Apple ad for new iPad Pro blasted for symbolically crushing creativity

Apple has put out some of the most innovative and memorable commercials ever. We think of the iconic 1984 ad (directed by Ridley Scott, no less) and the early iPod spots with silhouetted music lovers dancing to “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” Now, Apple has done the exact opposite of those, inadvertently pushing people away from the product.

Apple CEO Tim Cook posted the ad – titled “Crush” – on X this week, accompanying it with: “Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create.” The ad itself features a wealth of human achievements – from music to mathematics – being crushed in a hydraulic press, ultimately creating the new iPad Pro. That it is set to Sonny and Cher’s “All I Ever Need Is You” definitely has meaning.

The ad caused immediate widespread backlash, with even celebrities – most of whom probably own several Apple products – lashing out at the utterly insulting video. For a few examples, Hugh Grant sounded off by saying it promoted “the destruction of the human experience”, documentarian Asif Kapadia noted just how tone deaf it was and actress Justine Bateman just plain wanted to know what the hell is wrong with Apple. Various commentators have called the ad destructive, egotistical and arrogant.

OK, so it’s pretty obvious the idea here is that Apple is symbolically collecting all of the knowledge ever known to man into a new product. That in and of itself isn’t bad, but the execution here is just about the most disgusting way to go about it. The way the Apple ad comes off, all of the featured advances in humanity are disposable, just footnotes that can be squeezed of their soul, meaning and purpose just for the sake of promoting a “thinpossible” piece of 5.3mm-thick piece of technology that will be intentionally outdated in due time. Take a look at the emoji’s face near the end and that’s basically the collective reaction.

What do you make of Apple’s latest ad? Did they completely miss the mark or did they reach their target audience?