I’m a creative and never would have seen any slight in this. In fact, it’s kind of clever in the same way that it’s like the 1984 commercial throwing a hammer through the legacy ways of computing… this new iPad is throwing down a new tool for all those artistic pursuits. And the very nature of art, we should all agree, is to make one think, feel enlightened, or see something in a different way. This ad does that.
It’s just a fricken ad. Most ads are totally stupid and exist completely detached from reality. Does Red Bull really make you fly? I don’t think so. Are unlimited data plans really unlimited? Nope.
But I can tell you that I’d vastly prefer to watch 100 more ads like this one than watching a single one of the vomit inducing and idiot worshiping ads we’re about to be inundated with over the 6 months or so in the US. The real horror is about to be unleashed.
It might be time to follow John Prine’s advice and blow up your TV.
Silly reactions like that only make me think creatives are a bunch of crybaby wimps. Chin up and be a man! It's an ad made for shock value. If anything, it worked by waking sleeping people up and capturing their attention. Capturing attention is the aim of any great ad. It clearly succeeded. But had it been something more soothing to fondle the delicate sensibilities of those ever complaining creatives, it probably would have only worked to put them all to sleep. And people would have then complained that Apple isn't exciting enough. In the end, the moral is clear. PEOPLE NEED TO ZIP THE LIP AND STOP COMPLAINING! That alone would make this world a vastly better place.
Don't worry. The ad still wasn't as cringy as your comment. Newsflash for you. It's 2024. Creatives aren't just men.
I understand the complaints. It's not about the actual destruction of the objects; that it's CGI is immaterial. The symbolism is at question: the replacement of traditional analog tools used by creatives with the iPad. It's not just, "You have a choice, this is as good as what it's replacing," but "The time is over for these tools. They are being replaced entirely." I get the existential crisis that message could trigger.
I’ll repeat myself. The meaning is obvious: Look at all this stuff we squeezed into a super-thin iPad!
All the furor is just internet groupthink jumping on a hot take bandwagon.
I understand the complaints. It's not about the actual destruction of the objects; that it's CGI is immaterial. The symbolism is at question: the replacement of traditional analog tools used by creatives with the iPad. It's not just, "You have a choice, this is as good as what it's replacing," but "The time is over for these tools. They are being replaced entirely." I get the existential crisis that message could trigger.
To everything there is a season, and eventually a place in a landfill. Maybe it’s time we stop making big physical, energy and material intensive sIngle-use technologies. I haven’t tossed out an alarm-clock radio, desktop calculator, point-and-shoot camera, video camera, compass, stack of folding paper maps, stack of magazines or newspapers, transistor radio, Walkman or a equivalent, stack of CDs, or any of a list of other products the smartphone replaced in about 15 years. Of the seven iPhones I’ve owned over those years, four are known to be still in use, so maximum of three could possibly have landed in a landfill, and likely not, as they were likely recycled.
It’s a conceptual message, not an attack on anyone’s creative process or disrespect for legacy creative tools or equipment. The obvious implication is that the iPad Pro incorporates all that historic goodness. I guess we’ll be seeing plenty of revenge “Will It Blend?” YouTube videos featuring the new iPad Pro. Or maybe people could just lighten up.
Or maybe people don’t have to like something that Apple created. This was done in poor taste.
The form and the function is always one.
An iPad is just a tablet. It’s not a music making instrument — it’s not a drawing tool, and so on. It can emulate such features but it will never have the ideal form of any of them.
It takes you further and further away from humanity.
Humanity ain’t all its cracked up to be. We are the only species on this planet with the ability to envision and plan for the distant future, multiple generations ahead, should we choose to. And look around at what we have wrought; garbage piles of discarded, once-coveted products that were built without the long future in mind.
Silly reactions like that only make me think creatives are a bunch of crybaby wimps. Chin up and be a man! It's an ad made for shock value. If anything, it worked by waking sleeping people up and capturing their attention. Capturing attention is the aim of any great ad. It clearly succeeded. But had it been something more soothing to fondle the delicate sensibilities of those ever complaining creatives, it probably would have only worked to put them all to sleep. And people would have then complained that Apple isn't exciting enough. In the end, the moral is clear. PEOPLE NEED TO ZIP THE LIP AND STOP COMPLAINING! That alone would make this world a vastly better place.
The cognitive disconnect that it takes to write a post complaining about people complaining is astounding.
It's called satire. Put your DSM away for a while and live a little.
Yeah, it’s a little creepy especially with the emojis being crushed. But no one seems to be too concerned about that. As for being offended, that’s ridiculous. Do you know how I know someone is easily offended? When they call themselves “a creative.”
Silly reactions like that only make me think creatives are a bunch of crybaby wimps. Chin up and be a man! It's an ad made for shock value. If anything, it worked by waking sleeping people up and capturing their attention. Capturing attention is the aim of any great ad. It clearly succeeded. But had it been something more soothing to fondle the delicate sensibilities of those ever complaining creatives, it probably would have only worked to put them all to sleep. And people would have then complained that Apple isn't exciting enough. In the end, the moral is clear. PEOPLE NEED TO ZIP THE LIP AND STOP COMPLAINING! That alone would make this world a vastly better place.
The cognitive disconnect that it takes to write a post complaining about people complaining is astounding.
It's called satire. Put your DSM away for a while and live a little.
Probably the most wrong-headed, boneheaded, flat-out stupid marketing decision I've ever seen by Apple. It should pull this immediately. It's hard for me to believe that Apple execs sat in a room and actually said yes to this. Lots of comments here dismissing "just overly sensitive wimps getting offended," or something to that effect. It's not about people being offended. It's about this being egregiously wrong from a marketing perspective. Here's why:
The creative class of people across all the arts and industries like architecture--which is an absolute core Apple customer constituency--are all rightfully filled with fear about job devastation from AI. I know because I'm in that group. And all of the cheerful destruction in this ad is of "analogue" equipment connected to human creativity. Starting right from the top, where the trumpet gets smashed, Apple's message seems to be, "Who needs real trumpets--or human trumpet players--when you can have digitized trumpets in your iPad Pro?" This ad doesn't "offend" me. Not at all. It just leaves me with a feeling of dread. Which is not exactly a vibe you want connected to your product.
Another core Apple constituency--and the secret sauce, IMO, to what has kept the company so relevant for so long--is youth, as represented currently by Gen Alpha and Gen Z. You know what those groups prize most right now? Realness. Analogue. Things that aren't just zeroes and ones. You see it with the vinyl record resurgence, cassette tapes, "Polaroid" prints, point and shoot cameras instead of phones, etc. This ad is the exact opposite message of that.
And finally: why associate your product with the destruction of anything--especially things that people like and have an emotional connection to? That's just Dumb Marketing 101. This could have easily been an ad with real humans spotlighting the boundless creativity possible with the new iPad Pro. I guarantee there's a lot of "WTF, who approved this?" going on at Infinite Loop today and I'm sure this ad will have a very short lifespan.
Also, I challenge the entire premise of "Apple's 'Crush' iPad Pro ad sparks intense backlash from creatives."
We all know that social media platforms use algorithms to juice "controversy," and that a few people with large follower lists can easily activate those algorithms. So a small number of people post "ooo, I didn't like that Apple ad," and generate some subsequent churn from obsequious fans, and suddenly the subject is "trending" and starts popping up in everyone's feed. Some percentage of those people react to a thing they hadn't seen and wouldn't otherwise care about, and by day two, even mainstream media is uncritically reporting on "intense backlash from creatives," as though more than a tiny handful of the people who first saw the ad embedded into the event on Tuesday had much of any reaction to it at all.
This microcosm provides an important example of how social media algorithms have become so profoundly corrosive to public discourse about things that are actually important. Astroturfed outrage gets into everything and ruins just about all of it.
I thought it was one of their best ads in recent times. Crushing all that creativity into one thin highly capable product. And I too believe it's CGI as too many of those shots just seemed like they'd be easier in CG. So basically, as a hard core creative, I completely disagree. Heck, even destroying things can be an art form as Apple has shown here. It was literally entertaining to watch these things get destroyed.
I thought it was one of their best ads in recent times. Crushing all that creativity into one thin highly capable product. And I too believe it's CGI as too many of those shots just seemed like they'd be easier in CG. So basically, as a hard core creative, I completely disagree. Heck, even destroying things can be an art form as Apple has shown here. It was literally entertaining to watch these things get destroyed.
Would the ad be any less to you if run in reverse, with the creativity flowing out?
As I said earlier, the complaints are overboard. But this is far from being an ad that would appeal to most hands-on artists, musicians, and other creatives. The iPad is supposed to be a tool to assist, not replace their other tools, correct? Apple whiffed on a positive message.
The only people who like this ad are those who are part of the spiritual ilk of the "Transhumanists." Cold, heartless people who can't wait to become machines themselves. You can feel Apple jumped the shark with this ad. It turned me off from buying the new iPad (which I was prepared to do). I think I'll use the money instead to buy one of those analog items the machine so heartlessly crushed.
If some creatives are upset about Apple's ad, wait til they consider the AI tools on the horizon threatening to replace them.
But sure, who doesn't want to have all those AI tools in their creative toolbox...
"Who doesn't....?" Hold my beer.
Tyler Perry, to choose but one example, recently cancelled a long-planned, nearly billion dollar expansion of his Atlanta studios after getting a personal demo from OpenAI of what will be possible with Sora. (For those who don't know, Sora can generate video from simple text descriptions.) In announcing the cancellation, Perry lamented the devastating job losses this would entail... and not just the workers who would have built that expansion. In seeing a near-term future where shooting in a studio or on location wouldn't be required, he was talking about scenic designers, lighting designers, costume designers, painters, grips, audio staff, camera ops, craft services, etc. who would either no longer be needed at all or would have hugely minimized roles. But as a businessman, he continued, he has to make a business decision, and I can appreciate that.
Hey, I get it... the future is coming, and soon, like it or not. That's just a fact. But there will be tens of thousands of people, and likely more, who invested an education and maybe decades of life into learning a creative craft who will be out of work permanently, at least in their chosen field. That is also a fact. But we don't have to be gleeful about it.
think different www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sMBhDv4sik
a bicycle for the mind www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob_GX50Za6c
How is 'crush' a reflection of the historical Apple core values...? Does both the name and the iconography reflect a culture of domination and colonialism...?
Is this how Apple has changed under post Jobs management...?
I am reminded of the line in the recent movie 'civil war': 'what kind of American are you...?' www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/a24-s-civil-war-trailer-asks-what-kind-of-american-are-you-video/ar-AA1lrL6j
Comments
It's a great spot. And a creative who doesn't get it can make their own commercial.
More tiresome BS from the Internet.
It's called satire. Put your DSM away for a while and live a little.
The creative class of people across all the arts and industries like architecture--which is an absolute core Apple customer constituency--are all rightfully filled with fear about job devastation from AI. I know because I'm in that group. And all of the cheerful destruction in this ad is of "analogue" equipment connected to human creativity. Starting right from the top, where the trumpet gets smashed, Apple's message seems to be, "Who needs real trumpets--or human trumpet players--when you can have digitized trumpets in your iPad Pro?" This ad doesn't "offend" me. Not at all. It just leaves me with a feeling of dread. Which is not exactly a vibe you want connected to your product.
Another core Apple constituency--and the secret sauce, IMO, to what has kept the company so relevant for so long--is youth, as represented currently by Gen Alpha and Gen Z. You know what those groups prize most right now? Realness. Analogue. Things that aren't just zeroes and ones. You see it with the vinyl record resurgence, cassette tapes, "Polaroid" prints, point and shoot cameras instead of phones, etc. This ad is the exact opposite message of that.
And finally: why associate your product with the destruction of anything--especially things that people like and have an emotional connection to? That's just Dumb Marketing 101. This could have easily been an ad with real humans spotlighting the boundless creativity possible with the new iPad Pro. I guarantee there's a lot of "WTF, who approved this?" going on at Infinite Loop today and I'm sure this ad will have a very short lifespan.
We all know that social media platforms use algorithms to juice "controversy," and that a few people with large follower lists can easily activate those algorithms. So a small number of people post "ooo, I didn't like that Apple ad," and generate some subsequent churn from obsequious fans, and suddenly the subject is "trending" and starts popping up in everyone's feed. Some percentage of those people react to a thing they hadn't seen and wouldn't otherwise care about, and by day two, even mainstream media is uncritically reporting on "intense backlash from creatives," as though more than a tiny handful of the people who first saw the ad embedded into the event on Tuesday had much of any reaction to it at all.
This microcosm provides an important example of how social media algorithms have become so profoundly corrosive to public discourse about things that are actually important. Astroturfed outrage gets into everything and ruins just about all of it.
As I said earlier, the complaints are overboard.
But this is far from being an ad that would appeal to most hands-on artists, musicians, and other creatives. The iPad is supposed to be a tool to assist, not replace their other tools, correct? Apple whiffed on a positive message.
Not good marketing, IMHO.
But sure, who doesn't want to have all those AI tools in their creative toolbox...
Tyler Perry, to choose but one example, recently cancelled a long-planned, nearly billion dollar expansion of his Atlanta studios after getting a personal demo from OpenAI of what will be possible with Sora. (For those who don't know, Sora can generate video from simple text descriptions.) In announcing the cancellation, Perry lamented the devastating job losses this would entail... and not just the workers who would have built that expansion. In seeing a near-term future where shooting in a studio or on location wouldn't be required, he was talking about scenic designers, lighting designers, costume designers, painters, grips, audio staff, camera ops, craft services, etc. who would either no longer be needed at all or would have hugely minimized roles. But as a businessman, he continued, he has to make a business decision, and I can appreciate that.
Hey, I get it... the future is coming, and soon, like it or not. That's just a fact. But there will be tens of thousands of people, and likely more, who invested an education and maybe decades of life into learning a creative craft who will be out of work permanently, at least in their chosen field. That is also a fact. But we don't have to be gleeful about it.
a bicycle for the mind www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob_GX50Za6c
How is 'crush' a reflection of the historical Apple core values...?
Does both the name and the iconography reflect a culture of domination and colonialism...?
Is this how Apple has changed under post Jobs management...?
I am reminded of the line in the recent movie 'civil war': 'what kind of American are you...?'
www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/a24-s-civil-war-trailer-asks-what-kind-of-american-are-you-video/ar-AA1lrL6j