Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark' | Hacker News Reader

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

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667 pointslinguae1,517 comments

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.

This outrage feels so manufactured. I'm a huge basketball fan, coach, ex-player. If they included a basketball in the ad my thought would've been "yeah, you can play NBA2k on it". I'm not mad about the destruction of a single basketball. I don't feel like its disrespect to the game. It's showing that this single device has captured elements of basketball into a small form factor.

As you note this may hint at a larger weariness with big tech -- and I tend to agree. I feel like if it was a public library crushing a bunch of things, and then ends with it lifting up and showing a library card there wouldn't be the same concerns.

I think the big thing here is that if you don't have an attachment to any of the items being crushed you probably don't feel as strongly. If you're a trumpet player, seeing a trumpet being crushed is going to be a bit distressing. If you're a photographer, you're putting a monetary value on those lenses being destroyed. If you're into old arcade machines, you're thinking about how many of those cabinets are left in that good of a condition.

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.

It's simply uncomfortable to see a lot of valuable creative tools being slowly destroyed for no reason, especially a piano. I'm not even thinking about the symbolism.

It reminded me of the old Game Boy Pocket commercials:

https://youtu.be/qzAo9HzOgtQ

https://youtu.be/CWh_6jutU7M

If my metronome app stops complying with iOS developer guidelines, it will stop working or Apple will pull it. This doesn’t happen to a real dedicated metronome. The App Store is a problem for iPad. Developers need the freedom to develop solutions for iPad without Apple constantly breaking their APIs or introducing new standards. Otherwise nothing on iPad is timeless.

> 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.

How much of a blowback was that really anyway? I mean a social media headline that a few others pile on... is rather limited as a blowback.

If anything both ad idea and implementation are mediocre - and perhaps should have been rejected on that account. This is indeed Youtube shorts stuff. And someone pointed out the exact same ad idea from LG 15 years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo with even more musical instruments.

> 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.

I think you hit it on the head. It's not so much anger about seeing a piano or a trumpet get crushed but more about the symbolism of it. Which, I think is definitely tone deaf on Apple's part.

The fact is, artists, developers and many people from all walks of life are terrified of what AI will mean for their jobs and their livelihood, and also, afraid that it cheapens everything they've spent all their life learning and mastering.

There's definitely a lot of pent up fear and/or hatred for it bubbling at the surface for many people and this commercial just kind triggers those feelings.

I am not a musician or photographer, but I see the emotional value of those extremely well crafted and often beloved objects.

I create software, mostly, but I practice woodworking as a hobby, and I can tell how difficult it is to build a piano or any kind of musical instrument.

I found the ad extremely distasteful, enough to trigger mild nausea.

I see the point they were trying to make, but it is both dumb and old, and frankly nobody asked for a thinner iPad.

The most annoying part is that _they_ did not feel what countless people saw and felt, they are too disconnected from their audience.

The outrage is not made up, some of us felt it in our bones, I understand that we don't all share the same sensitivity, but you can't simply brush it off as if this was somewhat orchestrated or theatre.

My initial reaction was the opposite — “wow they are kind of late to the hydraulic press channel hype. That’s odd.”

For a company that has always prided itself on having strong marketing chops, this felt out of character. And perhaps a sign of the general change in culture and standards at Apple.

Exactly. It's not only the creative artists who are opposing, although that's what this ad targets; a lot of others not in big tech are also very displeased with where things are going. The sentiment of this resistance can be summed up in two short sentences: "You will not replace us. Machines will not replace us."

I saw the ad as trying to draw an equivalence between the iPad and all of those creative tools, as if owning an iPad is equivalent, or even better, than owning those objects. This is a lie, a deception, and apart from lamenting the loss of so many wonderful objects the lie of it is what really sticks in my craw.

It made me cringe, but only because I saw it after hearing about the controversy. It made me wonder whether I'd have had the same reaction if I just saw it "fresh".

I think this is exactly correct:

“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.”

To the former point, I think it was Doctorow that coined the term “enshittification”.

To be fair to Big Tech, they’re not any worse than healthcare companies, or airlines, or any of the countless (sometimes it seems basically all) corporations that have been steadily turning the crank on making the modern experience a little worse every year for typical people (I’m not interested in silly summary statistics like per-capita GDP or the CPI, those are gamed to hell: give me an arithmetic mean and I’ll give you a corrupt system).

It’s that so recently they were so much better. When I joined a FAANG in 2011 I had no issue wearing company gear around. People would be like: “that’s awesome I use that every day it’s great”. By 2018 I was lying in coffee shops and bars about what I did for a living (one of the main reasons I left).

Regarding AI broadly construed, it could be used as a wildly powerful tool for leveling the playing field, the way Google was when it appeared. It’s in the hopes of realizing that outcome that I work on it and am so vocally critical of those who just trivially don’t want that.

But it could also become the greatest tool for oppression since the firearm, and I think the public is starting to get wise to the fact this is unfortunately the path we’re on.

It’s trite, but I always come back to this: when the robots are finally capable of doing all the work, do we get Star Trek TNG or Blade Runner.

The technology is a step in either direction depending on how it’s used and regulated.

Yeah — I liked it in general. But can completely see why artists would hate the concept of a giant weight crushing the artistic object that has fueled their life-long obsessions.

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!"

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

Agreed.

Its not Apple's style, but they could have opened the ad with some cringe fake scientists discussing how to shrink and/or combine and/or smush music, books, art, etc together. And then at the end show them excitedly rushing to the IPad as if they've solved everything.

Beautiful, colourful, creative objects gathered together in a the middle of a grey room and destroyed to be replaced by a generic rectangle. This is like the 1984 ad with Apple as the bad guys.

It has the vibe of something made by a team who have never created only for the pure love of art.

I really hope you don't celebrate AI generators then because that is actually set out to destroy culture and tools.

Okay, Zappa is a bit defeatist although what he says is true, I don't think it's that bad... But here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88zvm7-fhKo (Frank Zappa on American culture)

Double-edge sword with only one surface. Just don't get it wet, expect it to last over 7 years, expect your old accessories to work with it, or for it to actually substitute for the mastery of physical artistic crafts like Mehmet Girgiç is to felt.

Yes, they should somehow just compress them using CG without destroying them IMO.

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.

I'm not Japanese and it was upsetting to me

Not because eg one piano got destroyed; surely that happens all the time, even on camera for eg movies and such. But there was something about watching beautiful objects be destroyed, in slow motion, gratuitously, and with an upbeat/sunny tone, that just aesthetically made me squirm in my seat

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.

Was there a similar backlash to this identical ad from LG in 2009? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo

Given that context, it’s nuts that this ad was approved for the Japanese market

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

And it's actually already been done before, by Nintendo:

https://twitter.com/rsnous/status/1788047377556791321

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzAo9HzOgtQ

> 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.

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

The (accidental?) plagiarism of the ad is nearly as bad as the vibe.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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/

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.

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).

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I used to play piano and guitar. This ad is soul-crushing.

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.

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?

I bet they were about to release a behind the scenes video to brag how they did everything practically with no CGI

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

to me that ad screams “i will squish all your humanly creativity into this faceless slate”.

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.

I really don't understand why the internet needs to turn everything into a stupid argument..

Who cares of an Apple ad...

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.

I’m struggling a bit to see why this ad is controversial.

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.

It was a creepy ad. They zoomed in when a doll's eye popped out.

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.

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.

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 .

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.

Did the ad miss the mark or did it perfectly encapsulate Apple's vision of the future?

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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

I dunno I thought it was well done. This is an entertaining trend on social media and they applied it to their product well.

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.

If they would stop producing all those ads nobody would notice.

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".

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

> (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.

The spot is a copy of a LG spot from 2008

https://twitter.com/asallen/status/1788428991118164356

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

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.

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.

They have apologized! Send them to re-education!!! Cancel the execution.

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=qybUFnY7Y8w

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!

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

It just seemed really wasteful

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.

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.

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!

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

The controversy is on purpose. The apology was planned. You're all giving them extra bang for the advertising buck.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

This has been at the front of HN for 10+ hours and has almost 300 points

Seems like there really is no bad publicity

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.

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.

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.)

By playing it backwards the things come into being instead of being destroyed.

https://www.threads.net/@fragmede/post/C6yYhCHRlM9

Waiting the for future disclaimer; “No Bric A Brac was harmed in the making of this ad”

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.

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

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?

LG did the same ad 15 years ago & nobody got worked up about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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"

Overreaction of the century

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.

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.

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.

Wow , pretty horrible ad, and not in a good way. Was it CGI or real ?

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.

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?

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.

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…

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.

Why didn’t they put their original Mac in there? Or an iPod?

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.

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?

Was that made with Unreal Engine 5? The physics has that look.

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.

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.”

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.

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?

It really exemplifies the culture change from Steve's obsession with the INTERSECTION of humanities and science.

Silicon Valley on a mission

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.

Man, people get offended about everything these days.

We are "reacting" to iPad ads, and not "reacting" to say, climate change, inflation, teen mental health...

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.

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.

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.

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.

Apple isn't reading the room at a time when many older creatives (their customer base) feel threatened by generative AI.

Have they done outrage advertising to get reach before? How about expressing ads in YouTube genres, is that a new thing for Apple?

Apple won here. There will be no mass exodus, just engagement. That's what they aimed for, and that's what they got.

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.

This seems like a thinly-veiled ruse to make me watch the 'Crush' ad for the first time. It worked.

They should have just run the video in reverse and it would have gotten the same point across and been a lot rosier.

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.

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?

If you play it in reverse it works much better while simultaneously being more or less still the same commercial.

If they had just replaced the crushing with CGI cartoonish squeezing and flattening, it would have been all good

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.

They got more attention with this apology than they would have gotten with any ad, at least from this crew.

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.

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.

A stirring ad that captures my lived experience.

They should do a follow-up with my friendships and family life.

The fact there is a huge backlash on something like this shows how much free time people have

Does anybody actually watch ads? I think it’s been decades since I paid attention to an ad.

The people who liked the ad tend to be the same kind of people who think AI art is cool.

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.

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?)

I'm still waiting for Jim Beam to apologize for their "Sweet Caroline" ad.

It's been ages since I've clicked on The Verge. Surprised its still around.

Would have been better to see these items coming from the phone and growing big.

We're a very fortunate generation of people to be so concerned over this ad.

This seems like apples version of planned controversy for marketing traction.

Amazing how many people have strong feelings about an Ad about the iPad.

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

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.

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.

BTW Dang, why am I flagged for submitting info about the same thing?

I’m probably an asshole for thinking this, but we have gone soft.

Everybody loves to get outraged over every little thing nowadays.

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

Classic "Someone should be offended", yet one one is.

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.

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.

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-...

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.

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.

The 3D Printed world made Flat and sold as a UI improvement.

I thought the ad was pretty cool and I'm a musician.

This is why I am embarrassed to tell people I work in tech.

I liked the Ad. Bunch of snowflakes who got offended by it.

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

See the Apple Siri Ad - it’s about how the device enhances the viewer to do more.

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

Epic - 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.

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.

That was a genius ad...what's all the fuss about?

Why did they have to go and ruin the piano tho?

Always a bad idea to destroy musical instruments.

It works, people are talking and will buy anyway

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.

I just found it a bit lacklustre & uninspired.

1. "We apologize for this ad"

2. <keeps ad up on YouTube>

3. Profit

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.

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.

So that's how they make it so thin!!

I thought the ad was arrogant and dystopian.

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.

They can never unring this bell in my mind

All publicity is good publicity? Maybe not?

I think the ad is very cool and I like it.

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.

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.

[dupe]

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40312595

Too many people care about this.

I loved the commercial. Apple shouldn't have apologized. There was no hidden meaning in it. People are psychotic.

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.

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.

Should have reversed the add..

It’s a metaphor for squeezing all the great things into a thin device. It’s unreal, the reaction to this.

You are a hopeless, overreacting child if this ad bothers you.

I’m honestly shocked at the response I’m seeing here.

I think this ad is exquisite. I wish people reacted this euphorically for more important things.

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.

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! :)

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.

Maybe it's a sign that I am approaching 40s but who got offended by that, come on, it's just an ad

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.

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.

Slow news day

This would never have happened on Steve’s watch.

"You‘ll see why 2024 will be even worse than '1984'"

Personally, I liked everything about the ad.

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 :)

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.

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.

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.

That was real stuff not CG? Ohh. Yeah that seems unnecessary these days of ultra-real computer graphics.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Do people actually care about this?

Apple made a stupid commercial and everyone is traumatized?

WTF?

This exaggerated sensitivity bulshit is becoming unbearable.

"The only problem with Apple..."

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.

Uh what’s the problem? The ad isn’t great, but why the pitchforks?

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."

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

Anyone know when was the last time Apple apologized for anything?

great ad. cucks being cucks in a cuck empowered world

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

Never apologize.

using "missed the mark" should have a prison sentence

Some people just like to get offended by literally everything, even an ad with objects crushing. Sigh.

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.

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.

Does the Verge even proofread? In a linked article (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

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.

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