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?
The whole point of apple is that its aimed at the "creative" segment. Whether they are actually creative or not is another matter. One of the core pillars of apple's appeal is that creative people use it's stuff.
The main pitch is that Apple helps you be creative as an augment. Look at all the other Ads they pitch to creatives.
The ironic thing is that the advert neatly sums up what the tech/media giants are trying to do to the creative segment (and have been doing for a while)
Apple probably looked at usage stats and saw that 100x as many people use the ipad as piano than hook up an actual piano.
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.
It's not just general sensibilities, it's comically topical.
that's a bit extreme. yeah, many of us had hoped ipad would be more of a laptop w no keyboard (vs a huge smartphone), but macbooks have long been the most capable dev laptops on the planet
I personally don't find that to be true. The jobs that forced Macbooks on me were fraught with development issues all stemming from macOS.
In Windows, I am currently running Windows 11, several versions of Ubuntu, and even NixOS. WSL vastly outclasses VMs on macOS (which barely work anyway on macOS) and the "Linux but not Linux" nature of macOS.
They're just playing "earth". To make diamonds you apply pressure. The iPad is the diamond resulting from crushing all that creativity into a tiny form factor.
Or something like that.
It's a bit like if you made a video that showed my dog getting crushed in a hydraulic press and replaced with a tamagotchi-like device. Like, I get the idea, but it still makes me want to cry.
While shorter than the very short "article" your comment actually explained it and makes me understand. The article did no such thing.
Which definition applies here?
Outrage:
1. An act of extreme violence or viciousness.
2. Something that is grossly offensive to decency, morality, or good taste.
3. Resentful anger aroused by a violent or offensive act, or an instance of this.
I think people are just a little critical, more than they are outraged. I have a deep hope that you're not outraged.
I'm typically critical of Apple's value and technology, but I am far more offended by what is a clear oversensitivity to art, and expression, which is by far the greater crime to the arts and to society as a whole.
The idea that people can't make art or express themselves for fear of other artists' outrage is what's truly outrageous.
To set my bias, I'm surrounded by music people and their instrument is basically an extension of themselves, they spent hours everyday touching it, for their whole life since 4. For some it's also the most expensive thing they own.
Some violinists are put off by music videos with violins played in the rain. Apple's ad would be traumatic.
> The idea that people can't make art or express themselves for fear of other artists' outrage is what's truly outrageous.
Eliciting a reaction is part of art, and people getting outraged is par for the course. You're also totally free to outraged at the outrage, that's the cycle.
Meh. I was very into music growing up, and still play. It doesn't bother me in the least to see a musical instrument that is not my own being destroyed, any more than I have a reaction to seeing a car being destroyed in a movie ("some people really love cars!") or someone blowing up a building ("some people really love architecture!") or an artwork being burned/modified/mutilated ("some people really love art!"), or food being wasted/destroyed ("some people really love cooking!") all of which are more-or-less common in mass media.
(To wit: someone else here pointed out the OK Go music videos where they -- professional musicians! -- destroy all sorts of things, including musical instruments. Those were great, btw.)
While I do not exclude the possibility that some people may have feelings in reaction to seeing a generic musical instrument being destroyed, you can extend this metaphor to any number of areas where it's completely accepted to see similar acts of destruction.
> Some violinists are put off by music videos with violins played in the rain. Apple's ad would be traumatic.
More likely is that a few people are truly bothered, but lots of people engage in performative outrage for attention, which is so common that we have a name for it: pearl-clutching.
I think everyone has their pet irritating thing.
That said, this is exactly what is interesting and "triggering" to many about the ad, IMO. That it emphasises destruction, and therefore is a metaphor for the replacement of material expression with the immaterial, or something along those lines.
Just to add, I play guitar every day. I don't handle my guitar with care: I ding it against walls, toss it onto the couch, fail to clean it as regularly as I should, drive with it in my car using no case to do so. But I love my guitar very much, because it enables me to play beautiful (to me) music. I don't want to be burdened by the "perfection" of my guitar. To each their own, I say.
I kinda feel it's not so far from synthesizers in a way.
Wind instruments will also probably fall in the "handle casually" space, while still sensible to being dinged and needing care ?
Classic instruments have a harsher split between the centuries old instruments that just can't be replaced [0], and the modern versions that are left mostly for amateurs or pros expanding their range and aiming for different sounds. That's where pro instruments end up at five~six figures prices, and are definitely not tossed around.
[0] I remember being told by a player that their instrument was there before their birth and will still be in people's hands way after they die.
[0]: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQX0RCg...
You can dislike something without being outraged. Well, right up until someone is outraged with you. Then you can't say that you like or dislike things anymore.
That seems like a terrible society to live in. It's the one we're experiencing.
The society you want is the one we have - an expression was made by Apple, and in response, thousands of artists have made their own expressions. This is what a society of free expression looks like.
The world you're arguing for would be one where the expressions of tech companies are beyond reproach and other people are not allowed to express themselves in response. Why should tech companies get that special treatment?
In my opinion, it says something about your mentality that you value the expression of one group but not the other.
I hate this idea - this apparent concern that Apple is getting "silenced". There is no such thing as being "silenced" when you're a billion dollar company. Moreover, the apparent "silencing" is simply people using their freedom of expression to voice an opinion of opposition. It is the core feature of being able to express oneself.
The ability of these common artists being able to speak their true thoughts against a billion dollar institution - and the institution feeling pressure to respond to them - is the whole point of having the freedom of expression. What else is even the point of allowing discussion, dissent, and expression if you don't want those to have any chance of affecting some outcome?
I presume you're a technology person, so maybe it's a good illustration of how tech sensibilities are far from universal and can be extremely tone deaf.
What I neglected to add there is exactly what you mention. I'm a tech person.
What's interesting is that an ad department was so tone deaf. Those aren't techies.
Most company in the same situation would've done the same. Apple didn't have a choice.
https://www.fastcompany.com/40574083/facebook-uber-wells-far... (From 2018)
Ostensibly yes. Or maybe Apple has missed the mark on their apology too...
The error here, on Apple’s part, is that they made an ad that people can so easily lean into hating and publicly attribute it to some sort of intelligent, intellectual attribute that they want to signal to others.
And for the record, I don’t really care about the ad one way or another. It struck me as unremarkable for an Apple ad. It’s blindingly obvious that the right person lit a match at the right time, and this quickly turned into something else. I truly can’t believe that Apple chose now to engage with the peanut gallery.