was a great ad but they certainly don't owe anybody an apology. besides, i guarantee that there's no overlap at all in the venn diagram of people complaining about it vs potential ipad pro buyers.
  • behnamoh 2y ago
    If you think Apple didn't owe anybody an apology then you don't know how corporate world works in competitive free markets.
    • yungporko 2y ago
      if you think the few people who were miffed about a lame advertisement could have any perceptible effect on apples bottom line whatsoever then i'd say it seems you know less about the market than i do.
• havblue 2y ago
  I'm trying to put a pin in exactly why this is offensive. Yes, you do lose fidelity in digitizing an analog signal, but I don't think that's exactly the problem. I think it's related to the fact that an ipad isn't just a tool. It's a branded consumer product that has a (relatively) short lifespan. When Apple Corp decides that the device will no longer be supported, it will crease it function. So buying a tablet isn't buying all those art supplies and instruments crammed into one device. You're buying a window into the Appleverse. And yeah I do think that's dystopian.
  • hbosch 2y ago
    >I'm trying to put a pin in exactly why this is offensive. While the corporate read of this would be "look, we've crammed all this cool stuff into an impossibly thin device!", which was probably the marketing pitch... the subtext of an ad like to most regular people is "we are here to destroy and replace everything that you already love".
    • chefkd 2y ago
      That's what is confusing a little bit I wonder if people said that about horses when they were replaced by cars isn't the one thing that's constant in this world change? A whole ecosystem that relied on horses being the main mode of transportation died
      • chrisjj 2y ago
        I missed the advert depicting horses crushed to make cars. Thankfully.
  • colechristensen 2y ago
    It’s offensive because the message is “we want to destroy all of these real things and replace them with a simulation that we sell you”. Apple is trying to kill the competition and the competition are now the people who make paintbrushes, violins, etc etc. With more and more things being mass produced, simulated, and faked, people increasingly value things that feel “real”. Apple with this add is explicitly claiming to destroy the real and trying to sell that.
• moosemess 2y ago
  [flagged]
• Tokkemon 2y ago
  Bets on how some executive saw their kid really into the hydraulic press channels and said, "We gotta get in on this! Here's piles of money."
• graypegg 2y ago
  Just on the meta-discussion of "who cares about dissecting some ad": It's alright to consider implied meaning in media IMO. Just because it's misinterpreted by the standards of what the ad team wanted to accomplish, doesn't mean it WASN'T interpreted by people. Maybe "outrage" is a bit useless if it's only there for screaming at people online, but talking about how crushing things that people love sends the wrong message, is a good thing for people to do. It's not exaggerating at all to me. A lot of people will see this ad spot, and each one is going to form some idea about what it means. That's a lot of power to give Apple.
  • beefnugs 2y ago
    As easy as it is to interpret it as "fuck your cherished things! get indoctrinated by tech" It is just because tech's true colors have really exposed themselves as of late to be money grubbing criminals to the extreme. It is inevitable that any corporation of sufficient size (only acheivable by evil) will stop being able to be "cute" advertising anymore
    • graypegg 2y ago
      I could imagine some other ways of making this spot that I think would've changed the mood but still be cute. At a certain level of evil though, you have to poke at yourself. Imagine some big team of apple engineers running around music halls and art galleries with notepads (or iPads with an apple pencil), taking notes on everything they see. Cut back to factory, everyone is working on some comically Apple version of an artistic instrument. I'd absolutely get a laugh out of a big metal and glass piano or a solid aluminium canvas. These are obviously... framed as not ideal. Followed up by one of them frustratedly scrolling around on their iPhone in the break room, realizing lots of posts say "made on procreate on my iPad" or "garageband on iPad". Running back to the factory setting, hurriedly throwing everything in the crusher. Smush. New thin iPad.
  • havblue 2y ago
    I wonder if it's just about the ad or how we feel about the company. My uncontroversial opinion of apple is that they want us to spend as much of our lives in their hyperreal walled garden as possible. People might not have noticed if the ad was from, say, LG.
• rqtwteye 2y ago
  Does anybody actually watch ads? I think it’s been decades since I paid attention to an ad.
• racl101 2y ago
  I think Apple needs to go back to Mac guy and PC guy and have Mac guy give a play by play of their intent. It's not very clear.
• elzbardico 2y ago
  That people think this is a real press, that this bunch of objects in a real press would behave exactly like that, shows how our society is increasingly disconnected from the real, physical world and have no fucking idea of how a factory looks like.
  • mdhb 2y ago
    You are ironically doing the exact thing you are accusing others of but instead of being mad that people don’t know how a factory looks it’s you not understanding why people are upset at this and have very conveniently ended up at a position where: - everyone who doesn’t like it is dumb - you are a self proclaimed factory expert trying to pretend this is a physics argument which nobody claimed but you.
    • elzbardico 2y ago
      I don't care about the argument. I find it funny that a lot of people believe that a giant hydraulic press looks like that and is installed in an environment that looks like the engine room of a spaceship in a SciFi movie. It is a tangent observation.
• brandonmenc 2y ago
  You are a hopeless, overreacting child if this ad bothers you. I’m honestly shocked at the response I’m seeing here.
  • can16358p 2y ago
    Ssssh don't wake them up. They are just in the middle of their get-offended-by-literally-everything episode. Amazing how people here on HN can be so... anyway I don't want a ban.
• shwaj 2y ago
  I like to think that there are subversives working in ad agencies and that such gaffes are intentional. (I know it’s probably not true, it just makes the dystopia a bit more entertaining) In this case the subtext would be something like: AI is coming and will provide all of the content for the rubes to consume on their shiny iPads, and damn the creatives who used to make a meaningful living creating it. But at least we can raise a middle finger via this ad, and mock the execs who okayed it!
• wouldbecouldbe 2y ago
  The irony is that it know kind of feels like more honest then it's supposed to be, digital tools, with Apple leading the charge, crushing traditional artistry & creativity.
• logrot 2y ago
  You know when you see someone getting hurt, like slipping on ice and smacking their head? You can almost feel that pain reverb in your body, in a weird way. I felt the same when I saw the ad. It's awful.
• rybosworld 2y ago
  Did the ad miss the mark or did it perfectly encapsulate Apple's vision of the future?
• b1-88er 2y ago
  Amazing how many people have strong feelings about an Ad about the iPad.
• rhapsodic 2y ago
  [dead]
• causality0 2y ago
  Ads for multi-function products have featured the single-use products they're intended to replace being crushed, shoved into them, destroyed, thrown away, etc for decades. Artists are just extremely salty right now about being replaced by AI so they're sensitive. https://suno.com/song/eceb91f0-7d9b-4029-ba19-24b6520dcf19 https://suno.com/song/eceb91f0-7d9b-4029-ba19-24b6520dcf19
• winddude 2y ago
  Nothing like a commercial that say's we're going to make you a slave to our device and take away every human passion and pursuit of excellence. Brilliant strategy, wait nope... you're not supposed to let them know where the dark patterns lead.
• greentxt 2y ago
  It should have been going into the iPad, and then inside the iPad an expansive wonderland filled with all these great things. Opening, increasing, expanding. They did the exact opposite lol. They smooshed into a smaller thing; decreasing, narrowing, reducing. I think that may be their target demographic though. People who love apple want minimal, simple, less. So maybe it was genius after all. And they get free publicity because it’s controversial. Apple buyers will still buy the product. They want smooshed technology, or they’d be on Linux or Winblows.
• Joel_Mckay 2y ago
  The ad was strangely on brand for the process-centric parts of Apple that Steve Jobs oft lamented. If the biggest feature is the form-factor, than your team now has two problems.
• ted_bunny 2y ago
  The controversy is on purpose. The apology was planned. You're all giving them extra bang for the advertising buck.
• melenaboija 2y ago
  For my taste, the artistic part of the ad works, the marketing part awful. The music, photography, … definitely triggers something in me, but is creepy AF. The irony though, is that the creepy feeling is the reality to me, digital tools seem to be crushing the analog ones. And I don’t mean it as something bad as I am old, but it is how I feel about it.
• brushfoot 2y ago
  Apple won here. There will be no mass exodus, just engagement. That's what they aimed for, and that's what they got.
• twodave 2y ago
  Well I guess I’m just one of the ones who likes to watch the world burn. As a trumpet and guitar player, I watched that clip with great interest.
• tsunamifury 2y ago
  This seems like apples version of planned controversy for marketing traction.
• TaurenHunter 2y ago
  I feel like Apple said the quiet part out loud: they intend to replace creativity and all that surrounds it with a consumer-ready wafer-like device, sort of a Soylent Green replacement for human ingenuity.
• tsunamifury 2y ago
  The digital world is flattening our real experiences and selling the result back to you. The entire ad is performance art. The artists made an illustration of cruelty, then got the company and CEO to not only approve it but post it on their twitter. It’s incredible. Banks himself couldn’t pull off such a thing. I think a truly clever artist sold this under the radar to Apple and I applaud them.
• dzink 2y ago
  The ad did its job perfectly. It created controversy and that spread iPad news way further than paid ads do. It pays to be controversial, not good or on message these days.
• johnea 2y ago
  Do people actually care about this? Apple made a stupid commercial and everyone is traumatized? WTF?
• Log_out_ 2y ago
  Should have reversed the add..
• m3kw9 2y ago
  The fact there is a huge backlash on something like this shows how much free time people have
• ta1243 2y ago
  Ironic there's an angry bird there. I'm sure I had angry birds on my phone years ago, and I assume I paid for it, but it no longer seems to exist. It's not the only thing on my phone that has vanished. I had the recent monkey island, but that no longer exists I don't do apps any more, I'm happy to buy things, but it seems people aren't willing to sell them any more.
• outlore 2y ago
  There are some videos going around on Twitter that show the Apple ad in reverse. It's kind of cool how that simple change also reverses the impression of destruction into one of creation and appreciation for the arts
• ada1981 2y ago
  I thought it was cool. A bunch of stuff that would end up in a land fill anyway. People love to be offended these days.. and then apologizing for an ad? Apple went from 1984 to this…
  • CatWChainsaw 2y ago
    That iPad will end up in the same landfill in less time than the objects would have and be toxic to boot...
    • ada1981 2y ago
      They have a pretty solid exchange / buy back program and are working toward 100% recycled materials. Wild that some thrift store items are causing such a stir.
• perfmode 2y ago
  Perhaps it would have been palatable if the items had been compressed in a way that didn't seem destructive. There may be a collective resistance to playful depictions of destruction, possibly as an energetic response to the pervasive images of destruction from conflicts in Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza. This may not be the appropriate time for such depictions.
• 1024core 2y ago
  Everybody loves to get outraged over every little thing nowadays.
  • can16358p 2y ago
    I literally can't understand the mindset of people who get offended by an ad that crushes objects. Not animals, not humans, just objects to give a message, yet people get offended by this.
• sombragris 2y ago
  The ad is interesting because it is not exactly symbolic, but it's close to factual. There is a sort of hydraulic press on Cupertino. It has crushed, among other things: - 3.5mm headphone jack in cell phones - Physical keyboards in cell phones - Upgradeable RAM in laptops - User-replaceable batteries - Repairability and other things, I'm sure.
• tonymet 2y ago
  I appreciate that consumers finally vocalized their concern over cynicism & nihilism in advertising. It's a long term , downward trend of misanthropy , banality & nihilism in advertising messaging. Once you see it you can't unsee it. I hope this ad helps improve awareness.
• mvkel 2y ago
  I haven't seen anywhere but maybe this thread knows: all those objects were CGI, surely, right? Like I can't imagine it was possible to make the trumpet and other objects "crumple" at the perfect spot to not disrupt the Rube Goldberg crush cascade. If the objects were real, they must have destroyed a lot of pianos.
• sssilver 2y ago
  I can't comprehend the hubris it took to conceive the idea that an iPad could replace an acoustic piano. Heck, not even a piano -- that an iPad could replace the sheet music on that piano, typeset and printed beautifully on a piece of paper that has infinite resolution and incredible texture when you touch it.
• kernal 2y ago
  I like the fact that Apple left the ad up on YouTube. I was disappointed the comments were turned off as that would have been the real entertainment.
• Simon_ORourke 2y ago
  Will the marketing executive that green-lit this disaster face any career repercussions? I highly doubt it. Some junior VT tech will probably get all the blame and be forced to clear our their cubicle desk.
• elevatedastalt 2y ago
  This is very cultural. Eastern cultures, for eg. Indian, Asian etc. place a lot of respect in objects associated with learning or education or creation even if they are just objects. Indians never touch books with their feet, it's considered very disrespectful to the idea of education / learning, since a book is an embodiment of that. Likewise for musical instruments. Western cultural prides itself on its irreverence for conventions like these. And everything is viewed from a lens of individual freedom.
• fl0ki 2y ago
  Serious question: Did anyone already want to buy an iPad, but the ad made them not buy it in protest? I don't have the data, but I don't expect this to be very common. I don't watch TV ads and if it wasn't for the controversy I probably wouldn't have known it even existed. Either way, I would choose based on specs and reviews, not whether an ad had the right subtext.
  • brrrrrm 2y ago
    if anything the controversy increased sales. I watched the ad and thought it was pretty cool
• kernal 2y ago
  The irony in the ad was monumental. Apple crushed perfectly working objects of creativity that would have lasted for decades and some even centuries for an iPad that will become e-waste in 5–10 years.
• smsm42 2y ago
  That ad is the most cringy ad I've seen for a long time, which is a hard bar to clear. It makes me physically uneasy. And if you analyze it, it says "no matter who or what you are, a giant corporation would crush you and put you inside a very small shiny metal box, and you better like it".
• snappr021 2y ago
  An ironic way to say “Our devices are good. Put them down and go and play outside before the world around you disintegrates while you were distracted.”
• martini333 2y ago
  Classic "Someone should be offended", yet one one is.
• nottorp 2y ago
  I'm still waiting for the apologies for: - dumbing down mac os to make it more ios like (where's my location manager in Sonoma?) - having too low default ram in the base models (that one should be obvious) - the thinness fetish (isn't it enough that the iPad Pro has the M4? why did they spend development resources to also make it the thinnest ever?)
• wiseowise 2y ago
  Why didn’t they put their original Mac in there? Or an iPod?
• tracerbulletx 2y ago
  The iconography was very bad, but I thought it was kind of wild how many people were like "I now blame apple for all the bad things happening to creatives because of technology in general"
• notfed 2y ago
  1. "We apologize for this ad" 2. <keeps ad up on YouTube> 3. Profit
• newobj 2y ago
  They can never unring this bell in my mind
• Madmallard 2y ago
  I don’t understand the piano part like is there an app that does keyboard? Are they aware acoustic pianos sound better in person than any other piano sound implementation and it has basically always been that way?
• aldousd666 2y ago
  [flagged]
• fagrobot 2y ago
  great ad. cucks being cucks in a cuck empowered world
• _zoltan_ 2y ago
  [flagged]
• NiloCK 2y ago
  A stirring ad that captures my lived experience. They should do a follow-up with my friendships and family life.
• mjpuser 2y ago
  I dunno I thought it was well done. This is an entertaining trend on social media and they applied it to their product well.
• mrangle 2y ago
  I loved the commercial. Apple shouldn't have apologized. There was no hidden meaning in it. People are psychotic.
• adamtaylor_13 2y ago
  I have been blown away by how badly people took this. I don’t mean to take away from them, I mean to highlight how fucking CLUELESS I must be. I thought it was a clever commercial and I understood the message as it was intended to be communicated. It was very surprising to me when I started reading just how badly people hated it.
• advisedwang 2y ago
  What a bonanza of free air for Apple. I would never have known about this product launch except for this brouhaha. Now I know their launch, the key feature their selling, and the concept backing it. What a coup for whoever is running this campaign. An apology is a genius addition. More free coverage for them, and they get to "be doing the right thing" while getting it!
  • rchaud 2y ago
    This might be true if the person watching it had just been defrosted from cryogenic storage. Apple releasing another iPad update is not an uncommon occurrence.
  • jonahx 2y ago
    My first thought as well was that all the reporting on this were obvious "submarine articles": https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
• kbos87 2y ago
  The inherent mistake here is that there are a lot of large but loosely affiliated groups represented by the crushed objects that are inevitably going to contain people looking to be offended by something.
• colmmacc 2y ago
  The iPad updates are 'meh', as is the whole line-up. This comes after the Vision Pro launches to a fizzle, and resorting to a massive share buy back to hold the stock value. In the last week I've seen more articles about Tim Cook succession than in all the time before. I bet inside Apple things feel they might need every bit of help to push revenue. This ad has gotten Apple and the iPad an incredible amount of free media coverage; and they waited a few days for the apology ... which will now go on to do exactly the same. This seems like a very very successful campaign.
• alex_young 2y ago
  I don’t understand the outrage. Does anyone seriously think an iPad is going to replace a trumpet or a piano? If you went out for dinner at a jazz place, would you accept the entertainment being someone fiddling with an iPad? Somehow I don’t think musicians have much to worry about.
• wnc3141 2y ago
  If I were the advertising director - I would have people reach into the glass to take out large unwieldy instruments to expressively use them and then pack them all back into the glass of an iPad and walk off. This version suggests you are unlocking all of these instruments rather than destroying them .
• yard2010 2y ago
  Hey excuse me for being off topic but get your head out of your ass. This ad is nothing. Apple paid 500 billion dollars to buy back its own stocks and cancel them to manipulate the stock price. This is backwards and I am terrifically shocked that such practice is legal. This is wrong and evil.
• giobox 2y ago
  Tangent, but related; I wish Apple would now stop shaving mm off the iPad's thickness and start improving battery life. It's been officially "up to 10 hours" since 2010 - 14 years. I think it's the only compute device Apple sell that hasn't increased its Apple-rated battery runtime in the last 14 years. I had zero complaints frankly about the previous generation M2 iPad Pro's thickness, it was already impressively thin! I'd much, much rather see battery runtime go up at this stage. That 10hrs number falls notably under heavy loads too. More battery is more headroom to run heavy applications or games away from a plug socket. This advert's focus on thin just further reminds me that Apple have spent over a decade not improving iPad run-time.
• LAC-Tech 2y ago
  I'm just shocked apple thinks we need a thinner Ipad. What am I going to do with it, prepare food? Shave? Will I need to wear gloves to prevent lacerating my fingers?
• datahack 2y ago
  Much ado about nothing. Didn’t LG do the exact same ad some years ago? Seems like the real conversation here is about the total lack of originality here: this is so, so far from anything Steve would have approved.
• jeffchien 2y ago
  Apple isn't reading the room at a time when many older creatives (their customer base) feel threatened by generative AI.
• ipaddr 2y ago
  Would have been better to see these items coming from the phone and growing big.
• blindriver 2y ago
  I don't understand why they need to apologize for this. At worst, it was a waste of a lot of money over things that seem pretty nice like a trumpet or a piano. Those could have been used by a school or something. And that's the worst criticism I could think of. If the entire thing were 3D graphics, then I actually would be extremely impressed. Otherwise it's just an ad, and apologizing makes them look weak, not that it will affect them at all.
• topaz0 2y ago
  Too many people care about this.
• hubert022 2y ago
  It works, people are talking and will buy anyway
• zhengiszen 2y ago
  Not to diminish the other conflicts but currently the same process is applied to History, Justice and people, all are crushed without any remorse and it happens in Palestine.
• neves 2y ago
  Nice false polemic to make us watch the ad. It looks like the boring polemic of smashing digital representation of products is part of the advertising campaign.
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• iosjunkie 2y ago
  I’m probably an asshole for thinking this, but we have gone soft.
• ionwake 2y ago
  [flagged]
• dumpHero2 2y ago
  Anyone who's worked in "creative" field and has stepped in an art gallery would tell you that it's very normal to play on emotions, exaggerate and make viewers feel intense emotions. I don't know who the apology is meant for.
  • i5heu 2y ago
    You mean the proof that it is art is because ppl get angry about it? It reminds me of "Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue" > Two of (3) them have been the subject of vandalistic attacks in museums. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_Afraid_of_Red,_Yellow_and_Blue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_Afraid_of_Red,_Yellow_...
• XajniN 2y ago
  This exaggerated sensitivity bulshit is becoming unbearable.
• andrewp123 2y ago
  Always a bad idea to destroy musical instruments.
• footlose_3815 2y ago
  Slow news day
• khiner 2y ago
  I thought it was epic, gorgeous, fun, and made total sense for the product! There are other pianos in the world. Like, a _lot_ of pianos in the world. It only stands to reason a few will get crushed in a massive hydraulic press for a fun ad.
• root_axis 2y ago
  Who cares about this? I can't think of anything more unimportant and naval gazing than trying to extract subtext from an ad. Scrolling through the comments on this thread I'm genuinely surprised to see so much earnest rancor and performative outrage over a meaningless ad. Stop worshiping tech companies and go touch some grass.
• theyinwhy 2y ago
  The one thing really killing expression is constant outrage about everything. If everything you do is wrong, the only thing you can do is nothing.
• deleted 2y ago
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• hariis 2y ago
  Just saying, I would have made something like, all these things slowly swirling and sucked into a black hole and at the singularity, you show the ipad :)
• ksec 2y ago
  The problem is Apple, for a long time, at least its image built during Steve Jobs era and carried over for quite some time he passed away. (Apple's PR still uses Steve Jobs's as a "tool" in marketing. ) Apple was the friend of Art and creative intent, NOT the digitalisation of everything, that was Microsoft in the 90s. The bigger problem is that Apple has lost a lot of its soul. A lot of their marketing and advancement are now very technical, such as M4, XDR Retain etc. It feels very non-Apple. And they are at the forefront of trying to Digitalise everything. There is far less Art about it. The iPad Pro pricing is also non-Apple as if the iPad Pro isn't really for professional usage. And just look at the Apple Pencil Page [1], what happened to slim lineup and forward looking product planning. A lot of the current Apple just lacks the character and soul of the old Apple, and are now mostly driven by sales and operation efficiency. [1] https://www.apple.com/shop/select-apple-pencil https://www.apple.com/shop/select-apple-pencil
• unreal37 2y ago
  Since Apple apologized for the ad, it seems they, too, agree that it wasn't a good ad. They wouldn't apologize for something if there were nothing wrong with it. Personally, it was too real. It was CGI, sure. But that hydraulic press crushed (destroyed) the tools humans use to create every handmade thing we consider beautiful. Apple absolutely intended to convey the meaning that Apple an iPad can replace a piano or a trumpet or paint.
  • young_unixer 2y ago
    Apple, and west coast US companies in general, are the biggest promoters of political over-correctness, "inclusion", "diversity", etc. (to put it in non-offensive terms). It would be extremely hypocritical for them to simply dismiss the feelings of people. So, even if it doesn't make sense, they're obligated to apologize to be consistent with their own discourse.
• kristjank 2y ago
  We really should get telling people to kill themselves back into fashion when they produce such culturally deaf and offensive content just to promote the newest consooomerism gadget. I hate everything this whole phenomena represents
• the_real_cher 2y ago
  I thought the ad was pretty cool and I'm a musician.
• rootusrootus 2y ago
  I don't find it offensive, but I do think the idea would have worked better if they visualized it as a compactor, and didn't visualize things getting destroyed. It doesn't make sense to focus on all the destruction and then be left over with a fancy iPad. It's a compact version of a whole bunch of destroyed things?
• j7ake 2y ago
  They’re “apologising” but really their ad did the job: people are talking about Apple and their new products. They’re not sorry, they’re happy.
• CM30 2y ago
  I honestly don't see what's so controversial here. For me, it's just another expression of the idea "you can do all this on a tiny device now". Kinda like that infamous Pokemon Red and Blue ad with the bus driver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzAo9HzOgtQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzAo9HzOgtQ Or the other ads by companies like LG mentioned in the comments showing the same premise. Just feels like people are looking for things to get offended by now, and reading way too much into a simple concept that's been done to death.
• naruhodo 2y ago
  This seems like a thinly-veiled ruse to make me watch the 'Crush' ad for the first time. It worked.
• hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  I don't understand why Cook apologized. It was bold in the style of the 1984 ad. People today leap to feigning victimhood and can't seem to grasp that it was likely mostly or entirely fictional CGI.
• justanotherjoe 2y ago
  If any other company does it, their user wont care. Apple is special because it really is a form of self-induced-hypnosis of the 'magic of apple', which is what people buy into. This ruins the illusion, so to speak.
• bhearu 2y ago
  I think the blow back from this is due to people over thinking and looking for something to be upset about. The "symbolism" in the ad isn't creative tools being destroyed, it's the tools being combined together.
• barrenko 2y ago
  We are "reacting" to iPad ads, and not "reacting" to say, climate change, inflation, teen mental health...
• tsoukase 2y ago
  A thousand iPads cannot offer the experience of a single piano key. And vice versa. So the direct comparison the ad is implying is failed. It could involve 1000 old mobile phones or 100 DSLR cameras or 10 PCs. But then it would be uninteresting and nobody would care
• dudeinjapan 2y ago
  So that's how they make it so thin!!
• dudeinjapan 2y ago
  They should have made it with teleporters that beam the items into the iPad. For some reason we don't think of teleporters as destructive (when in actuality they shred their targets down to the individual atom level.)
• nycnutterjob 2y ago
  [dead]
• avereveard 2y ago
  People outraged by the piano and not at the suicide nets must be the new consumerism peak, albeit my belief is that this campaign is just part of the overall marketing strategy, an apology before the outrage.
• eddyzh 2y ago
  And because of the pushback the ad is talked about and watched even more. I am sure this was anticipated and taken as calculated decision. Whatever your response, the product and brand is so big that the point that the ad wants to make remains. There is no such thing as bad publicity when your goal is getting attention. I personally find it very rude. Marketing wise doing rude things is smart.
• huimang 2y ago
  There is something deeply, viscerally upsetting about watching creative objects get destroyed by an industrial machine. I understand what they were going for, but I can't believe this got greenlighted. The symbolism of physically destroying a handmade instrument or a precision-made item like a camera lens is unbelievably disgusting. On top of that, the current era we're in has artists fearing for the future as generative AI (which is trained on stolen artwork by humans) is coming to replace their livelihood. All I can do is shake my head and wonder why tech people have such utter contempt and disdain for artists.
• noashavit 2y ago
  Why did they have to go and ruin the piano tho?
  • noashavit 2y ago
    Tariffs aren’t bans. It’s just tax. There are many countries that currently have 100% tariffs on imported cars and ppl still import those cars
• deleted 2y ago
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