Apple faces celebrity backlash over piano crushing | Hacker News Reader

Apple faces celebrity backlash over piano crushing

bbc.com

10 pointsbelter20 comments

The ad was an interesting experience. At first, I thought why are they crushing all these creative tools? Then you see that no, they were pressed into the iPad. I get it - but I had to overcome an initial, negative visceral reaction. That's what makes this odd: your first reaction is negative.

Since it's all CGI, why didn't they show some "Apple Beam" or whatever taking those things and shrinking them down into an iPad? That way you eliminate the destruction which people are having such a negative reaction but still get across the point that all that capability is in the iPad?

Better, show a hard working team of designers bringing the instruments and tools and adding them deliberately to the iPad.

A woman brings a painter's pallet with paints, and sets them on to a platform. She steps back and gives the thumbs up to a technician who presses a button "beaming" the pallet and paints into the iPad. Then you show another technician testing the transfer by "painting a picture" in the iPad. Then someone else places a musical instrument, thumbs up, band set, thumbs up, faster and faster. The camera pans down the hall showing a line of people bringing instruments, implements, and accessories of human creativity for the process... and... the camera rotates a shot on the iPad to view it edge on... and tagline.

A better version -

https://x.com/rezawrecktion/status/1788211832936861950

From this HN comment -

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40304677

I don’t mind the ad, just liked it better 16 years ago:

https://x.com/asallen/status/1788428991118164356?s=46

That's is the crazy thing: it's a frame-for-frame rip off of this LG ad from a decade ago.

Not a frame-for-frame rip off, but clearly the same idea. It isn't a particularly creative or novel concept, though.

I read the reactions before I saw the ad and I thought they were overblown. But when I did watch it, I understood the visceral reaction as seeing the destruction of objects with special emotional attachment - trumpet, piano, arcade cabinet, etc. I think the ad is definitely ill advised, but the "symbolic of big tech crushing creativity" is hogwash.

Rock musicians destroying guitars and amps used to be common, both on videoclips and live.

The ad in question was a bad choice. Apple's marketing is usually very celebratory of the creativity of humanity, but this ad seems like it reveled in the destruction of some of the most beautiful tools of creation that humans have made. It didn't make me feel happy or want the product at all, it made me actively think worse of the iPad.

Once you've gotten as far as possible using the anti-reuse/anti-recycling business model with your own hardware (and software) for so long, it seems pretty easy to disparage the benefits of anyone elses' hardware, especially things traditionally built to stand the test of time.

An instrument can be special.

Portable electronics can definitely be turned into an instrument. It may be a lot of effort, but it can be worth it.

OTOH how long is it nominally going to last compared to a generic five & dime guitar or harmonica?

And what happens if it's battery powered and you can't just slap in a new battery any time?

By one playbook, the need for disposable circuit boards gave rise to the possibility of ever more complex disposable complete products. Then augmented where it needs to be acceptable to replace the whole product while still fully functional electronically. On these terms you can expect the biggest hitters to step up to the plate and hit it out of the park the furthest.

It is a little bit blatant acting like they are inhabiting higher ground when they're not even in the same league as a tambourine.

Good lord. A bunch of tweets on X of people being huffy and indignant. What a quality article.

At least this one has celebrities making statements, and not just "here's what 10 people who have 15 followers each said"

What makes those celebrities a better source of indignation?

> Actor Hugh Grant labelled it "the destruction of the human experience, courtesy of Silicon Valley".

Is this satire?

I think you need to have experienced playing (or even listening live) an acoustic instrument. Even if the sound can be produced electronically the experience cannot be reproduced. That is what he meant.

I thought Grant was known to be satirical.

Realistically, more of an exaggeration.

Whilst I'm fairly anti-Apple (though I grudgingly use most of their products), even I have to call this a stretch. If they were asking for your guitar in return for a discount on a new iPad as a publicity stunt, sure, I'd have issue with that. But come on, it's just an advert.

>I'm fairly anti-Apple

>though I grudgingly use most of their products

>it's just an advert

As a musician, this is... revolting.

What "this"? The ad, or the reactions mentioned in the article?

As a musician, the reactions are... stupid.

As a musician, the ad is... nothing, really. Except that I can use GarageBand on an iPad to record and mix songs, but that's nothing specific to the ad itself.

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