Apple apologizes for iPad “Crush” ad that “missed the mark”

Some of us don't like watching beloved musical instruments destroyed. We also don't like how so many people think watching TikTok on an iPad is "music".

When my father died, my sister didn't give a shit about the house. She just wanted the guitar - which our father (a drummer) inherited when the lead guitarist in his band died. The guitarist had two dozen guitars but was his favourite.

It's close to a century old, nobody knows what trade secrets the luthier who created it used to get that sound, and no other instrument sounds the same. It's been used on stage in countless live performances on every continent in the world and has been used to record over a hundred songs in professional recording studios. It was used to play music at the funeral of both the previous owners and it's literally impossible to replace.

I get it, not every instrument is that special... but this instrument wasn't that special either when the first guitarist ever picked it up. Nearly all instruments have the potential to become that special... and Apple created a video dedicated to destroying a bunch of them while also implying that listening to an MP3 is as good as an actual instrument. No way.

There is a difference when you show things getting crushed „for science“ and showing basically a whole room of tools for creativity being crushed to replace it with a cold, flat digital device. Especially now that AI is threatening to replace many creative jobs, this is just bad timing. Ads are also statements.

I hope it was all CGI because my first thought was, what a waste of beautiful, fully intact things. I personally don’t like seeing those videos on Youtube either.

You hate ads but the article got you to watch this one. 4D chess!

How about Ridley Scott? :)

You have basically described how everyone who has seen the ad cannot understand the concepts of nuance or metaphor, for these are not what they criticize.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t like the ad, either, mostly just because I don’t like ads in general. I just find this one pretentious redirect once again, and I’m bored. It tries to cram a tired message into an overwrought concept so they can avoid saying the same thing for the 20th time: it’s a bit faster and does bit more than the previous model.

But just because the ad is dumb and boring and overwrought doesn’t mean that some of these rather absurd criticisms are valid, either. Hugh Grant criticized it as a ‘destruction of the human experience’.

Really

sigh

Edit: I want to explain this further—

The ad tried to employ the visual metaphor of “constructive destruction” in that they were distilling that closet/room full of creative hardware into the iPad— but so much focus was on the destruction of it all and so little on the results of that “distillation” that the ad just comes of communicating that the new iPads are fucking dreamkillers. Hard sell! Or that all of your hard work or that all of the “real tools” that creatives break their backs with are meaningless nothings to Apple… lots of bad symbolism there.

Apple (or their ad agency) was likely going for the fruit > blender > delicious smoothie visual metaphor and missed by a lightyear. My brothers and sisters in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, people are getting fired over this. Wow.

It boils down to this: the ad was a visually detailed and drawn out destruction of things some people like and are not easily replaced. These are physical objects that people genuinely have emotional attachments to. So it's musicians and photographers who probably had the strongest visceral response: the type of people who kept obsolete devices past their obsolescence because that was the physical artifact of the thing they learned their craft on.

I know software developers who would've had the same visceral reaction to a Commodore 64 or Apple II or NES being slowly destroyed. Or even other gadgets that people loved, from a Walkman to an iPod to a Tamagotchi to original iPhone.

It's not like the scene from Office Space where there's visceral disgust for the thing being destroyed, but precisely the opposite emotions involved.

What’s a word for something beyond soft?

It was so so long and drawn out. All that you said and the length of it was painful.

I didn't even know about it until this article lmfao it seems like it was yet another case of Twitter Pearl Clutchers = "National Outrage" lol

Wow that is basically the same thing. Crazy

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It was cool. There’s a reason the hydraulic process Chanel was wildly possible, it’s just cool to watch. And this ad idea was perfect for getting across the point that the new iPad is thinner, so it seems well thought out.

What are these people even complaining about anyway, CGI instruments getting crushed? wtf? I imagine that’s even part of the the ad: look at the CGI we can create, all in a much thinner package

It was a cool visual but I have to admit it felt wrong destroying all of the stuff for a cool visual. The iPad will never replace real world experiences. It can help produce art and music but real world objects can never be replaced by digital replicated ones. Using real paint, playing a real instrument, or playing an original arcade game is just not the same on an iPad. I love technology but certain thing can just not be replicated.

What's hilarious is that apologizing for it feels even more strange. Luke, I also thought the ad was a little tone deaf but it's not the sort of thing that requires an apology.