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

mindwok
190 replies
8h55m

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.

__rito__
80 replies
8h23m

Nah, it's not exactly like that.

I get through regular life okay, but this a $1T company with hundreds of billions in cash, profit driven, using child labor in China indirectly, and engaging in walled-garden policies makes it worse.

They make all these gadgets that replaces incomes from many manufactures and puts it on a single hand. That's bad enough.

Now, they destroy all these beautiful things- a piano, a guitar, a camera, and a lot of valuable things to make a point that this single silicon-made, soulless corporate company-produced, cheap exploited labor induced thing is going to replace them. Those things of aesthetics and soul are destroyed to give rise to this thing.

That hits hard for me. Seriously. I thought that I was being a real snowflake when this ad made me uncomfortable, but was glad to see this backlash in large numbers. Maybe people still have souls.

You can give a thousand lessons in "nature of real circumstances and geopolitics", and this ad with all its backstory will still be wrong to me.

jhbadger
29 replies
7h56m

Except what are pianos, guitars, cameras etc.? Also products made by companies that are equally "soulless" (they make these things to make money just like Apple). And in terms of aesthetics you can think technological products are just as beautiful as those other products. I personally get angry when I see things like classic Macintoshes turned into fish aquariums and the like, as I see it as beautiful technology destroyed, but even so not that angry.

haswell
16 replies
7h40m

…Also products made by companies that are equally "soulless" (they make these things to make money just like Apple)

I have to strongly disagree. Pianos, guitars and other instruments have a long and rich history that connects the past to the present. A long arc of human progress and creativity, with some of the most sought after instruments today being rooted in a deep history of human craftsmanship.

Cameras also have a rich history, but don’t belong in the same sentence IMO.

While you can find soulless products to buy, those are only a subset of what’s on offer.

I enjoy using Apple products, and will probably even buy this iPad because I need to upgrade. But it sits in an entirely different category than my cameras and musical instruments.

Retric
6 replies
6h53m

Musical instruments have nothing on the deep history of consumer electronics.

The entire arch of human history from the first rock picked up our ancestors leads up to the most complex things ever conceived by humans. Requiring a globally distributed intellectual exchange, thousands of years of scientific and technological advancement, commerce, etc.

Focusing on just the physical assembly of complex parts ignores not just where those parts comes from, but also everyone living and dead that contributed to the software which makes it more than odd object. And even that glosses over the continent spanning electrical systems used to power em etc.

A tablet, laptop, etc is the ultimate expression of history warts and all. If they seem soulless it’s because they aren’t just a product of a single culture.

itishappy
4 replies
6h16m

Hard disagree. The history of consumer electrics goes back maybe a century, but we've been studying and progressing the field of music for tens of thousands of years.

Pianos guitars and violins were crafted by hand! Materials were chosen with care and cultivated over decades with the express purpose of providing a certain character to an instrument! The complexity of a harpsichord or piano was insane in a time before supply chains, and they were designed to last centuries and be passed down between generations! That's just the fancy stuff, stringed instruments can and have been made by anyone, and innovation has come from surprising places! Almost anybody can change the balance, or experiment with covering up holes or adding random metal components to see how it affects the sound. All this effort and knowledge and time goes into something created FOR FUN. You can't eat a piano or use it for any reason other than changing the way people feel, yet music has been around since language was first invented or possibly even earlier.

An iPad is a homogenous blob, it's components broken down and reconstituted at a molecular level, none of it's original character remains. They are the pinnacle of design, but there's not much room for expression left. They last a few years at most before becoming museum pieces or trash. They're impressive in their own right, they showcase human achievement like nothing else. I'd argue they have a less colorful history than music, however.

Retric
3 replies
6h1m

An iPad is a homogeneous blob

A homogeneous blob wouldn’t do anything. You’re discounting complexity because it’s not staring you in the face.

History of consumer electronics goes back maybe a century

Ceramics go back 9,000+ years and people where making glass 4,000 years ago but that history doesn’t count because…

Capacitors, batteries, metals, etc each have their own long history of development without which you didn’t get an iPad.

The complexity of a harpsichord or piano was insane in a time before supply chains

They don’t use glass, ceramics, etc. It only seems complicated because you have some idea of all the steps involved. Meanwhile you can’t conceive of everything involved in making just the machines required for a single component.

itishappy
2 replies
4h46m

A homogeneous blob wouldn’t do anything. You’re discounting complexity because it’s not staring you in the face.

Sorry, my phrasing was poor. As a product line, iPads are homogenous. If we both order one, they will be nearly indistinguishable. Their component materials have been homogenized before manufacturing to remove as much of the character of the original sand or rock as possible.

Capacitors, batteries, metals, etc each have their own long history of development without which you didn’t get an iPad.

These were not developed with consumer electronics in mind. Electricity itself was only discovered 300 years ago. Electronics absolutely built upon the shoulders of giants, but I don't believe they can claim all human progress as their own. The iPad air doesn't have 5000 years of history because that's when we started refining metals.

Meanwhile you can’t conceive of everything involved in making just the machines required for a single component.

My work makes optics for the chip industry, so I like to think I have better idea than most, but I haven't been to anywhere like Shenzhen yet, so I may be out of touch...

Retric
1 replies
2h27m

Their component materials have been homogenized before manufacturing to remove as much of the character of the original … as possible.

You also just described musical instruments. The goal is for them to sound identical to similar instruments and a great deal of effort controlling humidity etc falls under that umbrella. People in an Orchestra want specific sounds not just random character from their instruments.

These were not developed with consumer electronics in mind.

By that token the harpsichord wasn’t invented with the piano in mind. There’s nothing wrong with this view, but it drops the ‘rich history of musical instruments’ to the work of a tiny number of innovators.

Electricity itself was only discovered 300 years ago

Electricity (static shocks, lightning, some evidence for primitive battery etc) was known about since antiquity though obviously we only recently learned how to exploit it.

The iPad air doesn't have 5000 years of history because that's when we started refining metals.

The rich history of glassmaking is directly relevant to the iPad and provides some of its most valuable features. If we discount that then the history of musical instruments again becomes one of a tiny number of lone inventors.

Apples to apples comparisons favor electronics here.

itishappy
0 replies
2h15m

You also just described musical instruments.

Some. My experience has been that the diversity of instruments dwarfs that of electronics, with the possible exception of early Nokia phones. I bet this is largely driven by product lifecycle, as my saxophones are each over 10 years old and have been refurbished more than once. High-end professional instruments are often one-of-a-kind.

The rich history of glassmaking is directly relevant to the iPad and provides some of its most valuable features.

I agree, but again I think it's a problem of intent. Glassmaking was improved to make decorations, then storage vessels, then optics, then cookware and labware, then electronics. Meanwhile people have been making bone flutes and leather drums for longer than they've been able to write about it.

ruined
0 replies
6h30m

Musical instruments have nothing on the deep history of consumer electronics.

no, man. have you never experienced music in a personal way? not a recording, not a concert, but as a living cultural joy shared and created together among strangers and lovers both in the same moment - it's so beautiful, so overwhelming in a way that nothing else is.

and so often it involves a musical instrument, you know.

and it can be a story, a lesson, it is all political. people kill and die for this thing every day, and every day in history.

instruments may be more electronic these days and i enjoy my share of electronic music and computer music. but physical, acoustic instruments will always be the icon.

i think a piano or a guitar has already made more history than remains to be made by anything.

the first cultural memes were songs

api
3 replies
6h52m

In addition to what others have said, I see a budding revolt against "millennial modernism" here.

For those who haven't heard this term, it basically refers to the Apple aesthetic: sparse, minimal, utilitarian, and clean.

Flat UIs and Material design (out of Google) are other examples.

This ad is basically a millennial modernist manifesto. Down with complexity. Down with variety. Simple, clean, minimal.

Contrast this with the noisy cyberpunk aesthetic that was pretty common in technology before Apple 2.0 and Jony Ive and can still be found in the gaming PC area, or the 80s-90s skeuomorphic aesthetic that dominated UIs until the later 2000s.

When Millennial modernism came to prominence it was itself a revolt against noise, clashing styles, and overwhelm. I personally liked it for that aspect. But I can definitely see how it can also be soulless. IMHO the worst thing I can say about it is that it seems associated with authoritarianism. Like Brutalist architecture it's kind of an authoritarian aesthetic because it comes about by having a dictator who says 'no' to almost everything and enforces a very rigid auteur approach. Once established it also tends to remain unchanged because there's not much you can do with it. "Theming" possibilities are pretty much restricted to light and dark mode.

I myself have mixed feelings (about millennial modernism not the ad, which is awful). The biggest thing I like about this style is its association with reduced cognitive load. The biggest thing I don't like is the association with authoritarianism.

Edit:

Just realized that the Cybertruck is an ode to millennial modernism, and might just be kind of a shark jumping moment for it. This ad would count as another shark jumping moment. Maybe it's on its way out.

ncr100
1 replies
6h20m

I didn't like the advert and I'm not a millennial.

It was repulsive.

The issue for me is not about minimalism, so this reframing is not appropriate in my case.

api
0 replies
6h15m

Millennial modernism doesn't mean the generation. It's the industrial design and UI aesthetic that took hold around the turn of the millennium. AFAIK Jony Ive, one of its main architects, is a genX-er. Generationally I associate it more with genX since it took hold when that generation was entering higher levels in the corporate world.

I do agree that there is more wrong with the advert than this. I was just pointing out something nobody'd brought up.

leetharris
0 replies
6h6m

I'm sorry but this sounds like internet bubble nonsense.

A budding revolt? Equating an iPad to authoritarianism?

I think I understand and agree with some of your concepts. I see a trend back towards analog things and low tech devices, but that's a pretty simple and understandable trend. I don't think it has anything to do with authoritarianism.

nojvek
2 replies
7h28m

The stress ball emoji getting destroyed with its eyes popping up. That was real depressing.

That’s how it feels when inflation made basics jump up 50% and it feels you’re being slowly crushed.

Seeing this is an Ad for one of the world’s richest Companies, the lesson I got is the rich are slowly crushing the median.

Don’t buy their crap.

nojvek
1 replies
6h41m

He! Thanks for downvote. Someone really loves Apple.

mc32
0 replies
6h34m

Nah, they're probably mad at the economic, interpreted as political, message more than anything.

If they're mad at that, then they'd be mad at themselves for having a zoomorphic stressball and squeezing it themselves --which, who knows, is possible, but unlikely to be the case.

postmodest
0 replies
6h27m

Fuji Heavy Industries would like a word about pianos, guitars, trumpets, and, if we're honest with ourselves, everything else on that press.

Though the tone of the ad was still... Orwellian: imagine a hydraulic press, stamping on human creativity, forever.

newswasboring
0 replies
7h9m

Bit of a side note, I was trying to understand why the history of craftsmanship feels different for cameras compared to say pianos. One variable here is definitely the fact that I work in lithography and cameras are a sister industry. Familiarity diminishes the mystique of something. But I think it's a bit more about time. Each advance in piano technology had it's "moment" so to speak. New refinement in pianos were slower to develop due to many reasons, but the prestige of pianos remains the same. But unlike cameras each generation of pianos got an entire human lifetime to be explored, sometimes even multiple lifetimes. It's cultural impact got time to be normalized and then commented upon. None of that has happened for cameras. Things changed so fast we didn't even get a chance to explore all of the options.

An argument against my amateur analysis is of course scale. Pianos were being explored by maybe a million people and only a fraction of that fulltime. Cameras are basically a part of life for a large portion of humanity.

yterdy
4 replies
7h49m

It's a bit of a stretch to call musical instruments - which are often handcrafted and not manufactured because an object that produces a particular sound requires tolerance that shift with the source material and that are difficult to generalize to a machine process - "soulless". On top of that handcrafting, they're objects made specifically to tap into one of the deepest parts of the human psyche (again, by hand, ephemerally). It's hard to think of something less soulless.

ThrowawayTestr
2 replies
7h38m

Do you think hand crafted instruments were used for the ad or cheap Chinese shit?

filleduchaos
0 replies
6h19m

I'm not sure how to articulate it but there's a deep irony in how people are scoffing at the emotional reaction to this ad, when the sentiment in it - that all things can be done/subsumed by Computers™ - has infiltrated the public consciousness as deeply as it has.

There is so much that is still only doable at least in part by hand, from making certain musical instruments to things like crochet. There are even more that use machines but are nowhere near as automated as people believe they are (see e.g. practically all tailoring, where even mass produced articles still need a skilled hand to guide the cutting and sewing machines).

But people love the fiction of some sterile production line that spits out all the cheap things they buy, in no small part because acknowledging that even "cheap Chinese shit" is made by the skilled hands of actual human beings would require acknowledging the gross exploitation that enables you to buy their work for absurdly low prices.

ncr100
0 replies
6h18m

Seriously, true.

Mother's heartbeat. The woosh of her blood stream.

We get months of this auditory performance.

silver_silver
2 replies
7h23m

It's the product which they're describing as soulless. Apple likes to sell the idea of creativity but the device's purpose is ultimately consumption.

vundercind
0 replies
6h49m

This remains one of the most alien takes around, to me. I-devices are the most useful computers I have, by a county mile, when I want to do something creative or constructive in the real world (not write software, say). Their greatest strength is that they’re computers that bridge real-life and computing like a “real” computer does not.

Separately, the ad is weird. They’re the first thing I reach for if I want to e.g. play our actual piano. I tune instruments with them, display music with them, record myself, play an accompanying track on them—I compliment instruments with them, I don’t replace them with an iPad or iPhone.

veidr
0 replies
6h13m

I get why this take is so common, but it's just wrong. Not that most use of iPad isn't consumption, but that this is different. PCs, too. MacBook Whatevers, too. TVs, too (obviously).

The iPads have had a hard time because, yeah, the OS was/is in its infancy but nobody (except the dgaf-wealthy) buys the $2000+ iPad Pro for "consumption" because they sell a $400 and $700 iPad for that.

The things iPad (Pro) can do are indeed far fewer than an unencumbered (by draconian lockdown, or simple lack of development resources) PC or even Mac laptop. But that's different than "none". The more hardware equipment in my studio I can shovel onto Apple's magic hydraulic obliterator, the better.

(Although it's a lot less than shown in that ad, haha. But I liked the ad, as far as ads go.)

jrwoodruff
1 replies
7h37m

For me, it was more about the humanity represented by the objects than what company they came from. All of those objects are far more human-centered than the iPad. All of those objects were crafted and perfected over centuries - guitar forms, paint formulas, camera technology, etc. In a way it's representative of the much of human culture, and this add kinda says, yea, screw all that old crappy stuff. Look at our neat piece of glass that replaces all that humanity.

I get it, that's exactly their point. The iPad can do all of those things. But at a time when many creatives feel like AI is going to replace them or make their skills irrelevant, it's pretty tone deaf.

And also, it's far more likely that most of those objects were made by skilled craftsmen, even if they did work at a bigger company.

veidr
0 replies
6h10m

But at a time when many creatives feel like AI is going to replace them or make their skills irrelevant, it's pretty tone deaf.

This is what I realized, too. At first, I thought the outrage was dumb, but I think this is the context I was missing.

digitalsushi
0 replies
7h48m

The pianos, guitars, cameras were at one point the labors of love from fellow engineers, and then adopted as the extended arms, fingers, eyes of the the artists those engineers trusted their labors with.

And yeah I'm not oblivious. We can replace all the engineers and artists with generated output that satisfies 97% of everyone. It was great while it lasted but like the apple commercial hints at, out with the old ...

__MatrixMan__
0 replies
6h8m

Ok, but nobody thinks that fish aquariums are a threat to computing.

I don't personally think that computing is a threat to art, but many people do.

moralestapia
19 replies
7h51m

Yeah ok, do you carry a smartphone with you?

Or do you carry a bag with a camera, a dumb phone, a notepad w/ pens and markers, books, an mp3 player, a pedometer, a measuring tape, ...

No one's forcing you to buy the former, so, why don't you do the latter?

notaustinpowers
9 replies
7h36m

Ah, the classic "You criticize technology and yet you have a smartphone, checkmate".

There are genuine uses for this technology, but symbolically showing that pianos, violins, paints, etc are out of date by crushing them, replacing them with an iPad removes any of the "humanity" from it.

If I swipe a violin string on an iPad, it's going to sound the exact same no matter what. But if I play a real violin I have control over the vibrato (I guess, I'm not a violinist), I can start a note slowly and then quickly cut it off for effect, or slowly fade out a note by relieving pressure on the strings. The real thing allows for artists to put their heart and their soul into the music. An iPad can only immitate the note in it's most pristine, mathematic, sterile form.

moralestapia
8 replies
7h4m

Ah, the classic "You criticize technology and yet you have a smartphone, checkmate".

I never wrote anything remotely similar to that in my comment. I'm talking about the convenience of carrying a single thing vs. many of them.

removes any of the "humanity" from it

No, the iPad didn't remove the humanity from those activities, you did, right now. Let me tell you something, there's some really good pieces of art out there, music, short films, photography, etc... that were created using a modern digital device like the iPad. Does that make those less human? Less artistically valuable? Absolutely not!

notaustinpowers
7 replies
6h34m

This conversation isn't about "convenience of carrying a single thing vs. many of them". This discussion isn't about portability. Musicians don't carry their pianos or an orchestra with them to Trader Joes.

On your other point: Correct, there is INCREDIBLE art out there that is only possible thanks to technology. EDM music, 3D animation, the hyperpop genre (RIP Sophie), etc. The insinuation of the ad, however, is that those "old" ways to create art are no longer needed, the iPad does it all!!

Give two jazz artists the same music sheet and an iPad and tell them to recreate it and they'll both make music that sounds the exact same, because the iPad doesn't allow them to insert those little things like I mentioned in my previous comment.

Give those same two jazz artists the same music sheet but give them a full orchestra and they'll both be unique.

This doesn't make digital art less artistically valuable. I'm saying that technologies such as the iPad, which inherently remove the ability for human uniqueness to be included, insinuating that physical methods of artistic expression are outdated is both demeaning to artists, and frankly a dangerous method of thinking when it comes to art.

lxgr
4 replies
6h11m

Give two jazz artists the same music sheet and an iPad and tell them to recreate it and they'll both make music that sounds the exact same

That sounds like an extremely dubious claim.

By the same logic, two pro gamers playing the same video game should always achieve the exact same score, two authors typing a novel in the same computer should end up with the same story etc., yet that’s clearly not true.

notaustinpowers
3 replies
5h57m

By the same logic, two pro gamers play the same video game should always achieve the exact same score.

Both of those comparisons you've made have the human element included in them. The gamers don't follow the exact same path in a speedrun. The authors don't have the exact same instructions on what book to write.

If a musician plucks the iPad violin strings to make an A note, it will sound the same across all iPads, across all artists, every time without fail. But if that same musician plucks an A note on a violin, it will sound different every time, across different musicians, different violins, different pressures, different techniques, etc.

Ask a music lover which they'd prefer. An orchestra consisting of pre-recorded music from 80 iPads played over loudspeakers or a live symphony orchestra?

lxgr
2 replies
4h45m

If a musician plucks the iPad violin strings to make an A note, it will sound the same across all iPads, across all artists, every time without fail.

Will it really, though? Touchscreens are pretty high resolution these days in both time and space.

I think this is ultimately a quantitative (and a huge one, at that, don't get me wrong) difference in the ergonomics of input methods, rather than a qualitative difference in "humanness".

Again, don't get me wrong, I am not arguing here that an iPad will produce "better" musical outcomes than an "analog violin", but I'd like to challenge the idea that the analog or digital (or maybe mass-produced vs. artisanally crafted) nature of an inanimate object is what makes or breaks the "human element" of a work of art.

Humans add the human element, by using their tools creatively.

notaustinpowers
1 replies
3h5m

I agree with you on that, it's a different input method and (therefore) will always come with it's quirks whether it's analog or digital. Digital art, music, animation, etc are incredible feats in their own right.

From knowing and being close with a lot of artists, the main complaint I hear about this ad is that it comes across as a destruction of the analog form to "make way" for the digital. Both of them can exist as they cater to different forms of artistic expression. This doesn't inherently make one better than the other. It comes across as a very bad take to artists that digital art is better than analog art, and analog art is on it's way to being destroyed.

I get it that this may just all be artists and myself reading too much into this. But that's art! We read into things waaayyyy too much sometimes.

lxgr
0 replies
1h29m

I must really be watching another ad than anybody else!

As I see it, all of these great analog (and digital, there's a Space Invaders arcade cabinet!) tools are getting physically squished into the iPad.

That's coincidentally how I think about my smartphone already: It's not necessarily better than most of my other devices (digital and analog) it's replaced, but it's all of them at once, and that is quite the achievement.

That doesn't mean that the squishing didn't cause an unfortunate loss in expressiveness or ergonomics in many cases, but at least in photography, there's the old saying that the best camera is the one you always have with you.

ncr100
0 replies
6h6m

I agree. And,

The walled garden of Apple is famous.

Painters cannot paint a room with buckets of paint in an iPad.

Children cannot play with a squeeze ball on an iPad.

The ad failed, overstating the iPad functionality, while they destroyed precious tangible items.

moralestapia
0 replies
1h30m

This conversation isn't about "convenience of carrying a single thing vs. many of them".

I am actually making an argument for that. Why did smartphones caught up? Because they're everything in a single thing. Apple wants the iPad to be the same in its respective market segment.*

haswell
4 replies
7h29m

Not OP, but in my daily carry bag I bring: a camera, books, notepad with pencils, and my iPhone.

I carry those other things because I value photography and the phone can’t replace the tactile experience of writing on paper or turning the pages of a book.

I own an aging iPad and will probably buy this new one, but strongly disliked the ad because it seems to be signaling that those things I value are being replaced by the iPad. In a sense, they said the quiet part out loud.

moralestapia
3 replies
7h8m

Oh, so you're option three, you just got everything, lol.

I actually liked the ad, and I like the underlying message of the iPad being a simile for all those things. Consider a situation where you have a limited budget, let's say you're a teen and you only get one birthday present. Me personally, I'd get an iPad or a similar device, as that's the single thing that will maximize my fun, out of all other options.

(emphasis on thing, please don't come back at me with the "I'd rather have friends" strawman, you can have friends and an iPad)

itishappy
2 replies
7h1m

Yeah, that makes me sad. You can get a really nice guitar and camera for the price of an iPad, and I suspect most people learn a lot less about music and photography with an iPad than a guitar and a camera.

I get that people want the powerful shiny thing. I do too, I work in tech. I think it's done something dangerous to my brain though...

moralestapia
1 replies
6h58m

There's probably billions of guitars and cameras around the world just gathering dust. (With some particular exceptions) the gear doesn't make the artist.

itishappy
0 replies
6h46m

I'm sure you're right, but I don't think the quality of the device matters, I think it's the intent. An iPad is a generalist device, it's a portal to the world. A guitar is an instrument, it makes music and little else.

As someone proficient with both guitar and digital music production, I find that I make better music with physical instruments. I spend most of my time making digital music watching YouTube videos about production tricks... I'm sure some people have more willpower than I who can focus their energy productively, but I don't think that's most people's natural state.

I guess what I'm saying is that in retrospect, if I could give a guitar or an iPad to my 12 year old self, I'd choose the guitar again, no contest.

AlanYx
3 replies
6h56m

Or do you carry a bag with a camera, a dumb phone, a notepad w/ pens and markers, books, an mp3 player, a pedometer, a measuring tape, ...

The thing is, people are starting to do that more and more. Even John Gruber, iPhone enthusiast extraordinaire, has started carrying a real camera around again. Fujifilm hasn't been able to keep their smaller mirrorless cameras in stock for the last four years. Notebooks and pens are back for a lot of people. Even wristwatches are undergoing an enormous renaissance in popularity.

The cultural zeitgeist is shifting. Whether it's a reaction to a sense that software is eating the world, or a reaction to the ubiquitization of AI generica, or a quest for authenticity, I'm not sure. But this ad is badly out of step with that cultural trend, and the dystopian lighting, framing, and the popping eyes on the stress ball certainly don't help either.

moralestapia
2 replies
6h53m

Do you have any numbers to better understand that trend? (I don't, btw)

I have the impression that the opposite is happening.

AlanYx
1 replies
6h46m

The numbers on the vinyl album renaissance are probably a good illustration. They're undergoing nonlinear growth, and have either surpassed CD sales or are neck-and-neck, e.g.: https://www.statista.com/chart/26583/music-album-sales-in-th... Though it's also interesting that actual CD sales have levelled off too, after dropping for years.

jwells89
0 replies
5h38m

Other analog media like minidisc has also seen a notable uptick in popularity, albeit not nearly as much as vinyl.

Also while not analog, iPods modded to be a bit more modern (replacing their mechanical HDs with higher capacity flash and adding haptics and Bluetooth among other things) have also been popular lately.

Offline music is definitely seeing a resurgence.

culopatin
16 replies
7h13m

Why does Apple destroying things outrage worthy but Hollywood destroying many more things (in my head for example many classic cars) for a shot, not? Is it because one is entertaining and one is not?

boringg
7 replies
7h8m

The advertisement statement is destroying all these things and replacing them by an iPad. I.E. thats the sales pitch -- you don't need any of these things anymore just this iPad.

Hollywood does destroy all sorts of things but that's not their sales pitch to you. It happens in the background. Also it isn't replacing those soulful cars with a new car -- it's using them for a shot.

culopatin
5 replies
6h35m

So as long as things happen in the background and we continue to be numb to the destruction is all good? I think that says more about you(as in us, the viewer, not you HN user) than about Apple to be honest. And I’m not pro Apple here, could be anyone. Could be that Australian girl on Instagram that crushes things and dances to their shape.

boringg
2 replies
6h14m

There's a step function difference between a large megacorp making their message about crushing artistic merit/individuality and selling their device as a replacement to all compared to hollywood using a couple cars as a stunt in the background. Apples to oranges.

If you can't see the difference here I think this says more about you being able to put together reasonable comparables for arguments then anything else.

For example using "Australian girl on Instagram that crushes things and dances to their shape" as a comparable is so completely different as to be irrelevant except that there is similarity in something being crushed. It's like comparing a military jet and a mosquito because they can both fly.

culopatin
1 replies
6h6m

Why does saying “this IPad combines all these things” crush artistic merit or individuality? You can still go buy a piano and do whatever you want and be your own individual independently of Apple crushing ONE piano/trumpet/5 emoji balls.

boringg
0 replies
5h52m

Like I said - if you can't see why they dropped the ball on the advertisement then that falls on your own ability to interpret.

To your question - they literally used crush and destroy as their message.

Unforced error on Apples part plain and simple.

phantomathkg
1 replies
6h5m

I think the comparison is wrong here. For hollywood or film making, it is about the story telling. One has to create and destroy scene to produce story.

culopatin
0 replies
5h55m

From what I had read from some of the upset people was that what’s wrong with the ad was in the realm of waste = bad. But I’m when I bring up the Hollywood example for waste, it goes out the window. If this ad was part of a longer movie, would it be ok to crush them all? If it was say a scene in a dictatorship story where people are not allowed to make new music or something, would someone talk about the waste of a perfectly good piano for the scene?

trashtester
0 replies
6h1m

Exactly. Had this put this exact video into some dystopian sci fi, it might be a suitable way to portray some villain or cynical mega-corporation as nihilistic.

But when a company uses this in an ad, THEY are the ones that come off as nihilists, and not in a good way.

If they wanted to express that the ipad CONTAINED all of those older things within it, they could have created this as something like Dr Strange would have done. Like make those items fly into a portal shaped like a giant ipad, and then shrink the ipad with all those items still inside.

Or at the very least, they could have presented the items to be destroyed like they were worn out and broken (and no longer in use), and then presented their destruction as giving them new life through recycling as an Ipad.

This ad will definitely pop into my head the next time I consider buying an Apple device, and not in a good way.

Raidion
2 replies
7h3m

Destroying classic cars for a movie creates something. I think a few car people would be pretty upset if some really bad, made for TV movie destroyed a lot of classic cars. This is just that, but upsetting musicians, photographers, artists, and basically anyone who cares about the environment.

This ad destroys a lot of things people are really really fond about: musical instruments, painting supplies, photography equipment, and record player. And then says that all of those things will be replaced by this "gadget" that won't have the years of life of the piano, guitar, camera, record player, etc.

So it destroys things people care about AND tells you the things you care about don't matter anymore.

culopatin
0 replies
6h39m

Movies generate something that’s visually interesting. If this wasn’t an ad, wouldn’t you say it was visually interesting to see what happens when you crush something like that? Things get destroyed all the time for visuals, experiments, someone’s ”fun”, etc.

I think the difference is that people are very removed from what waste actually is, and when they see what it actually happens all day every day to all those items, shock. We all generate this every day. In the big picture, someone’s old trumpet in an attic is going to end up in a landfill once they move/die/need space. Once it got produced, its final form is landfill.

Even if I don’t believe in the product, and I don’t think of the company very fondly, I lean towards considering the ad anti waste. “You no longer need to buy and store and move and hoard all these things, you only need an iPad”. It’s not saying “go crush all this items to buy an iPad”, it’s saying “don’t generate all this other waste, you can do it all here”

Volume wise at least, there is more waste in the “loved” items, and no one is recycling emoji squishy balls.

Damogran6
0 replies
5h59m

The classic cars destroyed in movies are, quite often, not worth restoring, The Ferrari in Ferris Bueller's Day Off was a kit car, vehicles are often insurance write offs...there was a time when you could see cars in-frame were suddently 10 years older and tell that there was some destruction going to happen. I'm sure you can find some Italian Supercar destroyed for real in some Fast and the Furious type movie, but it's often not what it seems.

Is there also outcry when a Musician destroys a guitar on-stage?

My feeling at the ad wasn't particularly emotional, more curiosity at how much of it was real and how much wasnt. Speakers and art supplies aren't particularly expensive, and the Arcade machine wasn't recognizeably a machine worth keeping. There are plenty of used up pianos out there. The emoji was kinda funny...I don't know what that says about me.

frantathefranta
1 replies
6h26m

Most of the classic cars destroyed in movies are replicas built specifically for the occasion.

culopatin
0 replies
5h15m

And why are we assuming the stuff in the ad is all collector worthy and not some broken piano that was going to the landfill?

__rito__
1 replies
5h31m

There’s a fire, and a piano is burned- that's okay as telling the story demands it in a movie. (I also believe that some among them would burn a fake piano rather than a real one. I may be wrong here.)

But stating that all those beautiful things "deserve" to be replaced by a thin silicon 3k USD machine by literally destroying them in an industrial crusher?

That's different.

The same Apple destroyed the Big Brother some decades ago in a commercial. The sense of irony!

(Also, a car is a car. The world doesn't share Americans' obsession and weird relationships with cars. A photographer's camera, a musician's guitar are more important.)

culopatin
0 replies
5h16m

The car is an example of something that I think of as art in the same way you think of a camera. I’m sure they have destroyed many pianos for movies, shows, theatre, etc.

The world doesn’t share your own obsession and weird relationships with a camera and a guitar.

cranium
2 replies
7h51m

I would add that the atmosphere really feels dystopian – kind of a soul-less machine (crusher in a warehouse) vs symbols of human creativity. Despite the music, it's not a light and fun representation.

goatkey
0 replies
6h48m

It reminded me of Fallout or Bioshock, which is kinda funny and likely not at all what they were going for.

__rito__
0 replies
5h43m

Yes, that too.

What man with a soul would destroy a guitar with a crusher for any purpose at all?

That's psychopathically problematic to me.

sanderjd
1 replies
7h31m

I mean, they obviously didn't execute it well, since so many people had this kind of reaction to it, but the point seemed to me to be that all those "things of aesthetics and soul" are smushed into this one very thin thing, not that they are destroyed.

But sure, I can see why people don't like it.

dtjb
0 replies
6h44m

they were gratuitously and violently destroyed, with shrapnel and debris flying in all directions.

these hydraulic press videos are popular because they crush things. they don't create artful unions, they pulverize.

bitexploder
1 replies
6h20m

I feel this is a highly romantic and nostalgic view of objects humans make. Calling them “beautiful” vs “this thing”. I know this is all subjective, but what makes a piano more soulful than an iPhone? This is a genuinely curious exploration of the emotions involved here.

amelius
0 replies
6h14m

The iPhone is a vending machine in our pockets, controlled by a large corporation.

I'm not at all surprised people don't feel emotions around it.

The moment a piano starts selling tablature in the TabStore™, I'm sure that people won't mind to see a piano being crushed in a hydraulic press.

sheepscreek
0 replies
7h20m

I think you got very close to the real issue.

One aspect could bae related the affordability of things. Imagine that beautiful grand piano - how many would have dreamt of owning one in their homes but can’t. Because:

a) they are expensive

b) need a lot of space (so you need to have a big home to begin with)

Seeing a lot of new things being destroyed, along with the stress all emoji’s eyes popping out, was a bit much.

pera
0 replies
7h49m

Maybe people still have souls

I agree with everything you say except for this part: not having an emotional reaction to the destruction of objects doesn't imply you don't have a soul (whatever that means to you). Not everybody had the opportunity in life to learn to play an instrument or make art, and I can see how for people like this a music instrument is not more sentimental than, say, a hammer.

Maybe you should feel good about feeling bad after watching that ad: it means you had the chance to experience the beauty of creating art.

nipponese
0 replies
7h36m

Actual number is $26B in cash

source: 2023 10k

niek_pas
0 replies
7h55m

Maybe people still have souls.

What exactly are you trying to achieve with this sentence?

mindwok
0 replies
8h7m

Thanks, this for me is the best articulation for why someone might feel so strongly.

8338550bff96
0 replies
6h11m

Snowflakes are normally found en mass

thinkingtoilet
12 replies
8h49m

I agree. This a the quote from the article, someone called it the "destruction of human experience". We have to be a little bit tougher than this, right?

waynesonfire
5 replies
8h38m

and i'm shocked that your response is to tell people to man up cry babies. maybe try reflecting why there was a reaction to the ad from a human experience perspective. there is a reason apple appologized instead of telling them to man up as you're suggesting.

Satam
1 replies
8h32m

If they apologized it's because it's the best PR move. The execs definitely aren't sweating over "destruction of human experience".

bluefirebrand
0 replies
8h1m

If that's true, then it's probably because they've never had a human experience in their lives

ricardonunez
0 replies
8h27m

Apple did it because that’s the typical corporate response to a backlash, that said nobody should tell you to man up, you feel the way you feel and that’s it, just a reminder that it goes in both sides of the spectrum.

frereubu
0 replies
8h30m

"We have to be a little bit tougher than this" is not the same as "Man up cry babies". That's a hyperbolic rephrasing which I think significantly misses the tone of the original.

camillomiller
0 replies
8h36m

The fact that you think it’s normal to use the word “shocked” to describe how you feel after reading an anonymous comment on an internet board about a tv ad ironically reinforces the entire point.

gregd
1 replies
7h51m

I don't think this is so much about this ONE ad but rather, it contributes to the overall feeling that real connections, like art, music, and architecture, are being lost daily. Music programs are constantly being cut. Architects can't find work. Woodworkers can't make a living making custom furniture. Sam Ash music stores are shuttering ALL their locations.

Everything has been commodified.

And Apple just piled on.

BEEdwards
0 replies
6h51m

Everything has been commodified.

welcome to capitalism...

red_trumpet
0 replies
8h42m

I agree that one can see the ad as depicting "destruction of human experience". This does not mean that my day is ruined after viewing the ad. Disliking the ad and calling it what it is does not mean one is not tough.

financltravsty
0 replies
8h30m

I don't feel anything from the ad, but if you're numb to a pointed reminder of the towering tetragrammaton that ushered in perhaps the most anti-human technology we have seen (phones), then perhaps you need to be a little more open to experiencing the rawness of life.

There's no strength in disassociating from the ills of the world. Useful in short bursts, but as a default state I would say is a problem.

Now that doesn't mean the other side -- the histrionics -- are "right," but there is a balance to be found here.

UncleMeat
0 replies
7h36m

If you dig through twitter, you can find somebody saying something dramatic about basically everything. It might be hyperbole to communicate a feeling. It might be somebody who is legitimately unwell and reacts unreasonably strongly to people. It might be somebody faking it.

You can be almost certain that people using this language don't expect to be aggregated into news articles and then be used as evidence that the world is getting too soft.

Bluestrike2
0 replies
7h26m

I can read "the destruction of human experience" two ways. One, it's a just a descriptive label of the symbolism the act of crushing creative instruments/tools/materials represents, even if that symbolism is clearly not something the creators ever intended. Two, is the more hyperbolic--or perhaps even hysteric--you're literally destroying the human experience and it's hurting me emotionally take. A lot of the commentary on social media is probably closer to the former, but it doesn't discount the latter.

It's pretty obvious what marketing intended. You take a bunch of creative instruments/tools/materials, squish them inside the iPad, and you get to carry them with you with your iPad. Heck, I'm almost certain it's been done before as a cartoon gag: everything gets sucked into one super tool. There's probably an old Looney Tunes episode with something close enough--maybe stuffing books inside someone's head to teach them the material--to make my point.

In any case, the metaphor's pretty clear; unfortunately, the Crush ad completely botches it. There's no mechanism by which the props 'enter' the iPad. Instead, you just see wanton destruction, the hydraulic press lifts up, and then there's an iPad sitting on a giant chunk of steel. Paint is dripping down the side, but the press itself is oddly sterile. The mess? The parts? The paint? All gone on the press except for what's left on the floor. And if it's smashed into itty bitty bits, even if it's now metaphorically "inside" the iPad, what's the point? Did the press somehow squeeze out some metaphysical meaning from the tools that got sucked into the iPad? Now throw in some of the angst about the possibility of generative AI replacing some creative jobs.

If the idea is that an iPad will 'replace' those tools--or more likely, just let the user take them with you wherever they go--there's an implicit assumption that the user values those tools and would like them so close at hand. So literally destroying tools that, for many artists and creatives, are objects of affection closely tied to memories that are critical parts of their self-conception, is an absurd kind of symbolism that would have never made it off the drawing board under Jobs. People tend to respect their tools, and filming their meaningless destruction is going to rub people the wrong way even though it really has no actual impact. Especially with an ad that's simultaneously trying to get you to buy the product they were symbolically destroyed to revel.

Will Crush turn many people off from buying a new iPad when they need one? Almost certainly not. But it does underscore that Apple's changed as as a company. Apple users--myself included--might still love the products they buy, but it doesn't seem like they're in love with them like it once seemed (for way too many of their users).

haswell
11 replies
8h22m

I strongly disliked the ad. I also get through my days just fine. I don’t understand the insinuation that people who disliked it must be somehow unable to navigate daily life.

Here’s why I disliked it: I’m one of those people who finds themselves concerned and sometimes sad at the erosion of the humanity in art. Social media and AI are changing the nature of artistic expression in a way that often feels destructive. I’ve started to intentionally unplug and use devices less in order to stay connected to what I see as the good stuff in life.

To me, this ad is the culmination of what I dislike about tech.

If they had played the ad in reverse, I think I’d have really liked it. iPad as a tool for expression. Instead, it’s presented as a tool that supersedes expression. I suspect Apple was trying to communicate the former.

Edit to respond to the edit: highly sensitive people who have visceral reactions to stuff like this are canaries in the coal mine. We need them just as much as we need substantive discussion here. Some of the backlash also originated in Japan, where culturally this was quite offensive.

tkgally
3 replies
7h59m

I strongly disliked the ad. I also get through my days just fine.

Same here. And besides disliking the ad myself, I imagined that many other people would dislike it too. I also wondered how on earth it could have gotten the go sign within Apple. From the outside, at least, Apple looks like the epitome of a cautious, deliberate company. I would have thought there would have been plenty of stages in the approval process where it would have been shot down.

UncleMeat
1 replies
7h40m

I'm quite cynical about this one. I think that they knew that this ad would produce a reaction and would generate a ton of free press. How many people only saw this ad or knew there was a new ipad generation because of this coverage? I was one of those people.

This feels like bait for online arguments. An aggravating theme that is obvious to many but also just enough deniability to have people complain about the people who react negatively to the ad. Boom. Free press.

silver_silver
0 replies
7h18m

It's still up on their YouTube channel despite this statement, so you're probably spot on.

haswell
0 replies
7h54m

This is a good point. It does make me question what’s happening at Apple when something like this gets all the way through.

gregd
3 replies
7h57m

This! Music programs throughout the US, are getting cut. AI has fundamentally (and not in a good way) changed the artistic landscape in ways that we cannot recover from. My soon to be high school graduate daughter, was so looking forward to pursuing her artistic passions in college, and now is taking a gap year to really understand if that is something she still thinks she can make a living at.

vundercind
0 replies
6h40m

Recording and mass production made “I want to be a musician” similar to “I want to be a pro football player” by the middle of last century (“big band” style being popular, and live radio, kept the career alive for a while)

It cut the value, monetary and social, of anything but great talent and skill down to almost zero, where one middling ability had had substantial value. It shifted the reward for it almost entirely to the tip-top of the skill hierarchy.

I think the level most people engage with music making (a hobby, for themselves primarily) will survive just fine. Some of the already-tiny set of paying jobs it composition, especially, may be in trouble, but that was already a rare career.

tpmoney
0 replies
7h31m

Not to be glib, but the "starving artist" has been a thing for a lot longer than AI (or even Apple) has been around. While I hope your daughter can indeed find a way to make a living from her passions if that's what she wants, taking time to give a good hard think about that (and for that matter whether or not trying to make your passion your job might ruin the passion) isn't the worst thing she could do.

I think there's also something to be said for the fact that while I agree school music programs should not be facing the cuts they do – and that's a battle I was fighting when I was in school too – digital music technology (and its analogs in video and photography arts) have probably been a net positive in terms of bringing the capability to create art to more people than just school programs on their own. When you can make art without consuming resources, without needing large studio spaces or especially in the case of music an entire band of other people, that can give freedom of expression to people that would otherwise have been prevented from participating in the arts because of their circumstances.

I'd also point out that while AI (like any disruptive tech in the arts) may have introduced bad changes, there are also cases where it's allowed for artistic expression that would have been impossible before. My favorite recent example is Billy Joel's new "Turn the Lights Back On" song and video. Watch the video and the obvious thing that jumps out at you is the de-aging / replacement effects. But if you close your eyes and really listen to the music too, you'll discover not only did they play with de-aging visually, but they also played with de-aging his voice. And though the whole song as he ages up in the song, his voice is also changing to match each era until it returns to the present day. That's a cool, artistic and emotional use of AI technology that just wouldn't have been possible before the tools we have now.

mtalantikite
0 replies
6h54m

I'm with you in that music and art programs should be invested in and not cut. They were already being cut when I was a teenager in the 90s and it really held back my own music practice.

But in terms of your daughter pursuing an art career, was she hoping to work in commercial art? Like at an animation studio or graphic design house? Because I don't see AI taking jobs from artists doing work that ends up in galleries and museums. All of my friends that are professional visual artists here in NYC work with physical materials that go onto physical walls in galleries, and I don't think any of the AIs are going to take away from making 30-foot textile sculptures or oil paintings or immersive performance art transformations of galleries. They might even enhance the toolkit some of my friend's get to use.

And depending on what she considers making a living, she probably won't for a very long time as an artist regardless of AI. There's a huge gap between the artists making $100k on a painting and the long tail of those just holding on making enough to survive. But the one thing all of them have in common is that they really couldn't do anything else in their life, they're fully committed to it, it just would be impossible for them to not be artists. Maybe I'd suggest her going through the Artists Way [1] during her gap year while she tries to figure out if it's what she wants to do! The framing of it can get pretty, I don't know, annoying, weird, but the exercises over the 12-weeks I found to be helpful.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Artist%27s_Way

boringg
0 replies
7h4m

And this is an uplifting great advertisement. Unbelievable how much of a difference the message makes.

sanderjd
0 replies
7h27m

Such a good point that having things come out of an ipad would have been the effective way to portray the same point they are trying to make.

PedroBatista
9 replies
8h40m

We are in a age where most interactions are supercharged with melodramatic theatrics.

Not to dunk too much on the artistic community, but when it comes to these 4 day dramas all the over the top adjectives are applied. Very eloquent but the feelings most of the time aren't even real. It's a performance.

deaddodo
5 replies
8h27m

Not to mention, and this is something I have to explain to my European friends all the time when they get all of their information on the US from it's media, Americans speak in hyperbole all the time. It's how they talk to each other ("omg, you're my best friend", "I almost died", "That's the biggest tower I've ever seen", "People are literally dying on the streets due to private healthcare", etc), so if you read it without the context you would think this ad is the worst thing in the world.

ornornor
3 replies
8h23m

Side note: because literally has been so often used to mean figuratively, literally is now acceptable to mean figuratively. They even updated the definition in the dictionary: the word now means literally AND its opposite.

sapeint
0 replies
6h36m

Literally has been used in that way for literally hundreds of years. From Charles Dickens ("He had literally feasted his eyes on the culprit.") and Charlotte Bronte ("Literally I was the apple of his eye"), to Mark Twain (in Adventures of Tom Sawyer) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (in The Great Gatsby) -- among others.

This "Literally shouldn't be used figuratively" is a rather modern construct that was artificially created.

brabel
0 replies
6h50m

Yep, the dictionary's job is to tell you how people are using language, not to tell people how to use words :). And don't people love to make a mess with words' meanings?!

bigstrat2003
0 replies
6h8m

No, literally is not acceptable to use to mean figuratively. Those people are using the word wrong. The dictionaries acting like this is ok should be ashamed of themselves.

squigz
0 replies
8h14m

"omg, you're my best friend", "I almost died", "That's the biggest tower I've ever seen", "People are literally dying on the streets due to private healthcare", etc

One of these things is not like the others~...

justaman
1 replies
7h27m

Manufactured outrage. Designed to entice clickbait farmers to spread the word. Gone are the days of blasting millions into a TV ad. No new age ad gets that attention anymore. Instead, the idea is to go viral.

brabel
0 replies
6h49m

Apple knows exactly what it's doing (or whatever marketing company they paid to do this). And they did get viral, so mission accomplished?

UncleMeat
0 replies
7h38m

I'm not even sure that this is true. How many people have actually interacted with somebody who is overreacting here?

Instead, the overreactions are aggregated via social media and news coverage so we can see "wow look at all these people using extreme language here."

foobar_______
7 replies
8h42m

You help me feel sane. People, it is a commercial. Nothing more. Don't get your panties in a bundle. If you don't like it, change the channel, don't buy their product, go outside on a hike. The things people get upset about today is fascinating. GO OUTSIDE

alt227
2 replies
8h39m

Sounds like you are getting your panties in a bundle about other people getting their panties in a bundle. Why do you care so much what other random people on the internet think?

Maybe it is you who needs to go outside and stop reading these comments which make you feel 'insane'?

superidiot1932
1 replies
8h33m

And why do you care so much about what foobar thinks to the point of passively-aggressive asking him?

"Why do you care about X" questions are inane.

alt227
0 replies
8h30m

....and you have continued the pattern by joining in and asking me the question. Well done!

dwallin
1 replies
8h33m

Why get so bothered by other people being upset? Apple is going to be fine, you don’t need to worry on their behalf. No need to get your undergarments of choice in a twist. Good opportunity to step outside and get some fresh air.

mindwok
0 replies
8h12m

It doesn’t really ‘bother’ me and I’m not worrying on their behalf. If you’re actually interested in why I’m worried, it makes me question whether there’s less emotional resilience in our society, and I value emotional resilience because I think we need it when life truly tests us.

wiseowise
0 replies
8h12m

People exercise their God given right, why do you care so much about it?

hooverd
0 replies
6h31m

Getting emotional are we?

ornornor
6 replies
8h24m

What bothers me the most is the casual destruction of perfectly functional, expensive (for some) items. It’s glorifying waste, and I’m sure there are individuals or families that would kill for the chance to get a piano, a trumpet, or the insanely overpriced Macs they can’t afford, while Apple is crushing them just to sell us more ewaste (seeing how apple in particular is at the forefront of anti repair)…

uxp100
3 replies
8h6m

Nah, you basically can’t give pianos away.

dartos
2 replies
7h49m

I’d take a free piano. Those things are expensive

wilsonnb3
0 replies
7h40m

Open up your local Craigslist and you will probably find a bunch of them.

kzrdude
0 replies
7h24m

They are expensive to take too. (Need movers and piano tuner)

Tarq0n
1 replies
8h22m

Now think of how much of these items the budget of any given commercial could pay for.

Focusing on just the literal few in view in front of you is missing the forest for the trees.

ornornor
0 replies
8h17m

Not necessarily, it sells a message and an image on top of just wasting the large amount of money that any ad costs.

buro9
6 replies
8h42m

How do those of you who feel so strongly about this ad get through daily life?

Whilst I didn't feel a great deal watching the video, this statement is very presumptive.

Reversed: How does one get through daily life _not_ feeling so strongly about things?

Should perhaps we, those who didn't feel a great deal here, not reflect on whether we might be feeling as much of life as we could, empathise more deeply, care about broader things, consider life as more than ration or reason?

It didn't bother me one way or another, but I also didn't assume anything. I can imagine a life far more rich just by feeling more, seeing more colours in the same palette, tasting more when eating food, and feeling so much more when just experiencing life... perhaps for all the benefit of feeling more, there's just the sharper edge that sometimes you feel more about something like an Apple advert.

llm_trw
3 replies
8h18m

How does one get through daily life _not_ feeling so strongly about things?

I feel strongly about important things, not all things.

haswell
2 replies
8h3m

Many people (and I’m one of those people) feel that the preservation of craftsmanship and human created art/music is extremely important to a healthy society.

llm_trw
1 replies
7h58m

Every object in that video was mass produced rubbish so craftsmanship survived unharmed.

haswell
0 replies
7h17m

Many musical instruments are still made by hand to this day. Many of the cameras still in active use were too.

And even if you pick up a crappy starter guitar, learning it is a purely human endeavor, propagating the mastery that has been passed down through generations.

And I have no idea how to reconcile “it’s all mass produced rubbish” with “craftsmanship survived unharmed”. These are in direct conflict.

latexr
1 replies
8h7m

Reversed: How does one get through daily life _not_ feeling so strongly about things?

You didn’t reverse the question. No one is advocating not having strong feelings about anything. The correct reverse would be “how do those of you who don’t feel strongly about this ad get through daily life?”.

The answer to that is “by not entering a state of frenzied stress about every inconsequential thing and being mindful of the battles worth fighting”. There is a finite amount of things you can feel strongly for in your life, and I do think this ad is incredibly minor.

No one is going to remember or talk about this in a week, regardless of if Apple had apologised or not. If only we could’ve had all this outrage and media attention about something which truly matters and is urgent to all humans (like, say, climate change) that would’ve been swell. Now that would’ve been empathetic, shown a care about broader things, and be considerate of life.

philipwhiuk
0 replies
7h4m

There's plenty of outrage over climate change. It's not clear it meaningfully contributes to solving the problem.

shakiXBT
3 replies
8h38m

It seemed like a fun ad to me and that was it.

People have to go through mental gymnastics to justify being angry at it, but do they feel the same way when these objects get destroyed in movies?

waynesonfire
1 replies
8h17m

no, because the ad is very deliberate about what it's trying to represent. The intention is to suggest that physical tools that have been used for thousansd of years to create culture, art, and technonolgy and that themselves are art, are gabrage. the ad suggests an apple computer that is bound by limits of it's software and harware, that cannot be further refined, cannot be repaired, and severs the human senses from experiencing the tools it claims to deprecate, is superior. it's a bad message.

they may as well have smashing the statue of david and shown that the mac's default background is a picture of it.

and because someone has a negative reaction to an ad doesn't imply they got "angry" over it or need tougher skin or are somehome so sensitive they can't function in society. it's being able to reflect how something is making you feel. and it feels like a shitty ad on many levels.

kapp_in_life
0 replies
5h25m

To me it says "Look at all this stuff you can do with an ipad now, and in a thinner form factor. It used to take a room full of stuff to do this. Isn't that awesome?".

You might not be angry but you're using pretty malicious language to assign intent to the ad that doesn't seem present to me.

wiseowise
0 replies
8h13m

People have to go through mental gymnastics to justify being angry at it, but do they feel the same way when these objects get destroyed in movies?

Context matters. Here it looks like it's a zero-sum: iPad is crushing everything else.

faitswulff
2 replies
8h41m

Even if you disagree, I would think that the volume or strength of the comments would teach you something about the situation. Instead, it’s the children who are wrong.

mindwok
1 replies
8h18m

I explicitly said I’m not saying it’s wrong. Im asking if the emotional sensitivity to these things impacts them in daily life.

JoeAltmaier
0 replies
7h28m

In a sarcastic, dismissive way, that implied superiority. It was a pretty crass way to phrase the question. I learned far more from that than any answer.

madeofpalk
1 replies
8h30m

It's possible to have a negative reaction to something, but otherwise be fine. I don't think there's many people sobbing uncontrollably on the subway because they saw this ad.

All sorts of media - whether movies or books or games or ads - are designed to make some kind of reaction in the audience. Dismissing "I don't like this" as a valid reaction is also dismissing "I like this", which seems silly.

mindwok
0 replies
8h21m

I’m not dismissing it, I’m just curious about it. For me, if I was having strong negative reactions to things frequently it would impact my wellbeing. I wonder if thats not the case for these folks.

cm2012
1 replies
8h11m

A lot of people don't like the idea of destroying physical things, it makes them feel ick.

Same reason people tend to hoard too much shit.

culopatin
0 replies
7h6m

People are concerned about waste forget that once the item is produced, it’s already waste. Just because it’s in their definition of “worth it” doesn’t mean it’s not going to end up in a landfill in the near future.

bsaul
1 replies
8h42m

Strong emotional reaction to anything is pretty much the norm nowadays.

However, i feel like apple's ad made people visualize a true deep concern about the future of art (and humanity) with regards to the recent advancements of AI. The fact that the number 1 consumer hardware company in the world blatantly acknowledge the fact that computers are going to generate every piece of content automatically in the future is quite troubling. (of course, that's probably not exactly what they meant, as someone will have to push that "generate" button on the ipad, at some point).

frereubu
0 replies
8h32m

I think this is it. Imagine if instead there was a "siphon" effect where the instruments get miniaturised / sucked into the iPad. I don't think anyone would have been upset by that. It's the crushing that's at issue, and it does touch on an anxiety around the digital experience crushing the life out of the more physical / personal engagement with music.

asoneth
1 replies
7h29m

I have strong positive and negative emotional reactions to things on a daily basis -- I sometimes tear up reading books to my children, have emotional responses to songs, that sort of thing.

As I watched the video I found the destruction beautiful and heartbreaking. If it had been used as an artistic commentary on, oh I don't know, our underappreciation of good tools, the undermining of art under fascism, the dumbing-down and compression of culture under capitalism, etc that would have been interesting.

But the reveal at the end is that the force destroying all these artistic tools is none other than one of the world's richest companies using the spectacle to hawk their latest must-have gewgaw. And the delicious irony of Apple unintentionally positioning itself as the unstoppable, soulless destroyer of art and culture is just chef's kiss perfection. I'm honestly sad they pulled the ad.

But to your question, I haven't noticed any impact of strong emotions on a daily basis except that I get overly excited sometimes when talking about things and have to bring a tissue to movies. I'm similarly curious what it's like for people who don't really have emotional reactions to things. I work with folks like this, and I am curious. Do they feel things when they look at art, listen to music, read literature, look at photos, or is it just sort of background ambiance? When evaluating art do they plot perfection on the horizontal of a graph and importance on the vertical to yield the measure of its greatness?

allturtles
0 replies
6h55m

I have strong positive and negative emotional reactions to things on a daily basis -- I sometimes tear up reading books to my children, have emotional responses to songs, that sort of thing.

I can still get a bit misty-eyed just thinking about reading "Love You Forever" or "Guess How Much I Love You", and my kids outgrew those books years ago.

Retr0id
1 replies
6h57m

I'm more concerned for the people who feel nothing. Being desensitized isn't a virtue. The marketing strategy of one of the largest companies in the world is not a triviality.

If someone's reaction was literally debilitating, sure, that's probably pathological, but I don't think there's anything wrong with feeling strongly about something like this, especially when such advertising is specifically engineered to evoke an emotional response.

2OEH8eoCRo0
0 replies
6h43m

I don't like any of their stupid ads but I'm not harmed by them and I don't need an apology.

Const-me
1 replies
8h19m

I don’t have particularly strong emotional reaction, but IMO the ad is horrible.

Destroying functional stuff with a hydraulic press is a waste of planet’s resources.

Destroying musical instruments, sculptures and other cultural artifacts is not too far from burning books, it’s barbaric.

Finally, I believe the ad is misleading because the ipad not gonna survive the press either. It’s just a consumer electronic device which doesn’t even have IP68 water protection.

dartos
0 replies
7h48m

Finally, I believe the ad is misleading because the ipad

The real issue with the ad that nobody is talking about.

False advertising

Boogie_Man
1 replies
7h18m

Hyperbolic internet rhetoric has resulted in the need to phrase everything as if you're a psych ward patient who cries when it rains because the sky is sad. If everything is a pitched battle between good and evil, anything less than screaming and beating your chest is weakness in the face of existential threats. The squeaky wheel gets the grease so everyone is squealing as loud as they can. Textual histrionics from people laying on their couch or sitting on the toilet staring at a little screen.

It's the same as typing "ROFL LMAO" when you actually just lightly exhaled through your nose.

It's infantile and distracts from "meaningful discourse". They're allowing themselves to be seriously psychologically manipulated (or are playacting along with it), but it just happens to be in a negative way this time.

johnchristopher
0 replies
6h6m

Had to scroll through 30 replies to find the word hyperbole :).

willcipriano
0 replies
7h53m

About two generations ago society somehow got the idea that the feminine manner of moving about in a society is superior and the masculine way is violent and backward.

Emotional exaggeration like this is one indirect aggression tool used by women when engaged in intrasexual competition with other women. For some reason we now have men trying to use that tool on a corporation of all things and your reaction to feel like it's fake isn't wrong, even if the subject may not be aware of what they are doing themselves.

More reading:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_intrasexual_competiti...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3826202/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188692...

viraptor
0 replies
7h39m

I think there's a weird false equivalency being often mentioned with this topic. Yes, I'd say this ad was stress inducing for me. But that doesn't mean I have issues getting through the day. It's not some kind of weakness that makes my life worse because I feel things. I can see something and be stressed or disgusted about it and then move on and feel happy about things that are nice. Feeling things doesn't need to force you to do anything. It's fine to just experience them, and maybe act on them if needed. But the idea that those feelings somehow have to take over your life is misguided.

spamizbad
0 replies
6h42m

Let's not fall into the trap of assuming you can't have a feeling if you don't speak it into existence. People stating their feelings are actually doing Apple a big favor. The alternative is nobody says anything but keeps their feelings bottled up and simply walk around with a negative opinion of Apple because of the advertisement.

smokinjoe
0 replies
6h39m

I think it's this unconscious desire to share strong opinions about any large enough bit of news. While I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to have personable opinions about anything large or small - I've noticed more and more that people just need to satiate this hunger to share it.

And it's typically devoid of any nuance, it's shallow, quick, and distilled down into this form that begs people to react.

I see it mostly on reddit on posts that have hundreds to one or two thousand comments where 50% of the replies have almost the identical opinion. Everyone has this need to share it, even if it isn't nearly that original.

There's probably some societal change that someone significantly smarter than I can speak to, but this whole "digital town square" approach has kinda turned into a maelstrom of the most toxic opinions that people probably don't hold _that strongly_ if you asked them face-to-face in person.

sandworm101
0 replies
8h15m

> people had a strong emotional reaction to this does kinda worry me.

It is more than the ad. Apple is a cornerstone of many people's lives. Their online existence, the bulk of their personhood these days, flows through apple systems. Apple is basically a quazi-partner. Such people feel they must react defensively, which is the root of fanboy culture. Such people therefore get very worried when they see unequivocal mistakes. A fanboy will then turn quickly, joining the anti crowd in an effort to correct the mistake asap. As soon as apple make sufficient recompense, they will return to the defensive. (See every mistake ever made by a K-pop star.)

r0fl
0 replies
8h15m

A subsection of society has too much free time and few (what people in developing countries would call) real problems.

So they get triggered by mundane things and tweet prayer hands for every news headline that hits the 24 hour news cycle

medellin
0 replies
7h15m

I think this is part of the issue. I really dont want to have the discussion because im sick of trying to understand how everyone is mad about everything. At a certain point it’s mentally draining for me just so people can feel morally superior because they are more PC than you.

Im done with it and a lot of others are also.

mc32
0 replies
8h10m

I think the problem is that people are too ‘connected’ emotionally with products or companies (that speaks to their effective advertising) so when a company’s pubic personae diverge from their own view, they become like the abusive partner in a relationship that doesn’t allow any daylight between themselves and this other entity. They feel betrayal.

I think they invest too much emotion into inanimate things.

mattmaroon
0 replies
7h1m

My honest thought when I see this sort of reaction is that you know life is good because if it weren’t, people wouldn’t have the emotional energy to waste on something like this.

la_oveja
0 replies
8h31m

i can dislike the ad or even find it repugnant, and the moment it ends still be on with my life. last time i checked having opinions on things was not frowned upon.

jrm4
0 replies
7h1m

Honestly, y'all, it's beyond hilarious that the top comment here on Hacker News is

"These things you people have, these ...feelings...these are strange and you seem weak. Boop beep boop."

Sometimes the stereotypes aren't wrong, huh.

jajko
0 replies
7h54m

Well, I gave it a go and saw it, just fyi I get through my life just fine and one of those seemingly few folks without childhood/mental issues with good life so far and amazing small kids. No apple products owner, wife has mini 13 and she is not happy with it.

Its not the worst ad by any means, I am used to seeing russians blown to pieces in ukraine at this point, but the arrogance man, stemming from first frame was a bit over the top even for me and left bitter taste of it all when intentions were opposite. How this passed all the managerial reviews is beyond me. Actually I get it - they all thought its fine, which also tells you something.

Not shocking in any way, to me apple is subtly arrogant for many years and the main reason for me going to (more expensive but way more open) competition. That and consistently fanatical uncritical apple crowd, also visible here.

hydroreadsstuff
0 replies
8h27m

I can tell you that I watched the recording, cringed for a few seconds and skipped it, and moved on with my life. After the outrage, revisiting my 3 seconds of feelings, I tend to agree that destroying nice things isn't a great thing to do in an ad.

gsich
0 replies
8h32m

Staged outrage.

gregd
0 replies
8h1m

One more opinion in the mix. I grew up in extreme poverty as a child who also happened to have a keen interest in music. I could never develop this keen interest because of course, the cost of instruments was too much for my mom to handle.

That same kid also got to watch Pete Townsend (and others) get superstar status, while breaking instruments during a performance. It was heartbreaking to me that he didn't just donate those instruments to disadvantaged kids and still bothers me today.

So, while I understand the intention of the ad, when you couple that, with Apple products being too pricey for a lot of people, yeah, it bothered me.

gofreddygo
0 replies
6h11m

Well the Ad is disturbing to me. I can see the intent and it's not malicious. But the backlash is good IMO. Because it sets a stake in the ground and a point to be brought up in the room when the marketing team wants to show a hydraulic press, a chain saw, flame thrower, a wrecking ball or a bulldozer destroying things for the purpose of grabbing my attention in their next ad.

An animation of all those nice items magically squeezing into the iPad one at a time, each contributing to an ongoing song/theme would sell far far better.

fhd2
0 replies
8h19m

I don't care about Apple, so I don't care about the ad. It lowers my (already pretty low) opinion of them, but that's about it.

If this kind of thing was done by a company I'm a huge supporter of, sunk a lot of money into, one I personally promoted to my friends and family and one that was part of my personal and professional identity in some way, it might be very upsetting. I might feel betrayed.

Personally I don't get invested in companies or products like that. Maybe you don't either. The emotional reaction makes sense if there's high emotional investment. Whether the emotional investment is rational is an entirely different question.

dwallin
0 replies
8h24m

The WHOLE point of the ad in the first place was to make people feel strong positive emotions toward Apple products. It turns out they misjudged and for many people it didn’t evoke the type of emotions they thought it would. It’s not like people are up in arms about a spec sheet.

I think you are being extremely irrational in expecting people to not feel passionately about random things. Companies spend insane amounts of money influencing consumer sentiment for good reasons.

dougb5
0 replies
5h48m

I was stressed and angered by the ad, and I think I get through life fine, otherwise -- or at least, I can't think of another ad in the past decade that has caused me this reaction. It wouldn't be as bad if it were detached from its purpose as an Apple ad, or if it played as a short before a Pixar movie. It's because it's the biggest (or 2nd biggest?) company in the world giving us a wrenching visual depiction of a future in which so many beautiful things from the past and the present are squashed into a soulless rectangle.

cultofmetatron
0 replies
8h41m

no kidding. there's a bunch of stuff going on in teh world (some of which risk getting me downvoted if I mention them) that are way more distressing. its not like they destroyed anything truly sacred or one of a kind.

conartist6
0 replies
8h20m

I doubt you'd feel incensed unless you felt like you were also in the hydraulic press. Goodness, there's not any technology that would make artists as useless as their instruments and tools, is there? That would make this ad really relevant.

commandlinefan
0 replies
6h18m

I'm still having a hard time believing that anybody was actually disturbed or offended by this ad and that it's not part of a clever guerilla marketing campaign by Apple to trick people into watching the ad.

cjk2
0 replies
8h34m

I’m get the feeling some people are pretty bored and boring and collective outrage is an emotional release in some way.

boesboes
0 replies
8h9m

tbf, I've always found apple commercials cringy af. And I can understand a bit of a visceral reaction to the message, but I don't see such over-the-topness with other crap such as AI content spam, music etc.

But the response seems outsized. it just seems like bullshit. I think most of these reactions are not genuine, just all aboard the rage-train!

Or maybe they are all just jealous because they can't afford apple products ;-)

bkandel
0 replies
6h13m

I had a strongly negative emotional reaction to the ad. Dwelling on crushing musical instruments, kids' toys, books, sculptures, and then the paint spurting out at the end into a depressing post-industrial warehouse -- something about it really affected me. It's not like I'm debilitated for the rest of the day, but it definitely makes me feel less positively about the ipad advertised.

anonymouse008
0 replies
8h16m

Apple’s marketing tells us who they are proud to be. As someone who attempts to defend the AppStore fees and process as valuable, seeing this makes me question if Apple has gotten “too cool” to be a good steward.

So, while it may not feel like it to you, from those who have invested in the brand this is a betrayal and a real emotion.

Oh, and I get through the day just fine. It just reminds me to never relent on my values.

Dalewyn
0 replies
7h27m

I'd wager these are just snowflakes, but there are so many people that snowflakes still amount to a significant amount even if they are nonetheless a minority.

The internet also serves to amplify their noise.

2OEH8eoCRo0
0 replies
6h45m

Nailed it. I think it's also concerning that Apple and other companies cave and apologize for the most inane minutiae.

127
0 replies
7h42m

I think their emotions are valid, even if you're dismissive of them.

1-6
0 replies
6h47m

I think words may only convey a certain level of thought but cannot convey intensity well.

yousif_123123
144 replies
6h59m

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.

toyg
71 replies
6h28m

The original idea is sound: "we are squeezing all tools into the iPad".

The problem is that you can't squeeze an object without resorting to animation. So instead they went for crushing, which carries destructive undertones. A lot of people have strong emotional attachments to objects like pianos and vinyl players; destroying them is a powerful trigger.

If this had been done with animation, with some djinn magically squeezing everything into an iPad, it would have been just fine.

This said, there is no such thing as bad publicity - here we are, talking about the umpteenth version of a product we would otherwise take for granted. The ad might have been distasteful but it did the job.

Uehreka
27 replies
5h52m

There definitely is such a thing as bad publicity, I wish people would stop using that phrase to make dumb things sound smart. Of all the companies out there, Apple definitely doesn’t want to trade on negative sentiment, it clashes with their overall brand strategy. In particular this iPad Pro launch is riskier than normal, given that it has brand new screen tech and is the thinnest device they’ve ever made, and it’s possible they pulled this commercial to avoid creating associations between this iPad and the act of “crushing” things.

Furthermore I doubt that anyone on HN (except like 2 people who will definitely reply to this comment) who didn’t know about the new iPad Pro before this commericial learned about it from this post.

zooq_ai
6 replies
5h25m

More people know about iPad released a thinner version now than before the controversy.

Mission accomplished.

There is really no such thing as bad publicity.

Number of people who will stop buying Apple products due to this Ad : ZERO

Number of people who are aware of iPad Thin due to controversy : > ZERO

A small number of people shit on Apple/Google/Meta/Amazon all the time for every little thing

Edit : HN crowd downvoting a marketing concept. I must be right!

alt227
3 replies
5h17m

I disagree. I own zero apple products but pretty soon I will be purchasing a tablet for the kids.

I was looking at ipads, but this ad and the comments have reminded me why I dont like putting money in Apples pockets. So I shall definitely be buying android when I buy one.

Uehreka
2 replies
4h41m

I have a lot of Apple products, but my recent work projects on Android have brought me around a bit on the Pixel line; if I had to switch to Pixel I wouldn’t be mad (though I don’t intend on doing that any time soon). With that being said, I don’t know of any Android tablets that match the iPad in terms of quality or performance, and I’ve been watching the market closely for years (I would love a tablet I can do real programming work on). What Android tablet are you looking at?

freedomben
0 replies
3h0m

Have you tried the Pixel Tablet? I'm on the fence mainly because I have very few tablet needs and my Samsung S6 Lite has been wonderful, but I love the idea of docked mode where it becomes a Google Home. It makes it incredibly useful as both a desk companion (love getting meeting notifications and such on a screen liek that), an alarm clock, a digital photo frame, a music player, a quick way to see my doorbell camera, etc.

alt227
0 replies
2h59m

I like the look of Lenovo Tab P11 or P12 etc

ethbr1
0 replies
5h13m

"No such thing as bad publicity" directly implies that brand goodwill doesn't have a tangible dollar value.

This is false, not least because this is something companies declare on financial reports.

Uehreka
0 replies
5h10m

Since my argument is “there is such a thing as bad publicity and I will die on this hill”, I’m going to shift from this sloppy ad rollout to an example that I think proves my case (that bad publicity is a thing that exists) pretty definitively.

Although it no doubt produced tons of brand awareness among people who had never heard of them, I doubt that the folks at Humane AI would argue that the recent flood of bad reviews or even the backlash against the bad reviews were helpful to them in the long term. Like sure, tons of people know about them now, perhaps they even sold a pin or two to the folks who heard about them through the controversy. But there’s a good chance they may not be able to stay solvent as a company long enough to actually capitalize on their increased brand recognition.

emasirik
5 replies
5h37m

Allow me to be the first of the two to announce themselves.

I agree, though. Although I only learned of the product because of the outrage over the ad, it certainly hasn't moved me toward wanting to purchase one. And I'll actually be in the market for a tablet in a few months.

john-radio
3 replies
5h16m

#2 checking in. I pay almost zero attention to what Apple does. I'll pay attention if they start allowing Mozilla to ship add-ons with Firefox so I can run adblock on mobile like on Firefox!

doublepg23
1 replies
4h35m

You can run ad-blockers on iOS Safari (they're called "Content Blockers", I use Firefox Focus's) granted you're still stuck with Safari/WebKit for the time being.

emaro
0 replies
2h47m

And although it's not Firefox, the Orion browser from Kagi supports Chrome and Firefox add-ons on iOS.

not2b
0 replies
4h26m

#3 of a vast number: I don't pay attention to what Apple does, choose not to own any Apple products even though I do respect their technology, particularly Apple Silicon; would not have been aware of a launch of a new iPad if it weren't for this controversy.

sqeaky
0 replies
2h17m

Yep, I had considered getting an iPad. I probably wouldn't have, this doesn't prevent me bur it is a point in another directiom. Things like the Minis Forum V3 give me more options and the company knows "how to read the room".

fsckboy
4 replies
3h22m

There definitely is such a thing as bad publicity, I wish people would stop using that phrase

the phrase "there's no such thing as bad PR" is meant to make you realize that there's more to PR than you... realize. It's in the style of something like a Buddhist koan. it's not meant to be taken literally or to an extreme. It's not a proof but it does describe a real phenomenon. You can't reject the phrase without rejecting its wisdom.

I hope, on that hill, you don't die as you plan to. Because you are very literal, aren't you.

hn_throwaway_99
1 replies
1h31m

I don't understand what you are responding to. The GP comment never said anything about "dying on a hill" or being overly literal. They weren't making some grand pronouncement that there's no wisdom behind the "there's no such thing as bad PR" saying. They just pointed out that in this specific case that the bad PR is most definitely undesired and not a net benefit, and that the "no such thing as bad PR" phrase is often overused in places where it's not warranted as a sort of lazy "sure, this is fine!" explanation.

fsckboy
0 replies
25m

one of his other comments did say it was a hill he was going to die on, which is "a saying", as "there's no such thing as bad PR" is a saying.

freedomben
0 replies
3h4m

Exactly. This saying is much like Confucius famous sayings in that you have to think it through, trying it both literally and symbolically, and move several steps forward logically to try and understand the wisdom it is conveying.

It's not saying literally that no publicity can ever be bad. That's obviously not true and is easily disproven nearly every single day by current events. It's a broader conveyance of truth regarding the difficulty of getting noticed in a world crowded with content. Even if it's "bad publicity" there are still benefits of becoming more well known, for example. Apple is one of the few companies where that probably won't help, but it doesn't "disprove" the saying and mean we should reject it.

Uehreka
0 replies
1h12m

My issue is that people take the idea that “bad PR” can actually be good for a company (which is common knowledge these days) and just stop there. They don’t go a step further and contemplate where the phrase applies, where it doesn’t, and what makes those situations different. They just bend over backwards and try to figure out the way it applies in every situation (even if in reality, it doesn’t). It’s that line of thinking that I find annoying.

I think the phrase has outlived its usefulness. Nowadays when I see it used it’s often in exactly the kind of extreme or overly literal way you yourself criticize.

7ewis
3 replies
3h53m

I expect the majority of people really aren't bothered about this though - just a vocal minority, so although maybe a bad ad for some, I expect the benefits of the publicity of this ad far outweight the downsides.

I wouldn't have paid any attention to a new iPad launch or known that it was the thinnest one yet, without this 'bad' press.

If anything, I'd say I'd be more likely to purchase a new iPad as a result

zachthewf
1 replies
3h45m

The publicity might be a short term win but there is a dangerous narrative for Apple that it feeds: that they are no longer a design-obsessed company that prizes art and creativity and channels that obsession to build the best products.

eastbound
0 replies
2h53m

Also: Products version 15 are boring and the only way it generated awareness was through bad press, not features.

naravara
0 replies
3h45m

A vocal minority of artists and creatives who are precious about the tactile and aesthetic experiences of using the tools of their trades could also be called “Apple’s target market for the iPad Pro.” So Apple would definitely need to care about the sentiments their ads engender.

balls187
2 replies
4h17m

“Is there such a thing as Bad Publicity” would make for a good freakanomics podcast episode.

My 2c: when that addage was first coined, public outrage was much harder to mobilize.

Social media and globalization work hand in hand to make it easier for people to have an outsized impact.

Two recent instances I can think of: Budweiser and US campus protests regarding the war in Gaza.

Uehreka
0 replies
50m

I feel like it’s pretty easy to disprove. I mentioned Humane AI in another comment, so here I’ll use a different and more flamboyant example: the 2019 movie Cats.

After putting $85-110M into the production of the movie, Universal released a trailer that went super viral and had every person on the internet talking about how terrible it looked. When the movie actually came out there was a second viral wave of gawking. Did this drive tons of people to the theater so they revel in the movie’s epic badness for themselves? No, the movie (which had over a dozen stars and was based on a hit musical that is popular around the world) failed to make back its budget at the box office. For reference (in case someone tries to pull the “maybe it would’ve made less money without the negative publicity” card) Tom Hooper’s previous movie musical Les Miserables earned $442M on a $61M budget.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_(2019_film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Mis%C3%A9rables_(2012_film...

HDThoreaun
0 replies
4h7m

The budweiser thing should dispel the phrase once and for all. They lost over a billion in sales apparently

mvkel
0 replies
3h24m

Totally agree. The people saying "but now we're talking about the iPad, mission accomplished!" isn't even marketing 101 grade.

Like saying that using the color red makes people think of a stop sign, so they won't buy your product.

enaaem
0 replies
1h59m

Bad PR works on controversial things, for example if someone wants to sell courses to become “Alpha Male”. People who are into that become suddenly aware of it.

Apple ad isn’t controversial because people react indifferent at best and very negative at worst. Everyone already knows what an ipad is.

stephc_int13
25 replies
5h23m

When your Brand is as valuable as Apple or Boeing, bad publicity is a thing.

They don't need to be known, but they need to maintain the positive values associated with their brand.

The Apple brand is their most valuable asset, they probably destroyed billions in brand value with the shitstorm around this horribly distasteful ad.

chuckadams
15 replies
5h13m

they probably destroyed billions in brand value

So go short AAPL, Jim Cramer. My bold prediction is this ad does diddly to their bottom line. You really think people are going to boycott Apple over it?

stephc_int13
14 replies
5h4m

I am not talking about stock, here.

Stock is short-sighted, and I don't expect any boycott.

The consequences of the slow degradation of a brand are measured in decades.

If you take a look at the Vision Pro, they didn't expect selling them like hot cakes, given the price, but from what I've heard they still missed their projections, by a long shot.

This pattern will repeat, one failed or tepid product launch at a time, eroding confidence, and ultimately, yes, the stock will plunge.

chuckadams
5 replies
5h1m

You're reading tea leaves now. Meanwhile Apple has actually measurable problems like plummeting iPhone sales in China, and I guarantee that's not because of a stupid ad.

stephc_int13
2 replies
4h54m

To be clear, I don't think the ad itself is the issue, I think this is pretty benign given their scale.

But I think they have a leadership problem. Tim Cook is a glorified bean counter, not a creator, not a visionary, and it shows.

I know that most people are looking at the stock and will say that everything is fine. Sure. I am looking at the products, and except for M series of SoC, this is all boring.

chuckadams
1 replies
4h51m

Apple's valuation is up over 1000% since Tim Cook became CEO. His greatest failing is that he isn't Steve Jobs, but most corporations would literally kill to have a bean counter like Tim Cook. Yes, he's in the hot seat, and Wall Street is very "What have you done for me today?", but I don't see shareholders calling for his head.

All empires fall, but today is not that day for Apple.

ethbr1
0 replies
4h40m

Apple's valuation is up over 1000% since Tim Cook became CEO

GE's valuation was up ~4500% during Jack Welch's tenure as CEO.

maxwell
0 replies
2h32m

Executive dysfunction seems the root issue. Tim, Phil, and Craig have been running on Steve and Jony's fumes for years, and now have no ideas beyond incrementing numbers and buying back stock. It's like ol' Gil all over again.

Apple is the default choice for grandparents again, but they don't even have the schools anymore (Google conquered edu with Chromebooks).

ethbr1
0 replies
4h52m

You two are talking about separate things.

Parent is talking about brand goodwill.

You're talking about revenue.

The two are different, but not unrelated. One reason Apple can run the margins and move the product that it does is because it's Apple. If it were "random company" and didn't benefit from its RDF, those numbers wouldn't be sustainable.

Which, in a nutshell, is the Tim Cook problem -- you can make all the sales numbers go in the right direction, but that's not the product magic that Apple has historically benefited from (and been valued at).

fsckboy
4 replies
3h16m

Stock is short-sighted

stock is not short sighted. It does react quickly to information (which means it was too late to short a while ago) but to think that you can make money by not buying stock now, but waiting to buy it at another time is really terrible advice, and it's been refuted.

To believe that stock is short-sighted is to believe that investers as a group are dumber than you are because they've put their money into the market but you know better.

stephc_int13
1 replies
1h56m

The stock market, or any kind of market really, is nothing else than a huge distributed pricing machine.

It is incredibly good at doing that. But it is short sighted. It is able to integrate risks to some extent, on a short time scale, but it is very bad at processing second or third order effects, and can't do strategy.

In other words, the famous invisible hand is completely unable to predict the future.

Humans are also notoriously bad at that, but still better. This is why we have states and CEOs.

fsckboy
0 replies
10m

at the beginning of every day, the market has a greater probability of going up than down, and a risk adjusted positive expected value (which is a different thing)

Therefore, your money should always be "in the market", not out of the market. Therefore, it's very difficult to make the case that the market is short sighted. I think what you are trying to say is that immediate risks are better understood than longer term, so the more distant future has higher volatility.

hiatus
1 replies
2h14m

To believe that stock is short-sighted is to believe that investers as a group are dumber than you are because they've put their money into the market but you know better.

There is a saying you may not be familiar with, "Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."

fsckboy
0 replies
27m

what's your definition of irrational?...

the market doesn't know the future, it just incorporates current knowledge and opinion. Is AI a bubble right now? the vast riches afforded those who make the right call when AI is ready is justification enough for current enthusiasm, no irrationality needs to be hypothesized. And like people who lost their bet on the 49ers to win the Superbowl, there's no reason to posit irrationality if a bet doesn't pay.

dialup_sounds
1 replies
2h52m

I would not bet against any company on the basis of people whinging on the internet unless it's about their actual product or service being bad at it's job. (e.g. Humane and Rabbit are probably doomed)

Consider that when talking about something measured in decades the examples that come to mind are things people said in the last few weeks. But what were people talking about a decade ago? Which of those things actually reflected the long term trajectory of the company?

maxwell
0 replies
2h35m

My Gen A son enjoys his Meta Quest and jokes about the Vision Pro.

chasil
0 replies
4h28m

I am not getting such horrible vibes from the ad.

Maybe the strongest sense is that the iPad comes from the island of broken toys?

Slightly less emphatic but more sinister is that an iPad cannot help but involve itself in the destruction of the arts.

I do agree that the ad does not have any observable moral upside, and it was a mistake to run it.

But then again, if Apple did have a YouTube collection of ads that they chose not to run and discussion of why, it might be easier to trust them. They are so opaque at the moment that trust is a very big ask.

dylan604
8 replies
5h4m

I love the name play with "If it's Boeing, I'm not going".

Waiting for something like that for Apple. Let me get my popcorn...

kirubakaran
2 replies
4h46m

How about “causing walled garden headaches since Eden”

dirtyhippiefree
1 replies
4h32m

Doesn’t really ring, no rhyming bling…

kirubakaran
0 replies
3h40m

It does in native Ayapaneco

awad
1 replies
2h25m

What's tragic is that it was originally coined "If it ain't boing, I ain't going" back when their brand stood for quality.

joelfried
0 replies
1h56m

But that's the history that makes the flipping of the script so stark. Anybody embedded deeply enough in the company should be aware of that exact loss of reputation.

And if the company fails to know its own history well enough that even they are missing the point that speaks volumes about how they value institutional knowledge.

araes
1 replies
4h29m

Maybe "crapple" ...

dylan604
0 replies
3h35m

"If it's Apple, it's crapple" was my first stab as well. Just didn't have the same je ne sais quoi to me about it though.

__MatrixMan__
0 replies
2h45m

The app'll work best with genuine apple handcuffs.

hnlmorg
4 replies
5h41m

If this had been done with animation, with some djinn magically squeezing everything into an iPad, it would have been just fine.

It already was an animation. So they could have taken your approach instead.

nytesky
3 replies
4h43m

Have you confirmed there are no practical effects in this — definitely it seemed like a lot had to be animated from the timing of events, to cutesy thinks like the smile ball squeeze.

Like if this was hand drawn animation, would anyone care? I think people think real instruments (even ones that were junk, ie old pianos are worthless) were destroyed.

LtWorf
1 replies
3h51m

Do you have a source that it was animated or are you just making it up to sound smarter?

nytesky
0 replies
2h13m

I was replying to the previous posters who said it was already animation. There certainly is some animation at play but was wondering of the mix of practical effects and CGI.

hnlmorg
0 replies
1h30m

I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some practical effects at play but it honestly looked too simplified to be real. Crushing a lot of stuff like that would be messy and ugly. Also unsafe with things like broken metal and shattered glass. It’s feels more like CGI. And personally I think that would be the better way to do it. As someone who’s watched a weirdly high number of YouTube videos of things getting crushed by presses, it’s not pretty like that video was.

If, and if think that’s a big if that was mainly practical effects, then those props would almost certainly be fake instruments made from different materials that crush in more visually appealing ways.

wouldbecouldbe
1 replies
5h7m

No need to destroy. They could have definitely merged the items like a rainbow melting all into the iPad. Those visuals are pretty common.

That would have have looked nice, but it wouldn't have touched people.

This is very graphic and elicits a much stronger emotion. I think that's why it was chosen.

The irony is that it know kind of feels like more honest then it's supposed to be, digital tools crushing tradition artistry.

nytesky
0 replies
4h46m

That “unintended” honesty may be too close to home, and been a catalyst to the outrage.

I mentioned in another thread, if they showed AI “crushing” the artist (ie replacing) that would have been the powder keg.

shombaboor
1 replies
5h36m

The creative tools just had to be sucked in like a wormhole. It's just surprising it got this far without someone intervening. Shows that someone high up couldn't be backed down.

ethbr1
0 replies
5h6m

Exactly. Part of the reason this is news is that this in an incredibly obvious and rare own goal on Apple marketing's part.

To the extent that someone high up who greenlit it should be fired.

How do you know...

   - Creatives are a target customer
   - Creatives are concerned about AI
   - Everyone is concerned about AI
... and possibly approve a literal machine crushing (in slow motion detail!) instruments of human creativity?!

That'd be like making a tobacco ad that features a pair of lungs aging...

wvh
0 replies
4h19m

There is a growing backlash against technology and its harmful effects though. People are rightfully getting suspicious about that handful of tech companies and their intentions. Few are willing to give up on technology, nor should they as it's futile to fight progress, but the debate and guard rails are being shaped, and the tone deafness of some of these big technology companies is not helping their cause.

The astronomical user base of companies like Google and Apple should not be an indicator about the actual goodwill of people towards these brands. Getting away with something does not mean your behaviour isn't causing increasing animosity and feeding general discontentment.

softfalcon
0 replies
1h50m

A djinni with Tim Apple's face would be funny. Comes out of a home pod and magics the whole recording studio into an iPad. Probably too whimsical for an Apple's taste though.

paulpan
0 replies
2h40m

This exactly. There are many other ways to express "squeezing into one" but both bizarrely and shockingly Apple (or whichever ad agency) went for "crushing with hydraulic press" instead. How did everyone miss on the negative undertone before this ad was released?

Could be extrapolating this incident too much but it feels it encapsulates the transformation of Apple from this quirky, unconventional upstart into a monopolistic leviathan the past 2 decades. There's also a sense of hubris at suggesting your single electronic device can replace all those creative tools.

hn_throwaway_99
0 replies
4h36m

The original idea is sound: "we are squeezing all tools into the iPad".

Hard disagree. Yes, I do agree that a big part of the emotional reaction to the ad were seeing all these beloved tools of craftsmanship being destroyed.

But another underlying current is people reaching the conclusion that they do not want all of their individual, sometimes quirky tools being subsumed under a single flat silicon panel. I'll just speak for myself, but I often find myself craving more real, physical interaction and not just something that exists on a screen.

Some of us actually crave a little more of the chaotic, interesting world of WALL-E over the sleek perfection of EVE (which was, somewhat unsurprisingly, reviewed and blessed by Jonathan Ive).

giancarlostoro
0 replies
3h46m

The video is cool, but yeah, watching all these great items being crushed, is wow.

chrisjj
0 replies
4h31m

The original idea is sound: "we are squeezing

Really? I wonder how it got titled Crush! then.

The problem is that you can't squeeze an object without resorting to animation.

Not a problem. The ad isn't short of animation.

there is no such thing as bad publicity

I's say the apology shows Apple disagrees.

TeaBrain
0 replies
3h40m

There is no such thing as bad publicity when you are not yet established. When you are already a recognized and popular brand, such as Apple or AB InBev, it can hurt revenue, such as how AB InBev suffered from lower revenue following their own advertisement backlash.

citizen_friend
24 replies
6h6m

If you think of yourself as skeptical, agnostic, materialist. I don’t understand how you can be upset about cheap in-animate objects get destroyed for an entertaining video.

CamperBob2
6 replies
5h14m

Try a car analogy on for size: a new Corvette might be superior to a classic Porsche in all the ways that matter, but nobody at GM would greenlight an ad depicting a C8 emerging from a crusher that had just destroyed a '63 911. They would understand how disrespectful it would seem.

stale2002
5 replies
5h8m

Disrespectful? What? That sounds like a cool ad.

People are being babies about this.

wiseowise
3 replies
2h36m

People having different tastes than me are babies
stale2002
2 replies
1h25m

You are free to think that the ad was boring and that you didn't like it.

But yes, if you are losing your mind over it and crying about it, with an extreme emotional reaction, yes that makes you a baby.

I have no problem with someone who merely didn't like the ad. What I do have a problem with is this extreme freakout response.

CamperBob2
1 replies
1h10m

I don't think anyone's losing their mind and crying. It's just interesting to see something like this from a company that has historically prided themselves on mutual respect (if not outright symbiosis) with artists, musicians, and other creative people.

Somewhere within Apple there was a failure of taste, and that was always the proverbial "sin unto death" from Steve Jobs's perspective. Doesn't happen every day. You hate to see it, but you can't help but watch.

stale2002
0 replies
34m

I don't think anyone's losing their mind and crying.

Then I guess you didn't see the social media response. There were absolutely a lot of people who were extremely upset.

CamperBob2
0 replies
4h34m

That's an indication that you're not a good fit for the sports-car advertising business, just as whoever approved this ad isn't a good fit for the creative business.

If it has to be explained to you, you won't get it.

mark242
5 replies
4h45m

If you had ever put the time and effort (and blood!) into learning how to play the guitar, you too would have a visceral reaction to seeing a guitar getting destroyed for nothing. It's not the objects themselves that are the problem, it is our connection to those objects, and our innate feelings about those objects, that Apple has smashed in that video. That's a marketing 101 mistake and how this ad ever got greenlit is beyond me.

EduardoBautista
4 replies
4h33m

Literal rock stars destroy their instruments on set just for fun.

wiseowise
0 replies
2h31m

Do they destroy them and continue playing on an iPad?

Hamuko
0 replies
4h24m

Or if they're asked to vacate the stage.

https://youtu.be/g9zogQOmQVM

At least Billie Joe Armstrong showed that Gibsons are very durable and you really have to put your back into destroying it.

CamperBob2
0 replies
4h25m

If it weren't offensive to someone, somewhere, they wouldn't do it.

Apple, on the other hand, will never be punk. They left that path when they realized it was more profitable to become the guy on the screen in their earlier ad.

A better comparison might be to Spike Jonze's famous Ikea ad ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBqhIVyfsRg ), which was also sort of disturbing to watch.

danjoredd
5 replies
5h14m

Im not a skeptical agnostic materialist, but those objects were far from being cheap. Those instruments cost thousands of dollars each. The arcade cabinet as well(there aren't exactly a lot of those left).

The entire point of the ad is that the entire human creative experience is consolidated into the ipad, which is a pretty dystopian way of looking at things. Even if you ignore the cost and rarity of these items, the symbolism is pretty horrible.

hinkley
4 replies
3h25m

You know there are reproductions of those arcade cabinets right? And used instruments cost hundreds, not thousands. A guitar with a broken neck or stripped screws could be propped up long enough for a scene such as this and be useless to actually play. And busted pianos are easy enough to find.

danjoredd
3 replies
3h16m

And used instruments cost hundreds, not thousands.

A guitar, sure. I tried getting an used string piano and couldn't find one...used...for less than five grand. Used violins and other instruments are also usually very highly priced.

quesera
0 replies
1h44m

I won't speculate on how hard the ad agency worked to source a low-cost piano.

But used pianos go unsold for under a hundred dollars all the time within an hour's drive of major US cities.

hinkley
0 replies
2h47m

You are trying to get a working piano. This ad only required a non working piano.

Someone bought me a broken piano once thinking I would be able to repair it. We ended up letting someone else have it for free. It wasn’t expensive to begin with because it didn’t work.

andrewla
0 replies
2h13m

Try craigslist or a local piano mover. Local piano movers are often asked to haul off abandoned pianos and will resell them [1]. This company's stock at the moment is a bit pricey compared to what I usually see, but it's not unusual to be able to get even a baby grand for ~$1,000. The catch is you've got to pay to move them, which is a bit of an ordeal.

[1] e.g. https://www.actionpianomoving.com/used-pianos if you're in the greater NYC area

skywhopper
2 replies
5h47m

No one is actually upset about any specific objects that were destroyed in the making of this ad. This sort of advertising is all about eliciting emotions and shaping a message--a vibe--about a particular product. This ad triggered visceral feelings related to the emotional connection a lot of people--even skeptical agnostic materialists!--have with the tools, instruments, and products of creativity and art. And based on the reaction, the ad clearly elicited a lot of negative emotions and a negative vibe in what is presumably the iPad Pro's target audience. Thus, I'd say that even from your ultra-rationalist point of view, it's a bad ad.

citizen_friend
1 replies
5h28m

I mostly agree. My point is I don’t think the audience here would give the same empathy to flag burning, Christian trolling etc. just want to be clear if these are the gods we worship here

mulmen
0 replies
2h51m

As a recovering christian I don’t “worship” anything, especially a god.

sangnoir
0 replies
5h37m

Another person on social media noted that no Apple ad has ever depicted older generation iPads or MacBook Pros being crushed by a hydraulic press to signify them being made thinner - I suspect Apple wouldn't even greenlight that ad pitch.

eddd-ddde
0 replies
5h23m

It's not matter of spiritualism.

If I put my skill and effort crafting something and it is destroyed, I'll feel sad.

Feeling that way even for things other made is called empathy.

mateus1
20 replies
6h44m

It is also a false equivalence.

An iPad will never replicate the beauty of a human playing a piano or a violin.

It’s dumb consumerism trying to make us believe that life comes down to buying rather than living.

wilsonnb3
9 replies
6h14m

An iPad will never replicate the beauty of a human playing a piano or a violin.

I mean, one of its primary uses is to replicate the beauty of a human playing piano or violin via videos and recordings.

Aside from that, isn’t this just an appeal to tradition? An iPad is a tool just like a piano or the violin, people make beautiful music with them all the time.

I am sure there were curmudgeons saying that the piano and violin would never replicate the beauty of the human voice when they were the top technology of the day.

fnordpiglet
3 replies
5h54m

It’s for this reason I have a minstrel that follows me everywhere. There’s really no substitute for the original analog sound - it’s warmness and the subtle imperfections of the original - can’t be substituted with a consumer device manufactured by a soulless megacorp. It does become problematic on flights as the imperialist cryptofascist lackies of capitalism require my minstrel buy a full ticket and doesn’t let her play my tunes on the flight. People at work get pretty irritated and complain about flow and focus and whatnot and keep insisting I submit to the consumerist mediocrity of a sound cancelling headphone - and I’ve tried in honesty to build a portable sound proof booth with an ear trumpet attached but it’s kind of bulky and I’m not really that handy with tools to begin with. It was also really hard to get a badge for the minstrel but eventually HR just gave me a neurodiversity exemption and classified her as a support animal, which in my opinion is kind of sexist but there’s only so many things one can get outraged about. The real issue is that a single instrument is kind of insufficient to fully capture a wider range of sound and experience so I’ve been trying to figure out how to pull off a quartet - really some of the best music is done by a four piece band anyway - but the above problems just seem to get worse but I’m sure I’ll figure out how to scale this solution.

mncharity
1 replies
4h38m

Minstrel "music" is perhaps problematic itself. On the one hand, you have music as an emergent property of the gathered individuals' culture and skills. That blurs when a tavern sings to a traveling minstrel rather than a neighbor. But professionals can enhance rather than displace. Consider European acting troupes traveling a US West steeped in discussion of Shakespeare. Or printed "poems" to be spread and read in support of real spoken poetry. And minstrels do collaborate with local players... but they can also displace. Something is lost to a community when the local kid or elder can no longer make a bit of money piping in the harvest. Or neighbors play the gather fiddles. When music becomes for a community a spectator sport, rather than something embedded. A train car singing together, versus an occasional platform busker. Like trust-fund kids who see strength of knowledge and skills as something to buy not build in themselves. Or a merchant who doesn't value strength of body for farming. And then there's the my-tower-is-taller-than-yours of court "professional music". With richly textured diversity, complexity, nuance, and surprise consequences, these can be hard to think and discuss clearly. Like struggling now to appreciate the impoverished isolation of people's un-musical experience of tunes before AR's ambient-rendezvous-and-collaborate jamming apps.

fnordpiglet
0 replies
4h25m

And really it’s turtles all the way down. That’s why I’m considering joining a hunter gatherer tribe that’s never had contact with the modern world. As I worked through the profession of institutional oppression of the natural state of man I realized there’s no other option. I just hope I don’t wipe them out with my imperialist diseases - the least of which is the social cultural ones of modern consumerist capitalism!

(In all seriousness I do agree btw, there’s value and worth in all the art and forms of art we’ve created … but I’m reacting a bit to the “one step backward in historical progression is the pinnacle of achievement” … plus I have to say I’m pretty impressed with the visual and cinematic quality of the Apple ad itself and find the contextual outrage a bit weird - comparing it to the Ridley Scott ad is wild too - not every creation has to be an iconic achievement of a master, but is untrue this particular ad wasn’t interesting and well executed and I feel bad for the creative crew that developed and produced it)

teddyh
0 replies
5h45m

Minstrels are also useful in the event you travel through the frozen land of Nador.

graypegg
1 replies
5h56m

I don't personally play an instrument, but I can also understand that the physicality of keys, strings and pedals is innately different from tapping on a glass screen. A digital piano aims to replicate the sound a specific piano, and provide a piano-inspired interface for playing it.

A real piano is a big single use device, in theory yeah, but I imagine for the people playing it the direct control over the things making the sound that is irreplaceable. There's things that will always be impossible on a VST instrument because it's construction (Prepared Piano [0]), and vice versa [1]. They seem like two different avenues of artistic expression to me.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepared_piano [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesizer

wilsonnb3
0 replies
5h51m

They seem like two different avenues of artistic expression to me

I agree completely, this is the point I was trying to make.

People are treating the iPad and the piano as fundamentally different despite both being tools that are equally as capable of making beautiful music in the hands of a talented musician in my eyes.

eweise
0 replies
5h59m

They might make beautiful music but not beautiful piano music. The piano must exist in order to be recorded into the ipad, and recording isn't unique to ipads. You could play the piano samples via midi from the ipad but hundreds of other devices can also do that and that still wouldn't replicate from the player's perspective, actually playing a piano or and audiences experience of actually hearing a piano.

coldtea
0 replies
5h39m

Aside from that, isn’t this just an appeal to tradition?

No. It's an appeal to something that is eternally true.

JohnFen
0 replies
3h57m

I mean, one of its primary uses is to replicate the beauty of a human playing piano or violin via videos and recordings.

Videos and recordings don't actually replicate those things. They approximate them. Recordings leave out tons of really important expression.

LeifCarrotson
5 replies
5h59m

I am quite confident that a skilled musician with an iPad (or, even more obviously, an electric keyboard with a MIDI cable to the iPad) can create music that is indistinguishable from a human playing a piano. The synthesizer will be able to replicate the sound of the best concert grand in the best auditorium, direct to your studio headphones.

I'm also quite sure even unskilled musicians will prefer the feel of practicing and playing on a slightly out-of-tune old upright to a cheap electric synth-action keyboard or (ugh) a glass touchscreen.

It's just a tool.

yungporko
1 replies
5h45m

are there actually any good piano sample libraries on ipad? the ios music ecosystem is pretty dire

Foobar8568
0 replies
5h22m

Best would be pianoteq, but let's be serious, nothing will come close to an acoustic piano. After for YouTube consumption and for the mass, yeah, it will be good enough, afterall most people don't realize that Rousseau is/was not only a team but rearranging midi for their output and still are playing poorly.

jaywcarman
0 replies
5h51m

I am quite confident that a skilled musician with an iPad (or, even more obviously, an electric keyboard with a MIDI cable to the iPad) can create music that is indistinguishable from a human playing a piano. The synthesizer will be able to replicate the sound of the best concert grand in the best auditorium, direct to your studio headphones.

Perhaps this is true, but it is entirely limited to replicating a _recording_ of the instrument. An iPad cannot replicate (or even come close to) the sound of a human playing a piano that you hear in person.

danjoredd
0 replies
4h40m

Have you ever listened to the difference between a piano and a digital keyboard? The difference is night and day. Digital tech can only imitate the sound of a string piano, but it can never truly be the real thing.

its like smelling fresh apple pie vs smelling an apple pie car freshener. The idea gets across, but it can never be the same.

LtWorf
0 replies
3h48m

I'm a hobby musician and let me tell you that I can hear digital instruments and to me they sound like "they cheaped out on hiring some guy to actually play this"

suyash
1 replies
4h49m

That can be said for most of all tech companies who are just trying to sell you shiny app that will supposedly fix all your problems.

chillingeffect
0 replies
4h6m

Also all of the artistic stuff they crush will still work in 5, 10, 50, or more years.

Especially without subscriptions.

Apple's destruction of the real and of tradition is also a bid against longevity and ownership.

And now through this global marketing effort, everyone who proudly displays apple gear is complicit in their desire to crush tangible media.

chrisjj
1 replies
4h25m

I think we're supposed to believe the human plays the tablet as beautifully as s/he plays a violin.

Might boost sales to everyone who has never heard a violin...

hot_gril
0 replies
1h30m

I'm actually surprised how fake the fake violins still sound.

caycep
7 replies
6h0m

Some filmmaker just ran the video backwards and it worked so much better

ethbr1
6 replies
4h48m

Backwards: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XYB6JJoDSuk

That is, hilariously, an excellent ad.

It's gotta sting when someone says "No, actually just reversing your terrible thing makes a wonderful thing. Didn't you think of that?"

Almondsetat
5 replies
4h13m

The funny thing is that reversing the ad doesn't change the fact that all those things were destroyed. If people like the reversed version it means they actually never cared about the destruction in the first place

wiseowise
1 replies
3h0m

Jesus, of course nobody cares about that specific piano. Are you one of those “kids in Africa could’ve rate that destroyed piano” type of people?

It’s a metaphor.

Almondsetat
0 replies
1h50m

Maybe instead if being arrogant and condescending read the very comment section you are partecipating in to see plenty of people saying just that

HDThoreaun
1 replies
4h5m

Obviously no one cared about the literal destruction but the message it was sending. Pianos are destroyed all the time

Almondsetat
0 replies
3h26m

obviously no one

reading just this HN submission's replies begs ti differ

JohnFen
0 replies
3h59m

they actually never cared about the destruction in the first place

For the most part, they don't. I think what people are reacting to is the perceived symbolism of the whole thing. Reversing the video in this case is kind of reversing the symbolism to something more like what I assume Apple was going for in the first place.

pohl
3 replies
5h40m

It seems odd to complain about one old upright piano being crushed for the video when thousands upon thousands of them are out on the streets, living under bridges, because no one wants to move the piano anymore, or wanted the convenience of an electronic keyboard.

I implore you all: adopt a piano today! You may find yourself saying "I didn't rescue it, it rescued me."

rfw300
0 replies
4h3m

I think this misses the mark. The ad is inherently symbolic—it’s not this particular piano, but the fact that they’re destroying all of these beloved instruments of creativity in such a gratuitous and evocative manner. That’s what upsetting, not the literal fact that one piano was destroyed in the making of the ad.

killjoywashere
0 replies
5h22m

We adopted a piano while we were overseas and moved it to San Francisco. We ended up giving it to a church after my son decided he couldn't abide the high notes that could never quite get into tune. Still have fond memories of it though.

hinkley
0 replies
3h28m

See also Jimi Hendrix, the Clash, The Who, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana…

BuyMyBitcoins
3 replies
6h0m

Why not show all of these objects being put into a magicians top-hat and then pulling out the iPad at the end?

withinrafael
0 replies
1h54m

Agreed. I was thinking along the same lines. Some Wonka-like contraption where all this on-going creativity in a room was captured, fed into a whimsical pipes leading to an assembly line, with an iPad reveal at the end.

kevinmchugh
0 replies
5h43m

Or have a giant scale, show people loading all this stuff into one side of the scale, and then placing the iPad on the other side, and the iPad side sinks. There's a million ways to do this idea

Rinzler89
0 replies
5h45m

Because that would have been too 2001 and the ad company paid for this couldn't have justified it's budget like that.

prattatx
1 replies
5h30m

I would have preferred the reverse of crushing our tools into something. I would have preferred pulling them out of the iPad to create. As a d&d fan, I could imagine a bard with a black hole pulling instruments and creative tools out in order to render magic.

I felt like I was watching the end of Terminator 1 when watching that iPad commercial.

Avamander
0 replies
1h59m

I saw a tweet that did exactly that, reversed the ad. The subtext was really different.

flanbiscuit
1 replies
2h11m

I don't think it's impossible to convey that message without destroying instruments and creative tools that are precious to so many.

This is how I felt seeing rock musicians destroying perfectly good instruments and amps. Growing up my parents didn't have the money to buy me a guitar (or didn't want to buy me one), so I would see these performances and would just think, can't they just donate that guitar to some poor kid or a school instead of destroying them? It really annoyed me, but it didn't stop me from loving the band and their music. I'm a late Gen-Xer and watching Nirvana destroy the stage after a performance just made me go "aw, those were good instruments someone else could have used". I don't know if it's "cool" to do that anymore, but I never see any other artists calling that out like they are for this ad, and it's been going on since the 70s.

bnralt
0 replies
1h33m

Interesting point. The Clash even celebrated the destruction of instruments on the cover of London Calling (the cover being a photo of their bassist smashing his bass). And though the Apple ad seems like it’s trying to convey they idea that all these devices are within the iPad, the smashing of instruments and equipment by rockers seems to just be about…reveling in the destruction of instruments and equipment.

You see this in other art as well. For example, the Dadaists took a lot of functional tools, messed them up, and displayed them as art. Moving beyond art, destruction that accompanies political unrest is often dismissed.

It’s interesting that the Apple ad is what touched off this discussion, because it’s actually fairly tame with regards to a lot of intentional destruction of equipment.

whiteboardr
0 replies
3h7m

It was painful to watch and i won’t have a second look.

It would have been as simple as adding a short “Professional CGI Artists. No actual instrument and tools were harmed.” to set a lighter tone and take the pain away.

Given the raging discussion and thus reach, this won’t hurt sales in the slightest - pretty much the opposite and i guess we’re left with giving kudos to marketing well played.

lotu
0 replies
1h44m

I'm not sure but I think this ad was fully animated and nothing was actually destroyed. A hydraulic press of this size, if any even exist, is going to look a lot bulkier and not like a cartoon stomper coming down from the ceiling. We don't see the side bracing which would needed if you didn't want your hydraulic press to rip a hole in your ceiling.

Especially with all the angles they have it would have been incredibly difficult and dangerous to get all the shots, and every shot came out perfectly.

hinkley
0 replies
3h31m

I just watched this ad for the first time. It’s odd but I don’t have a reaction to it.

What I am having a reaction to is all the reactions about destroying instruments. Which in turn reminded me of the song by Cake.

Rock n’ Roll Lifestyle:

How much did you pay

For the chunk of his guitar

The one he ruthlessly smashed at the end of the show?

And how much will he pay

For a brand-new guitar

One which he'll ruthlessly smash at the end of another show?

And how long will the workers

Keep building him new ones?

As long as their soda cans are red, white, and blue ones

ethagknight
0 replies
4h0m

“Honey, I shrunk the iPad. And the composer. And the orchestra.” would have been a better angle

ericmcer
0 replies
2h50m

They probably figured it would be really strong imagery to see the items being physically crushed in a giant press. It definitely invokes feelings, but not good ones.

EGreg
0 replies
3h28m

Anyone remember the original awesome Google Chromebook ad where they meticulousoy showed destruction of several laptops? I know it’s not the same thing but it reminded me of it and I can’t find it anywhere in YouTube! Anyone got a link who knows what I’m talking about?

maxrobeyns
73 replies
7h19m

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.

some_random
45 replies
5h4m

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.

fl0ki
12 replies
2h33m

So if you own a house or car then it's distressing to see one destroyed in a movie? Both of those cost much more than a trumpet, and for many people are more personal and unique, but somehow most people manage to keep their eyes on the screen.

rchaud
2 replies
1h28m

That's because the blown up car is not advertising anything.

Instead, imagine an ad extolling the virtues of public transport by blowing up cars in a parking lot. It sends the complete opposite message than what was probably intended.

dvlsg
1 replies
1h25m

Yeah, it feels like the replacement is the issue, not necessarily the destruction.

I don't want to just program a song on an iPad. I would like to perform it on a piano, which means I can't crush my piano and replace it with an iPad.

noduerme
0 replies
1h6m

Yeah, I do a lot of live recording from my piano to Mac and I was thinking the same thing.

But maybe the ad is saying - you're no longer programming a MIDI track, the AI piano player in Garage Band or whatever is just going to be indistinguishable from a real piano.

I wasn't initially bothered by it, but I think the people who are have a fair point especially about the generative AI implications of replacing real creative tools.

koof
1 replies
2h14m

Depending on the context, probably? During my suspension of disbelief of the narrative, it might make me say "I don't like this destruction!" and to root for whatever might be mitigating the destruction

ToucanLoucan
0 replies
12m

Honestly, outside the context of a movie or education, I find it pretty off-putting altogether. The videos of brand new cell phones being destroyed, TV's kind of less so but still, cars being crushed or vandalized, etc. If I put my psychoanalysis hat on (always dangerous when your subject is yourself, but anyway) I feel two big things:

1. A part of me just does not like waste. I'm keenly aware of our rampant consumerist culture's slow and continuing march towards collapsing our biosphere, and one of the ways those thoughts manifest themselves is being really upset with people buying products simply to turn right around and destroy them, while barely using them, usually for profit in the attention economy but sometimes seemingly just because they're wealthy and bored.

2. And another part: growing up poor, I'm keenly aware of how valuable things can be for people like me, who didn't grow up with much. Maybe that old computer that works fine that you're going to run tannerite through for a YouTube video means nothing to you, but I vividly recall many points in my life I could've really used it, and I know I'm the absolute opposite of alone in that fact.

The "artistic" angle that a lot of the outrage this is drawing didn't really hit me as hard as these things did, but that's just my subjective experience. I respect people who love these beautiful things and don't want to see (probably) completely functional, or even repairable, useful things destroyed so a multi-billion dollar company can sell more products. (And let's be honest, given the nature of video production, the ones we actually saw destroyed were likely a fraction of the ones actually destroyed.)

The artistic angle I do understand though is if it's done for something like a movie, it doesn't hit the same for me. When it's done to make other kinds of art, even schlocky hollywood crap art, at least that has... a result, I guess? It's destruction to create something. This was destruction for... another fucking ad. That will be forgotten in probably 2 weeks.

zeteo
0 replies
1h6m

If I saw a house, that looked like the one where I grew up, being cheerfully destroyed to build a Walmart parking lot, yes I might get a little distressed. It would certainly not improve my opinion of Walmart.

saghm
0 replies
26m

So if you own a house or car then it's distressing to see one destroyed in a movie?

I think there's a difference between showing items getting damaged as a depiction of some sort of chaos or violence versus lauding it as being obsoleted by technical progress.

marssaxman
0 replies
46m

I remember once watching some heist movie while recovering from a motorcycle crash, and the sight of all the faceless mooks crashing their bikes during its car chase scene was so viscerally uncomfortable that it took all the fun out of the spectacle. This had never been a problem before.

lolinder
0 replies
1h2m

This comparison falls wildly short and completely misses OP's point.

Many people own cars, but only a small number of people are deeply into cars, and for one of those people I can definitely see a vintage car getting destroyed on screen causing a negative emotional reaction.

Many people own homes, but it's their own home that they get really attached to, not the abstract concept of a home.

My wife is a lifelong, fervent string musician and I have been with her in a film where she shouted out in pain when a string instrument was brutally destroyed. OP is talking about having that kind of attachment to an artform, not about causal ownership of objects.

kragen
0 replies
1h3m

if a car is like a tool that you tolerate in order to get to work, then no, you might even enjoy the recording of the enactment of a revenge fantasy you can't afford

if you spend your weekends polishing your car, buying aftermarket addons for it, modifying it, and/or considering which car to save up for next, then yeah, it's gonna fucking hurt if you watch a movie and see them blow up a car like the one you long for, especially if you think they did it for real instead of using cgi. and that's true whether that car is a lamborghini countach or a low rider

darkerside
0 replies
30m

If you own a 1965 Bugatti because you absolutely love it, and that's what's getting crushed? Yeah, probably.

__turbobrew__
12 replies
4h38m

I don’t think it is healthy if you are emotionally distressed seeing a trumpet being crushed.

throwup238
5 replies
4h25m

Agreed. I don’t understand the reaction at all. Your favorite trumpet getting crushed in front of you? Yeah sure that might be distressing.

But a generic virtual facsimile on a video? That’s silly

groggo
2 replies
3h49m

Wait are you sure the whole thing was an animation? It's hard to tell but at least some of it looks real... Is that mentioned in the article?

labcomputer
1 replies
3h16m

I would guess that if it is a real trumpet the props department went down to the local used instrument store and picked up the cheapest Yamaha in the discount bin. But, the way the trumpet crumples doesn't quite look realistic to me.

groggo
0 replies
2h50m

I know it's actually hard to tell. There's definitely some CGI in there. But a lot of it looks pretty real too. But the issue with it was the destruction of all of the creative tools. So it's in some ways not quite as bad if it's not real.

darkerside
0 replies
29m

It's like a dog whistle. People who care about this are not unhealthy, they are having a visceral reaction to something that you don't understand the significance of. Try curiosity instead of dismissiveness.

Enginerrrd
0 replies
45m

It's just the shear waste of it all that strikes me. Like so many of those things cost so much money to the people that could use or want them. So many high-paid tech workers are already out-of-touch with what most people consider affordable that I'm not surprised their marketing team thought this was ok.

But most artists are starving, and we live in a world where waste like this isn't really morally acceptable.

mulmen
2 replies
2h26m

If not to invoke an emotional response what was the point of the ad?

renewiltord
1 replies
2h11m

"We squeezed all this functionality into this one device"? That doesn't sound that hard to understand.

No wonder everyone on this site complains about loneliness and therapy and this and that. Most humans aren't 'distressed' by this stuff. I always did wonder about the oddly neurotic opinions expressed here. Now it makes sense: people have little to no emotional resilience here. Everything is the end of the world.

noduerme
0 replies
1h1m

I'd say that's a first world thing for the generation that grew up on SSRIs and the pathologization and medical treatment of every negative emotion from grief to mild discomfort. Not specifically a HN problem.

chillingeffect
0 replies
3h49m

It depends on the context. On an entertainment yt channel, one single real trumpet, so what. But the context apple produced is the implication that the very concept of a trumpet is being destroyed and replaced with a thin, temporary simulacrum.

The difference is subtle. In the first case, a single real trumpet. Only worth a few hundred bucks. In the advertisement, the crushed trumpet is a symbol representing everything around trumpets: lessons, spit valves, centuries/milennia of history, inherited instruments, afternoons afterschool marching around on a football field with childhood friends.

Ce n'est pas une pipe.

atmosx
0 replies
1h0m

I don’t think it is healthy if you are emotionally distressed seeing a trumpet being crushed.

My first thought was the exact opposite: watching the specific ad without being distressed, shows an emotionally damaged human being. Especially the last part where the toy gets crashed screaming is really messed up.

Brian_K_White
0 replies
1m

I don't think it's healthy to have so little perception or understanding and think think everything is that simple.

No one is traumatized. It's just unappealing and tone-deaf that's all. Showing a harmless little toy head and face getting squished and then popped, and presenting that as cool and fun and good, just makes you wonder about the person who produced that imagery and thought it could possibly have those associations, that's all.

Showing a bunch of mixed colors of paint oozing down the side of something is not "emotionally distressing", it's just unappealing, especially to Apple product customers, who buy Apple products precicely because they are sleek and minimalist and clean. Steve's & Ive's entire universe was clean & sterile.

It's remarkable because Apple are supposed to be the KINGS of exactly those sorts of intangible things like impression & subconscious reaction, where things like a 0.1mm or 0.1degree difference in a shape actually matters.

Tiktaalik
10 replies
4h45m

The arcade one particularly distressing given that arcades and their unique arcade hardware are rapidly vanishing across the world without replacement.

bnralt
2 replies
1h20m

The console says “Space Imploder,” which isn’t a real arcade console, from what I can tell. There’s more discussion here[1], but it seems likely that a lot of the things weren’t real (or if they were real, they weren’t were junk that was broken beyond repair).

This seems to be a major point that’s missing from the discussion. If a lot of this is stuff that was fake or already headed for the dump, it completely undermines the argument that perfectly good equipment was destroyed.

[1] https://vi-control.net/community/threads/apple-destroys-vint...

groby_b
1 replies
58m

The point isn't how it was produced, but what the message is. And the message is destruction of creative instruments is good, akshually, because shiny & thin.

No amount of "but we only rendered it" is going to fix it. It speaks about values the company holds.

codelobe
0 replies
18m

[x] Strongly Agree.

Also, the focus on how these devices are increasingly consumer only instead of me being able to use my device to create

Disclaimer: one of my goals is to build apps for my machine on the machine itself. I had this working on the now defunct Firefox phone OS (Its apps were deployed as Zipped HTML/JS and related resources -- I cobbled together a dev environ out of a few browser based tools).

TL;DR: I'm a tool-using creator-type species, The modern "CONSUME ONLY" device craze makes my eye twitch; Ads that reinforce destruction of tools make me want to join fight club.

Sohcahtoa82
2 replies
2h17m

And the arcades that DO exist are often 90% shitty ticket games that cost $1, have about 15 seconds of gameplay, and then maybe after blowing through $50 you'll have enough tickets to buy $2 worth of Tootsie Rolls and maybe a balsa wood glider. If you got really lucky, maybe a plushie.

Though there are some "barcades" popping up these days that focus on classic arcade games to appeal to older the older crowd.

redwall_hp
1 replies
16m

I happened across a nice one when I was in Denver, recently. It's called Akihabara. Tons of imported Japanese cabinets (including Taiko no Tatsujin and Typing of the Dead), and a bar with imported beers, sake and house cocktails. I wish I'd had a smartcard for saving progress, but it was only something I found out about during the trip.

I'm definitely more into the 90s and early 2000s era of arcade games than 80s stuff (and the seat-friendly JP cabinets are nice) so I enjoyed the opportunity to play games that are hard to find here, and bring back memories of wandering (relatively lackluster) bowling alley arcades with a pocket of quarters.

touisteur
0 replies
1m

Typing of the dead! Ask me how I learned touch typing in anger. Such a beautiful piece of hijacked game.

Much, much love to anyone who worked on this gem, or work to preserve it.

Brian_K_White
1 replies
35m

Not to mention a bit rich considering their stance on emulators and game stores.

immibis
0 replies
30m

If tech companies didn't have double standards, they'd have none.

rchaud
0 replies
1h26m

Why would you need that when for the low price of 25 quarters a month, you could have Apple Arcade(TM)? /s

mulmen
0 replies
2h26m

Contemporary arcade cabinets featured similar hardware to the original Macs.

Hamuko
2 replies
4h21m

You mean the arcade cabinet that conveniently switches to a GAME OVER screen while it has sparks flying and smoke pouring out of it when it gets hit by the crusher? Somehow I doubt you lost an actual cabinet. I'll be surprised if it's even made out of wood and not polygons.

supportengineer
1 replies
4h12m

Was the entire ad CGI? I cannot tell anymore. I find it unlikely they built a gigantic hydraulic crusher just for the ad.

Hamuko
0 replies
3h38m

It's possible that some of the close-ups are practical, but the wide shots, such as when the cabinet is being crushed, look fake and plastic as hell. And quite a lot of the destruction is super dramatic, whereas real objects under real hydraulic presses are way less so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJrE4nxDsSw

Quite a lot less sparkles, smoke and explosions than the ad.

tkdev2
0 replies
1h38m

Only if you are a snowflake.

monksy
0 replies
1h21m

It's not your personal trumpet that is getting smashed.

commakozzi
0 replies
3h14m

I'm a trumpet player, professionally. I don't give a rats *ss about it. Everyone just wants to get upset about something, is how i see it.

bsder
0 replies
2h40m

Agreed. Wondering how many of those things were real and got crushed was distressing.

The worst part was that you can have a super effective ad simply by reversing the video.

Everything now springs out of the iPad and nobody is thinking about whether anything got crushed.

Alupis
0 replies
4h52m

If you're a trumpet player, seeing a trumpet being crushed is going to be a bit distressing

Really? I play the trumpet and felt nothing watching this ad. My trumpet wasn't being crushed, so who cares? It wasn't a rare Stradivarius, nor even a high-end Schilke or anything... Even if it was - why care? They can make more trumpets after all...

JohnFen
9 replies
6h2m

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.

mattgreenrocks
5 replies
4h1m

You either get the symbolism of "let's crush all remaining vestiges of creative culture" or you don't.

If you don't, that's fine. Policing the extent of people's reactions doesn't make for constructive conversation, and, ironically, is merely a different form of "over-reaction."

timr
4 replies
3h24m

You either get the symbolism of "let's crush all remaining vestiges of creative culture" or you don't.

Correction: you either choose to believe that's the symbolism, or you don't.

I "get" it, intellectually, but I don't think that was the intent of the advertiser, nor do I think it's the obvious interpretation of the ad. The obvious interpretation, to me, was "hey, we can piggyback on this hydraulic press channel meme and sell iPads!"

Tellingly, few people care that the hydraulic press channel exists, despite actually crushing all sorts of stuff [1]. See also: the viral "does it blend?" ads [2], and any number of music videos or performances where instruments are destroyed [3] (practically a meme unto itself), etc.

[1] including instruments (listen to the guitar 'scream' under the press!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsQOKKE7UbM

[2] they blended a skeleton! oh, the symbolism! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsTZm7QtY84

[3] boom go the guitars (this, apparently, was not the one moment that mattered): https://youtu.be/QvW61K2s0tA?feature=shared&t=175

labcomputer
1 replies
3h13m

I think the ad is a bit a Rorschach test. Most people see a butterfly. Others see man violently stabbing a bicycle, and that says more about them than the creators of the ad.

timr
0 replies
2h11m

basically agreed, except I think that the latter group is 90% comprised of people who see an opportunity for performative angst and/or attacking Apple.

manux
0 replies
1h30m

The intent behind media matters but isn't all that matters. How people might interpret something is important (albeit often unpredictable).

I think the symbolism of "let's crush all remaining vestiges of creative culture" is a pretty obvious _potential_ interpretation from a _non-trivial amount_ of people. In that sense it is an interpretation that matters for our present discourse, even if it isn't the interpretation that the creator of the ad intended.

darkerside
0 replies
27m

I don't think the ad intend this messaging. I do think it unfortunately parallels what many advocates of AI do believe, strongly. And that's what people are reacting to.

xadhominemx
0 replies
7m

Yes, that was what the ad depicted but obviously that was not the meaning of the ad. The ad was a metaphor.

dnissley
0 replies
2m

Maybe you can go into that more. Where's that intuition coming from that tells you "Apple wants to destroy everything"?

atmosx
0 replies
58m

The fact, the add went through a considerable amount of people and no one raised a red flag tells you all you need to know about the industry.

hot_gril
5 replies
2h32m

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.

hn8305823
4 replies
1h32m

Wait until you see what goes on at the county landfill.

hot_gril
3 replies
1h27m

It happens, and maybe the ad was just CGI, but it doesn't mean I enjoy watching it. Like, the Burger King ads don't show a cow being butchered.

odyssey7
1 replies
25m

Given Apple's standards, it's impossible to imagine them crushing a piano in real-life and having it come apart on film in just the way they wanted.

hot_gril
0 replies
12m

Was kinda curious how they did it. The camera zooms in a lot on certain objects coming apart, so maybe they animated or even re-shot select parts of it, but the overall thing was real?

wnc3141
0 replies
59m

I picked up on the context of all the human experiences we perceive as wrapped up in those items - as sorts of resiviors for human emotion and symbols of self actualization. I think a more apt analogy would be: you wouldn't host an estate sale at the site of that person's funeral.

racl101
2 replies
5h34m

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.

verdverm
0 replies
45m

I think everyone is overly negative around the world for a variety of reasons

COVID hangover, war, elections, food prices

That news & social media is significantly negative and designed to induce and promote rage, that's the crux of this issue

mattgreenrocks
0 replies
4h0m

It's also from Apple's long-time core audience. I'm not sure how people don't understand this, other than maybe they've forgotten the roots of Apple's comeback.

caseyy
1 replies
4h31m

The blowback is honestly just a sign of the times. The ad was too insensitive for people who like to overthink and judge things, and are very vocal in their echo chambers.

Backlash for a short ad crushing a few colorful items in an interesting way is simply neurotic. See the definition of neurotic for more clarification.

wiseowise
0 replies
2h29m

Backlash for a short ad crushing a few colorful items in an interesting way is simply neurotic. See the definition of neurotic for more clarification.

a few colorful items
verdverm
0 replies
47m

That first one is pretty on point and hilarious in comparison

spandrew
0 replies
1h5m

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.

matwood
0 replies
6h45m

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.

javajosh
0 replies
1h30m

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.

chrisknyfe
0 replies
1h49m

nebulous malaise about 'AI'

just read half of the comments on HN from AI-bros telling creatives how eager they are to replace their jobs. How often they say "get with it or get left behind". God I hate this site. Why am I here.

hartator
48 replies
9h50m

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.

Rinzler89
16 replies
9h29m

>I think the part that was really upsetting is they crushed real good objects. After all of that talks about climate friendly.

Considering how much global e-waste and environmental damage, companies like Apple(and others of their size) are responsible for with their products, destroying a few objects for an ad is like spitting in the ocean in the scheme of things.

People complaining about the waste generated from this ad, are really missing the big picture, and is one of the reason companies like Apple mostly focus on posturing the image of climate friendliness and environmental sustainability, rather than actually enforcing it across their entire supply chain where it actually makes the big difference.

"Sure, the minerals in our devices are mined by kids in Congo with chemicals dangerous for the environment, and assembled by workers in sweatshop factories with suicide nets, but our posh donut-shaped HQ in Cupertino runs on 100% renewables and serves only vegan food with soy lattes, that's how environmentally conscious we are here at Hooli." </gavin_belson.jpg>

^Because this greenwashing is what people buy into from advertising.

Reminds me when Formula 1 switched form V10 engines to hybrid V6 to be more "environmentally friendly", when actually, the gas burned by those V10 engines during races only accounted for <0,2% of the total emissions, being far offset by the massive emissions of transporting that entire circus around the planet bouncing across continents all year round, yet nobody addressed that, just the engines for some cheap greenwashing.

typeofhuman
13 replies
9h23m

For real, if Apple actually cared about the environment they'd release new models every several years instead of several times yearly.

They'd allow you to upgrade the RAM in your MacBook instead having to replace the ENTIRE machine!

Rinzler89
7 replies
9h18m

Devil's advocate: RAM on SOCs is not upgradable due to technical limitations on frequency and latency needing the RAM chips to be as close as possible to the CPU. You can't beat physics.

I do hold them accountable for the non-upgradable SSDs, which are not needed to be soldered to achieve their full speed, and slim PCB connectors for PCI-E speed connections do exist.

hammyhavoc
3 replies
9h11m

Devil's advocate: sell replacement drop-in boards and reuse the chassis.

Are they still fusing displays into lids on the "pro" level MacBook?

Rinzler89
1 replies
9h4m

>Devil's advocate: sell replacement drop-in boards and reuse the chassis.

Apple's response if regulators push for that: "Sure, that'll be 1600$ for the board please. (on an 1800$ new machine). Oh, and BTW, the board is paired to your iCloud account so you can't then re-sell it on the used market, for your own protection of course. You're welcome."

pseudalopex
0 replies
5h45m

The topic was what Apple would do voluntarily if they cared about the environment.

mrob
0 replies
9h2m

Or better yet, sell the stacked SOC + RAM modules. Any good repair shop can replace BGA devices.

KronisLV
2 replies
8h37m

Devil's advocate: RAM on SOCs is not upgradable due to technical limitations on frequency and latency needing the RAM chips to be as close as possible to the CPU. You can't beat physics.

What about LPCAMM2? https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/7/24151369/lpcamm2-laptop-me...

labcomputer
0 replies
3h2m

That's still several times farther from the CPU than a memory die placed directly on top of it.

Rinzler89
0 replies
8h32m

That just came out, let's see if it goes anywhere and if they keep pushing it in other products, or if it's just a marketing exercise for one product, but I'm skeptical its here to stay.

I also remember how upgradable GPUs in laptops using MMX slots were pushed by Dell and a couple of others a few times 10-15 years ago, but abandoned each time.

I hope this catches on though, but like I said, I'm skeptical.

epolanski
2 replies
9h13m

I don't buy it completely.

It's like when I read arguments such as "Aramco most polluting company in the planet by CO2" or "eating a burger pollutes more than driving an SUV for 100 miles"...

Apple, Aramco, your local butcher are merely serving your needs. Aramco ain't forcing you to buy 5L V8 trucks, and you're butcher ain't forcing you to eat beef rather than poultry or vegetables.

Apple releasing new products is just a normal tech company serving the need of users to have the latests shiny gadget, shareholders to see equity and employees and contractors having jobs.

What do I mean? While in principal I agree that many companies should do a lot more to limit their pollution, at the end of the day this pollution is a direct consequence of us average Joes neverending consumerism.

If average Joe doesn't give a damn about using public transport or using a used hybrid or to adapt his lifestyle to be less polluting, legislators and companies are gonna adapt to people not giving a damn besides whining on Twitter.

alt227
0 replies
8h59m

at the end of the day this pollution is a direct consequence of us average Joes neverending consumerism.

However the subliminal advertising of big companies causing manipulation of weak human minds is what drives the never ending consumerism. Take away the ads, and the buying of crap will drop significantly.

Rinzler89
0 replies
9h9m

> Apple, Aramco, your local butcher are merely serving your needs. Aramco ain't forcing you to buy 5L V8 trucks, and you're butcher ain't forcing you to eat beef rather than poultry or vegetables.

Marlboro wasn't forcing you to smoke either, yet too many people did against their own health and own best judgement, so we had to get government regulators to rule them in to protect people form damaging themselves and others with their own desires.

Just because consumers want something, doesn't mean it's what's best for them and that the capitalist free market should just be free to unregulatedly deliver whatever consumers want, at the expense of societal health or the environment, because then that's just "privatizing profits while socializing losses" with extra steps.

We also had governments regulate car emissions to save our air quality which meant engines had to be much more efficient and less environmentally damaging. All for the greater good, and few people complained about the cleaner smog- and tobacco- free air despite loosing a few HP on their engines and Marlboro selling fewer fags.

What makes you think e-waste should be exempt from such regulations?

kgwgk
1 replies
8h56m

if Apple actually cared about the environment they'd release new models every several years instead of several times yearly

Thankfully last year’s model still works and is supported for several years. Nothing prevents you from ignoring the new models and act as if they didn’t exist.

Auto manufacturers release many new models every year and most people do not buy them all. Nor do they wish that appliance manufacturers stopped releasing new models so they could keep their fridge for longer.

rpcope1
0 replies
6h13m

Auto manufacturers release many new models every year and most people do not buy them all. Nor do they wish that appliance manufacturers stopped releasing new models so they could keep their fridge for longer.

Generations of vehicles seem to be sold for at least half a decade, with maybe slight facelifts but largely functionally unchanged. My 20 year old truck, perhaps barring some safety features, also does basically the same job as a newer truck and drives down the same roads and so on. Thankfully the auto manufacturers haven't yet found a way to make your car or truck obsolescent in 3-5 years.

As far as appliances I swear to god I know I and a large number of other people would absolutely kill for an older Kenmore washer and dryer as they basically run forever and are easier to service. We keep jamming useless crap on everything (of course my refrigerator needs an embedded screen and internet of shit connection, so that it can spy on me and generally be another worthless shiny doodad that's going to break) while making things simultaneously harder to service. My 15 year old fridge does the exact same thing as the newer shitheap Samsung fridges they sell at big box retailers but without needing to be replaced every 5 years. Barring some marginal advances in refrigerant and insulation, some of the old stuff legitimately is better.

heresie-dabord
0 replies
8h29m

destroying a few objects for an ad is like spitting in the ocean in the scheme of things.

I understand your point but the greater irony of the expression is that, at scale, our spitting (flushing, dumping, spewing) into the ocean has created an ecological disaster.

IshKebab
0 replies
8h2m

destroying a few objects for an ad is like spitting in the ocean in the scheme of things

Yeah I think the biggest lesson from this is that people don't understand the amount of resources it takes to build an iPad.

Another example: Apple removing the stickers because they're plastic. A tiny tiny bit of plastic. Probably 0.001% of the plastic used in the production of an Apple device but people think it's significant because they can see it, and all the other plastic is hidden behind closed doors.

FpUser
14 replies
9h30m

"And that would have been a good ad."

No it would not. It would still be as disgusting as it is now.

alt227
7 replies
9h25m

No it would not. It would still be as disgusting as it is now.

For me the disgust was purely in waste of perfectly good items. Those instruments could have provided a whole music department for a struggling school or youth center. The paint could have even been used to brighten the place up.

But No, Apple just squashed it all to show off.

SlightlyLeftPad
3 replies
9h7m

How do you feel about the thousands of hours hydraulic press youtube videos each with millions of views?

alt227
1 replies
9h3m

They are not created by a trillion dollar company as advertising to sell more product.

labcomputer
0 replies
3h1m

So it's ok merely because the creator makes less money by doing it? Because, make no mistake, the hydraulic press channel does it for the money.

Hackbraten
0 replies
6h56m

Luckily, I haven't bumped into anything like that yet. Watching one of these would probably make me feel physically sick.

I've turned away from favorite bands in the past whenever I'd find out they habitually destroyed musical instruments on stage.

lxgr
1 replies
6h8m

Do you have the same reaction to musicians destroying their instruments after a performance? If not, why not?

least
0 replies
3h42m

I find this to be in poor taste too, and I used to go to a lot of punk shows.

...but really, it's not punk rockers slamming their guitars on the stage and destroying them; they can't afford to.

I suppose that it's destruction of the material to advance the immaterial (the performance itself) but it's still self indulgent and wasteful.

FpUser
0 replies
9h23m

"For me the disgust was purely in waste of perfectly good items."

For me it is in your face ruthless "fuck you and what you do, submit to us" nature of the ad. We are different people.

yokoprime
5 replies
9h20m

Why? I don’t understand how this ad triggers emotions beyond the waste of physical objects

pja
3 replies
9h18m

Because it destroys the tools of art by crushing them into a featureless grey rectangle.

Which is a little on the nose for the way artists are feeling right now...

williamcotton
0 replies
7h44m

I’m an artist and I feel great. As a singer-songwriter I’ve already come to terms with Swedish mega-producers, drum machines, Live Nation, and whatever drives people to consume corporate music.

What exactly makes things any harder for artists than it has ever been? Was there some glorious moment in the past when people didn’t look down at the average poets for being lazy and useless?

Sure, laud the best of the best, but you know for a fact that you’ve thought it a bad decision for someone you know who isn’t gifted with genius level talent to pursue a career in the arts.

It has never been easy.

Frankly, if AI makes a pop song or if Lana Del Ray’s producers make a pop song, it really is no different to me. No one is going to replace the folk singer because the audience is already selecting for the poet, not the product. Who cares what frat bros are chugging beer to?

Is part of the response to this ad the subconscious realization that one doesn’t make or actively appreciate organic art to begin with?

When was the last time most of us went to an open mic? Or bought a painting from a local artist?

matwood
0 replies
6h48m

Many tools can be used for art, even the featureless grey rectangle. Your attitude feels a lot like gatekeeping to me similar to when cameras replaced paintings, then digital replaced film, then phones replaced big bodies, etc…

DiggyJohnson
0 replies
3h56m

For whatever reason I feel compelled to share my initial reaction to this comment:

Just because you managed to use "tool of art" as a literal phrase doesn't make your point more clear. Why should I care if a couple of these pieces are destroyed. Presumably they didn't destroy anything of historical, cultural, personal, or scarce significance. Are you sure you're not making an argument based only in emotions?

FpUser
0 replies
9h12m

"I don’t understand..."

You do not have to. To me the feeling was kind of visceral. I usually do not have habit of analyzing my feelings. But ok, I'll try. It feels like an ugly imbecile walking into art museum, crushing everything around and saying: what a useless piece of shit, here, use this brick instead.

rossant
11 replies
8h9m

Honest question: how do we know for sure it's not CG?

IshKebab
6 replies
8h5m

I wondered that, but go and watch it. Absolutely no way anyone is modelling all that in CG. It's 100% not CG.

Also if it was CG Apple would have immediately said that.

millzlane
2 replies
7h21m

How many pianos do you think they had to crush to get that ball to roll just right up to the edge of the press?

abenga
0 replies
7h5m

It doesn't have to be 100% one or the other.

Izkata
0 replies
7h0m

The shots towards the end have nothing around the items being focused on, such as remnants of the larger items. Doesn't need to be CGI, just multiple takes stitched together.

somehnguy
1 replies
5h51m

I don't think anyone can say with any certainty, and certainly not with 100%, without actually talking to the people behind the video. Modern CGI is absolutely insane. There is so much in modern movies & TV that goes right past the viewers without any suspicion at all.

The Corridor Crew YouTube channel taught me that CGI is everywhere and I don't have a clue. Highly suggest checking out some of their videos.

ARandumGuy
0 replies
5h40m

Yes, this could have been done with CGI, but that seems unlikely. As others mentioned, doing this level of CGI destruction is super expensive, and destroying stuff is pretty cheap.

But there's also the bigger factor that, if Apple didn't destroy a bunch of stuff, why haven't they said so? It seems to me that if this ad was entirely CGI, Apple would admit that to minimize the backlash.

Therefore, unless Apple says something (or someone does some very convincing analysis), I'm inclined to believe this ad was done primarily with practical effects. That's just where the evidence is pointing right now.

jayd16
0 replies
6h38m

It is certainly not "100% not CG"

You think they got a real ball to roll out to the edge and filmed that live? Ridiculous.

I would be surprised if any of it was real.

LeifCarrotson
3 replies
5h55m

Economics. It's way cheaper to buy a few old instruments (buy extra in case you want to do multiple takes) and just record them being crushed than to pay a team computer artists for weeks to simulate the physics and draw this all in photorealistic CG.

jayd16
2 replies
5h44m

CGI is way cheaper than a full crew arranging, shooting, cleaning and rearranging this shot multiple times.

crazygringo
1 replies
4h14m

No it's not. Not even close.

CGI modeling of a shattering string instrument that looks realistic would be an insane amount of work, and insanely expensive.

This was definitely mostly practical. The squished emoji ball at the end might have been CGI, but not most of this.

jayd16
0 replies
1h27m

Why do you think its insane to model realistic looking explosions? It's done all the time. Even if it started as a practical prop it was certainly doctored to all hell. Stone statues don't squish and guitars don't actually explode...

If you look through it you can see the top of the guitar is even cut off at the neck, either as a prop or digitally.

Movie magic, guys!

jayd16
2 replies
5h49m

It's almost certainly mostly CGI but even if it was done with practical props, they are still not "real good objects." They are props. No one crashes real Ferraris in an action movie. You use fakes and empty chassis.

Hamuko
1 replies
4h43m

They do crash real cars in movies though. The Wolf of Wall Street saw an actual Lamborghini Countach with a VIN get crashed quite a lot, John Carpenter's Christine went through like twenty Plymouths and The Dukes of Hazzard TV series destroyed hundreds of cars ("an estimated 309 Chargers were used").

runeb
0 replies
3h12m

John Landis film The Blues Brothers crashed a reported 104 cars

pard68
0 replies
8h3m

You do know what it takes to make lithium ion batteries right?

benrutter
48 replies
10h3m

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!"

passion__desire
38 replies
9h56m

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

benrutter
14 replies
9h52m

Very true- I wonder if the prevailing interpretation would be different if this was 20 years ago. The destruction of all those tools would probably have a much more "punk rock" interpretation from people if Apple weren't the megacorp they are today.

bitlevel
11 replies
9h43m

I found it super ironic how they blathered on about all of the recycling going on in their products, then blatently show all those items being destroyed when they could clearly be recycled.

I do think that the 'rendered' idea was the best - almost thinking differently, or something...:S

gizmo
10 replies
9h36m

It's an animation of items being destroyed. It's very fake and Apple used an exaggerated cartoon style animation so it couldn't get mistaken for reality.

It's like getting mad at road runner for dropping a piano on Wile E Coyote.

hu3
8 replies
8h11m

I think real instruments were destroyed. Am I wrong?

gizmo
3 replies
6h2m

Yes, you're wrong. The giant hydraulic press from the ad doesn't exist.

gizmo
0 replies
2h59m

I'm sorry but that looks 100% fake. Liquids are not compressible. The hollow piano would give in first.

LtWorf
0 replies
3h41m

Source?

tpmoney
1 replies
7h25m

I wouldn't think most (if any of it) was real. At the most I'd expect they were destructive props in the same way the table with the legs sawn to break in the just the right way for a movie stunt is a "real" table, but not a "real table".

CamperBob2
1 replies
5h10m

Yes. Why in the world would a director use practical effects for something like this?

The CG isn't even that good. It looks like something out of DALL-E.

It calls to mind yet another way in which the ad could have been crafted to communicate without controversy or offense -- the instruments could have been more obviously cartoons.

hu3
0 replies
3h41m

Why in the world would a director use practical effects for something like this?

Why wouldn't them? It might be cheaper and more realistic for this scene.

The giant press might be CGI. But some closeups look real. Like the paint cans exploding over the piano:

https://youtu.be/ntjkwIXWtrc?si=N6QWwagucRyKp40P&t=20

If you got a source please share.

skywhopper
0 replies
5h40m

It's not about the actual instruments that probably weren't actually destroyed to make the ad. No one is mad about that. The visual of instruments being pointlessly destroyed can be viscerally upsetting. Just because you have no emotional attachment to such objects doesn't mean other people do not.

marcosdumay
0 replies
5h40m

There's nothing anti-establishment on the commercial. They need some minimal amount of punk if they want a "punk rock" aesthetic.

All that is there is a megacorp stealing a previously popular (comical) format, to show people's culture being (quite forcefully) transformed into establishment. The commercial is repulsively anti-punk.

drak0n1c
0 replies
3h13m

20 years ago there were healthier vestiges of traditional arts and culture across society - it's easy not to appreciate or miss things until they're gone.

bingbingbing777
10 replies
8h33m

It's not art, it's an advertisement.

bingbingbing777
6 replies
7h55m

That's not an advertisement. Irrelevant.

antonyt
4 replies
6h10m

I hate ads, but I'm struggling to understand how something being an ad disqualifies it from being art. Advertising is a creative human endeavor. Ads are designed to make you feel something, just like art.

throwaway743
3 replies
5h51m

At their core, their for commercial/promotional purposes. Ads are inherently meant to drive consumerism, where as art is not.

skywhopper
0 replies
5h39m

Some ads clearly are art. Speaking of Apple, their 1984 ad was very much a work of art. Things can have more than one meaning and purpose.

seti0Cha
0 replies
58m

The romantic ideal is that art is not about consumption, but the reality, both historically and currently, is that art objects are by and large made to be bought and sold. If you disqualify all works meant for consumption, you would have very little left that we currently recognize as art.

seanmcdirmid
0 replies
45m

Advertisement is art, by almost every definition of art. Of course, it might not be fine art, but there is plenty of art that isn't.

marcosdumay
0 replies
5h39m

Everything is art. You can't do something that isn't.

ZoomZoomZoom
3 replies
8h59m

1. It's not a problem, it's the point.

2. It looks like you're implying the ad is somehow a piece of art. It's not, it's an ad.

least
2 replies
4h14m

Why does something being an ad prevent it from being art?

ZoomZoomZoom
1 replies
2h0m

Advertisement serves a specific purpose: promoting a product/service. A piece of art can't have any such motivations behind it by definition.

least
0 replies
1h3m

By whose definition? Art is creative expression and there's no qualifiers in standard definitions to exclude work that is used to promote something else.

I'd say flyers for shows are art. or movie posters. or book covers, for that matter. Or trailer music? corporate jingles? They're all art.

password54321
2 replies
6h11m

That was obviously the point. It was about compression not destruction.

sangnoir
1 replies
5h26m

I'm not so sure about that; the emoji with the eyeballs squeezed out of their sockets didn't exactly scream "compression" to me. It felt like they were aiming for over the top cartoonish destruction - but destruction nonetheless.

passion__desire
0 replies
3h3m

Maybe they took inspiration from hydraulic press and Will It Blend channels

mattnewton
1 replies
6h15m

I think the mark of a good ad is that you can turn the music off and most people will get the message. The imagery of destroying the things is the problem, if you turn the music off you really don’t know how you are supposed to feel about this. Apple conveyed similar messages before with animations that did not destroy the underlying album arts, just shrunk them into an iPod. It would hit very different if they crushed a bunch of music paraphernalia people got a lot of enjoyment out of.

mulmen
0 replies
48m

What if they crushed a stack of unsold Songs of Innocence albums?

skywhopper
0 replies
5h44m

The ad clearly didn't communicate that message to a huge portion of its audience. There's plenty of us who can see the intent but still don't like the ad. There are so many other ways to communicate that message in a more effective way.

hnaccount_rng
0 replies
8h23m

I think everybody agrees that that was the _intended_ message. But it's a forced transition. At the end of the ad there is _just_ an iPad. It's not as if the user has any choice now. And that makes the ad very weak. Why is Apple even going into the destruction business? They are supposed to be a creative (creating?) company, if it were an Lockheed Martin ad it would have fit ;)

flohofwoe
0 replies
9h23m

This is the problem with art.

Sorry, but this polished piece of corporate messaging is anything but art. It's at best shiny kitsch.

password54321
2 replies
6h12m

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

chefkd
1 replies
5h14m

Where I'm from they said the phone was the devil it's a totally valid and human reaction to change. Change is almost always violent

password54321
0 replies
4h34m

This doesn't tell me anything and I literally have a masters in AI.

whydid
1 replies
5h0m

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

tsunamifury
0 replies
4h31m

Hahahaha you’ve never worked in ad creative have you? It’s full of people who have been crushed by their inability to support themselves making pure art.

This ad makes perfect sense from that perspective.

atmosx
1 replies
56m

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)

jeremyjh
0 replies
19m

Frankly it’s bizarre. He was a fantastic rock musician who seemed to forget where delta blues, jazz, bluegrass comes from. They drew on older traditions but were distinctly American culture. Maybe his point was really that it’s not popular culture but you can criticize any country’s pop culture.

adverbly
1 replies
8h28m

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.

mulmen
0 replies
35m

So an Aperture Labs reference? They could have Chell pick up the iPad and throw it at a screen of Cave Johnson’s motivational speech. Then it could bounce off without causing damage, showing how lightweight it is, and who it truly serves.

lionkor
32 replies
10h21m

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.

baq
9 replies
9h23m

Still less dystopian than the vision pro with a dad running around his kids with a walled-garden-camera-helmet.

Once may have been a mistake, twice means there's some psychopath marketing VP at the helm OR a joker trying to see far they can go before somebody actually watches ads they're doing before they go live.

k7sune
2 replies
8h52m

“What’s a computer?” Should count as one too. But back then we just scoffed at the idea that an iPad can replace a computer. Now somehow we are offended or even terrified by the same absurdity that an iPad can replace a real musical instrument.

z500
0 replies
6h36m

I feel like people were very much offended by the "what's a computer" ad too, at least on Reddit.

portaouflop
0 replies
8h14m

I am both offended and terrified at the idea that an iPad should replace my computer

infecto
1 replies
8h33m

"psychopath marketing VP" - how do you build such a narrative?

morbicer
0 replies
8h8m

Psychopath? Perhaps a stretch. Soulless? Absolutely. Probably not just VP but whole department if no one raised the voice and said guys, maybe people won't vibe with this.

amelius
1 replies
9h16m

Twice means this is really the company vision, not just a bad marketing officer.

chongli
0 replies
9h8m

There is no vision. All I’ve seen from Apple since Steve died is continued momentum in the same direction.

UncleMeat
0 replies
7h31m

I think there is a third option. Deliberate outrage.

People yelling at each other on twitter over your ad is free marketing. Tons of it.

TheJoeMan
0 replies
7h27m

I was giving them the slight benefit of the doubt for that one, the VP can consume 3D photos and they hadn’t released the new iPhone that can take those photos, so it was more of a derived situation to get the plot to “you can rewatch rewarding 3D movies you took”.

I do agree the test marketing groups are not providing good feedback about secondary interpretations…

llm_trw
8 replies
8h17m

Reject culture, consume the slop.

Culture from the last 20 years has been the slop and the people complaining loudest here have been making the sloppiest slop of all.

wiseowise
6 replies
8h10m

Culture from the last 20 years has been the slop and the people complaining loudest here have been making the sloppiest slop of all.

10 years, I would say. It went downhill somewhere around 2015-2016, imo.

jader201
3 replies
7h2m

Maybe you’re younger than I am, but I definitely feel like the introduction of the smart phone — and the iPhone on particular — was when things started to decline steeply.

ziddoap
1 replies
6h19m

Out of curiosity, why do you say the iPhone in particular? I think smart phone ubiquity, regardless of smart phone choice, is what has led to significant cultural changes (some positive, many negative). But I can't really think of a reason why the iPhone should get more blame than the Galaxy's and whatever other smart phones are out there.

jader201
0 replies
6h10m

I guess I feel that the iPhone was the innovator for a lot of things that are in use today, ultimately leading to the cultural fall.

For sure, today the iPhone is no more to blame than other smartphones. But the iPhone lead the charge, IMO.

And FWIW, I’ve only owned iPhones, so it’s not like I’m anti-iPhone. But perhaps I have unfair bias and am giving too much credit to Apple.

But just like this ad reinforces, I feel like their goal from the beginning was to replace these devices, destroying much of the culture that we used to know.

wiseowise
0 replies
4h18m

Smart phones were good until new age social networks, imo. Instagram, Tinder, new Facebook, new Vkontakte, etc. is where it went downhill.

azemetre
1 replies
7h9m

It feels like this is the turning point when corporate social media giants found out that anger/depression are the easiest ways to increase engagement.

Clubber
0 replies
5h0m

It feels like this is the turning point when corporate social media giants found out that anger/depression are the easiest ways to increase engagement.

Rush Limbaugh figured this out in the 80s. He made lots of money and everyone followed suit.

xd1936
0 replies
7h8m

Don't forget to take your ibuprofen.

mc32
6 replies
9h14m

Apple is too skittish.

There’s no reason to apologize. It’s taking the ‘crushing carbon into diamonds metaphor’ and using it for their product.

In the beginning it looks over the top, ‘ultra violent’, but then it becomes a metaphor for how they view their product.

Now, sure, it’s preposterous to think that this diamond of a thing can be as good as all the real objects it replaces, but that’s advertising.

hnaccount_rng
2 replies
8h27m

I don't know whether they have a reason to apologise or not. But... this ad is not doing what they wanted it to do. It's too heavy handed, it's too weak in its value proposition. It's just a bad ad. Compare it to the original introduction of the iPhone. Jobs just stated "we build a new phone, a new iPod and a new ?calendar?" [0] repeated that 5 times and asked "Do you get it?". The (implicit) statement was "you won't need any of those again". This message is what they aimed for with that ad. But instead of the (admittedly arrogant) prediction "YOU won't want any of those anymore", they went for "you can't use the other stuff anymore" [1]. And that just makes them look far, far weaker than e.g. the iPhone intro

[0] not sure about the last one [1] In German we'd say "alternativeless", which has a nice set of negative connotations nowadays

CoastalCoder
1 replies
8h17m

In German we'd say "alternativeless"

Out of curiosity, what's the actual German word? (Or is that the actual word?)

portaouflop
0 replies
8h13m

alternativlos

achrono
1 replies
8h56m

Even if so, that metaphor was not executed faithfully, and for a company like Apple that is bad.

But more so there is an unmistakeable 'destruction is cute' aspect to the ad that is uncalled for, that is what the reaction is toward.

mc32
0 replies
8h23m

I don’t know that it’s bad. I think it’s a fringe minority that think it’s bad. You’re always going to have people who dislike these kinds of ads.

To me it’s more a metamorphosis rather than authoritarianistic crushing of the spirit.

Lots of Super Bowl ads are of the ‘stupid, dumb, frat/soro’ variety. Some are a hit, some are duds.

Maybe they tried being to clever by half. Let the ad run out; no need to apologize though.

hydroreadsstuff
0 replies
8h24m

If that was the intend an animation that doesn't literally crush things would have worked much better. Let it fall into a black hole and let an iPad emerge or whatever. The dramatic effect of a hydraulic press adds nothing positive.

jasoneckert
3 replies
9h3m

I thought Apple did a great job of providing an ad that makes a bold statement (which is the ultimate goal of advertising).

In other words, I think Apple crushed it (pun intended).

wrasee
0 replies
8h48m

Did you watch the announcement event where on introducing the ad John Ternus made the same pun?

pquki4
0 replies
8h32m

What's the bold statement? Throw away all those things, get an iPad instead which can "do everything" and is thinner?

I thought everyone could see the absurdity in there?

For me personally, crushing an upright piano is like Apple showing a middle finger to anyone who plays on a real piano.

bingbingbing777
0 replies
7h58m

Apple should go back to the ads where the bold statement is generic upbeat envato elements music and the only new feature in their new products: phone colors

xyst
0 replies
9h39m

Join the Apple ~~~jail~~~ ecosystem, or die.

the-grump
0 replies
9h2m

We should be commending the honesty!

thih9
26 replies
9h43m

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.

pquki4
14 replies
8h25m

It accurately shows how tools are being replaced with digital and cloud.

No it doesn't.

Throwing away all other sentiments, I really would like to see a 100lb digital piano replacing a 500lb upright piano while keeping its action, feel and sound, if not a grand piano. That hasn't happened yet, not even remotely, after all these years of technology advancenent. Anyone who is serious in learning and performing piano would be doing that on a real piano. And of course iPad isn't even in the conversation -- what can you do with a touch screen?

Which is exactly why I find this ad ridiculous.

llm_trw
4 replies
8h13m

That hasn't happened yet, not even remotely

It has happened, you just can't afford the price tag of the digital replacement because close enough is good enough.

pquki4
3 replies
8h8m

Would like to see the exact models and price tags and understand what you think I can't afford.

llm_trw
1 replies
8h3m

There are no price tags and models because these things are build from scratch per project.

If you can't afford to hire a contract EE, FPGA and acoustics engineer for two weeks + parts you're getting shit.

pquki4
0 replies
7h51m

Dude, that's not an argument and not how you discuss things.

You need to at least put a link to some article that says someone built it, and other pianists agree it can replace both the ACTION and the SOUND of a piano. Oh, it should weigh about 100lb, not 500lb.

(And if such a thing exists, why wouldn't it commercially be available so that everyone can buy it? Plenty of people include me would want it. Why wouldn't Yamaha or Roland build this 20 years ago, as if they don't have the resources for that?)

Also, looks like your comment only focuses on the sound part of it -- if real at all -- and ignores the mechanical part of it. That's a big no.

Before seeing more evidence, I'll just assume such a thing does not exist.

pwnna
0 replies
7h11m

There is the kawai novus5 which is a digital piano with the action and soundboard of a real upright piano and enough speakers to sound almost exactly like a real piano. There are also some new roland models I haven't tried. Many dealers lump these into their acoustic piano offering and don't market them differently because they are that good.

See https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4DaaafyAUqA and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oLsPK2ATJcY. He is a pianist and he bought a novus5 to replace his own upright piano...

jader201
2 replies
5h11m

I really would like to see a 100lb digital piano replacing a 500lb upright piano while keeping its action, feel and sound, if not a grand piano.

I get the impression that you’ve not played a digital piano lately.

While purists will definitely not touch an electric, most casual players — and especially beginners — will be fine with, and are buying — and preferring! — a good electric piano over a grand or even uprights these days.

I wanted a grand myself for years, but couldn’t justify the cost or space consumption of a grand.

We’re now the happy owners of a Roland FP10, and it’s great! The sound, IMO is amazing, and about as close as an electric can get to the real thing.

reikonomusha
0 replies
13m

The r/piano subreddit is full of amateur pianists who own a high-quality digital piano who share their experiences playing a grand piano for the first time. 99% of the time, they express astonishment, amazement, and their wish to someday own a grand piano. 1% of the time, they complain that the grand piano they played on was way out of shape and was difficult to tame.

For a lot of people, and it seems yourself included, a digital piano is an excellent compromise. It gets the job done, but if all else were equal and circumstances permitted, such people would still prefer to own a grand piano, for significant and non-negligible reasons.

kccqzy
0 replies
2h43m

We recently sold the digital piano after 3 years of playing on it and replaced it with a traditional piano (an upright). It's true that a digital piano works for beginners. But for someone with dedication, they outgrow digital pianos extremely quickly.

EDIT: it actually depends on what you play. We usually play traditional pieces, especially those by Chopin so a digital piano definitely doesn't cut it.

Tarq0n
2 replies
8h13m

When world-class artists come to the NPR studio, a place with high end upright and grand pianos, to perform; many of them bring Nords Korgs or Rolands. Why do you think that is?

pquki4
0 replies
8h10m

We are not talking about the same kind of piano here. And different artists value different things or just need other features, and the "authenticity" of an upright piano is very likely what they are looking for, which is totally fine. This really is another topic. Sorry.

PascLeRasc
0 replies
4h54m

Your question is why do they bring a compact piano to the tiny desk concert?

thih9
1 replies
5h23m

I really would like to see a 100lb digital piano replacing a 500lb upright piano while keeping its action, feel and sound, if not a grand piano. That hasn't happened yet

It absolutely has. The sales of upright pianos are down, while sales of digital pianos are up. I'd call that replacing.

"Hybrid pianos have gained immense popularity among music lovers. These pianos are increasingly being used to provide keyboard lessons as they combine the electronic, mechanical and acoustic aspects of both acoustic and digital pianos. In addition, hybrid pianos take up limited space and can be easily moved due to their small size and lightness. In addition, these pianos require little maintenance. Temperature and humidity do not affect their configuration due to amplifiers and speakers. They can also be connected to digital interfaces, laptops, iPads and other devices. As a result, pianists are increasingly preferring hybrid pianos, prompting vendors to launch more innovative products that will boost market growth during the forecast period."

source: https://www.businessresearchinsights.com/market-reports/pian...

nomel
0 replies
5h13m

I know someone learning piano for fun. They carry their lightweight digital Yamaha to the couch, plug it in, and start paying, walk up to their room, play some more. Digital keyboards/pianos are great, if creating music is your concern, rather than the instrument.

jader201
0 replies
6h47m

You’re talking about whether an iPad can accurately reproduce the quality of the original tools.

While I would certainly agree, like it or not, many of these things are being replaced by iPads/iPhones and other smart devices.

Many people used to carry around point and shoot cameras, calculators, watches, flashlights, etc. but those things are just short of completely depreciated.

Sure, this ad included things that aren’t quite as deprecated, but the trend is in that direction, and not away.

pilsetnieks
4 replies
7h32m

To reduce the issue, "Let's burn books! It's ok because you can just buy them on the Apple Books Store for the iPad"

sneak
2 replies
7h28m

Burning books certainly doesn’t have the connotation it used to, given that the idea of a book is now mostly divorced from the physical implementation.

You could burn every physical copy of most recent books and no data would be lost; I assume most authors write with a word processor.

wiseowise
0 replies
2h20m

Yeah, right, until they start rewriting classics, because they don’t fit in today's agenda.

Draiken
0 replies
6h53m

Given all the DRM and other shenanigans implemented on ebooks, I'm not sure that's true anymore.

racl101
0 replies
5h25m

That would've be hilarious as parody of this commercial if the hydraulic press shot out flames too and burnt some books. Make that message even more ambiguous lol.

dehrmann
3 replies
4h33m

It's a good clip because people are here talking about it.

resource_waste
1 replies
3h45m

This only applies to things that we don't have knowledge about. Everyone knows about iPads already.

When you are already familiar, this is just bad press.

But don't sweat it, according to chatGPT4, Apple is the best company at marketing of all time. They wont be losing for long.

dehrmann
0 replies
2h42m

This only applies to things that we don't have knowledge about. Everyone knows about iPads already.

I actually agree with the comment saying people have almost forgotten about iPads.

Nicholas_C
0 replies
3h13m

Agreed. This will be considered a huge win by Apple's marketing department. People (online at least) are talking about the iPad like I haven't seen in years.

rchaud
0 replies
8h22m

If anything, an ad like this is too real and lets slip the mask that is "Apple is for artists". Nope, Apple is for expanding the existing Apple-only ecosystem.

A classic arcade game experience is not going to be reproducible with a subscription to Apple Arcade. A stradivarius violin is not going to be replaced by Apple Logic Pro.

alt227
0 replies
9h23m

It accurately shows how tools are being replaced with digital and cloud.

No it doesnt, it shows thats what Apple thinks which is the whole problem here.

dogman144
26 replies
6h5m

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.

elevatedastalt
12 replies
2h57m

Considering the NYT tells us every single day what the average liberal arts pursuit thinks about the average technologist, I won't worry too much about that.

abvdasker
9 replies
2h34m

What an unbelievably childish response. What does the New York Times have to do with this ad? What makes you think the New York Times is representative of the "average liberal arts pursuit"? Is the New York Times especially antagonistic towards the tech industry? Do you seriously believe there exists some us-versus-them division between "liberal arts" and "technologists"?

hot_gril
6 replies
2h26m

Do you seriously believe there exists some us-versus-them division between "liberal arts" and "technologists"?

Yes. It was obvious in college that the non-STEM majors didn't like the STEM majors or vice versa, but it was more strongly in one direction.

abvdasker
5 replies
2h1m

As someone who double majored in English and Computer Science this is one of the silliest grievances I've ever heard. For grown adults to still be embittered because of a real or imagined college rivalry seems very petty to me, and frankly unrelated to the issue of whether this Apple ad was distasteful.

hot_gril
2 replies
1h57m

I'm not bitter about it, it's just that college was the last time I was interacting a lot with people not in STEM fields. All my friends went into technical fields for some reason, even if they started off somewhere else. Nowadays I occasionally get "Where do you work? Oh that company? I hate that company."

the_overseer
1 replies
1h13m

What a sad existence to only be among STEM people... Ever wondered if you might be the problem?

hot_gril
0 replies
1h9m

Part of the reason I moved out of the Bay Area was I didn't want to be around so many ultra techie people, or for my kids to grow up that way. We'd be happier and even do our jobs better if there were more of a "human touch," and I wish our company had SQLite's code of ethics.

But I'm a computer programmer, so even if I'm in a more balanced environment now, all I meant is I simply don't work with artists etc daily.

dogman144
1 replies
1h15m

I think they’re embittered bc of having lib arts livelihoods shredded by technology and being told it’s a good thing and progress by engineers reinventing the wheel and causing more negative externalities on top of that, and then the cycle begins again. STEM keeps winning, everyone else loses, and STEM gets congratulated, empowered and funded for it.

elevatedastalt
0 replies
12m

It's true that they got disrupted, but tech also led to more democratization of the news / arts, which obviously entrenched players are not too fond of.

Also, the same embittered liberal arts majors had no problem telling rust belt coal miners that it was a good thing their livelihoods were being shredded.

If you fail to see that there's a massive culture war element to this, I have nothing more to say.

elevatedastalt
1 replies
2h33m

Wow. So the parent comment made exactly the same stupid generalization in the opposite direction, and it was all ok, but show a mirror to it and suddenly you get upset?

Is the New York Times especially antagonistic towards the tech industry?

Yes

Do you seriously believe there exists some us-versus-them division between "liberal arts" and "technologists"?

Not in real life among friends, but it's definitely a culture war flame that was started and is stoked by media.

dogman144
0 replies
1h13m

There’s nothing generalized about decades long economic destruction of the creative arts and similar industries in exchange for streaming platforms, instagram, “news”via social media and now AI. But hey RSUs in tech are great, get over it NYT readers!

dogman144
1 replies
2h49m

Worry about what? I’m pointing out that it’s nice for tech to finally be honest about the view and get a deserving reaction in return after decades of self-congratulation.

elevatedastalt
0 replies
10m

Engineers did not make this advertisement. Marketing and creative departments are dominated by business / liberal arts majors. You are really spouting all over the place.

xyzwave
4 replies
3h53m

Maybe the average technologist, but for anyone who understands Apple's culture and history, your claim is not just inaccurate, but opposite of the truth.

Steve Jobs addressed this exact point during a 2011 keynote [0]:

It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.

0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlI1MR-qNt8

malcolmgreaves
2 replies
3h22m

That company is long gone now.

darkhorse222
1 replies
2h27m

The AirPods show a thoughtful commitment to the human experience. The Vision Pro also demonstrates a focus on the human and social experience.

Where they have lost their vision is in the iPhone and Mac lines which are simply so profitable that there is no reason to mess with a good thing.

hot_gril
0 replies
2h23m

Blocking out the sound and sights of real life with something digital is not what I call a thoughtful commitment to the human experience.

Hardly anyone seems to remember how the iPhone used to be small enough to fit in one hand or in any pocket. As people became increasingly addicted to phones to the point of having them outside the pocket more often than not, bigger phones made more desirable, but Steve Jobs insisted on keeping it small. He said nobody wanted a big phone, but since it was obvious users did want it, I'm wondering if there was another reason. He died, then a few years afterwards, Apple released the larger iPhone 6.

wiseowise
0 replies
2h27m

As if Apple then is the same as Apple now.

vessenes
2 replies
5h53m

I, like a lot of people, just hated the ad, although I liked it in reverse.

If there's a single product company that hires technologists who also love the arts, it's Apple -- this campaign was just mismanaged by someone who missed the point, and didn't understand Apple's history very well.

Also, apparently, the ipad is really thin, so maybe they got overexcited :)

dogman144
0 replies
4h57m

A technology company that loves the arts and shows it by paternalistically crushing all of its implements and saying “trust us this iPad is better than your heirloom piano or silly books.”

Right on trend. They might love it, but they don’t understand it, and per the last 20 years love unemploying it.

chankstein38
0 replies
5h46m

Agreed, I definitely think the reverse is better. It gets the same point across while implying the new ipad is bursting at the seams with all of these cultural tools. I wasn't offended by the destruction or anything just straight up kind of a dumb commercial.

robertoandred
1 replies
4h9m

Technology (especially comp sci) falls under liberal arts.

542458
0 replies
1h20m

To be more explicit, liberal arts refers to art as in skill, not as in fine arts. Liberal arts education is the dominant educational paradigm in the western world. Any education that emphasizes being well-rounded any knowing something about many subjects is typically a liberal arts education (compared to a technical or professional education where you just learn a lot about a single subject).

duped
1 replies
4h46m

It's hard to remove this ad from the context of the current market for artistic services, which have always been undervalued by non-artists (eg: "give me this for free so you get exposure!"), which is under assault from AI startups that think they're making the world better by killing the most human parts of our economy.

Artists are really being stung by AI right now. And Apple, ostensibly the darling tech company for artists, puts out an ad literally crushing artistic tools and telling you to buy an iPad to replace them. By the way, it has the most powerful neural engine ever.

It's not just tone deaf, it's insulting.

dogman144
0 replies
2h50m

Not sure (well I am sure given the audience) why you’re getting downvotes… other than it’s a bitter pill for engineers to swallow that the creative arts industry which eng culture tries to simultaneously love/emulate/crush economically hates engineers and tech culture in return for this multi-decade attitude. Even in the face of “hey but I use XYZ tech for art, that’s not true!” that tend to pop up.

You are spot on, and the ad, and it’s humorous “wait they hate us?” counter-reaction/confusion in reaction to feedback about encapsulates it all well.

uses
0 replies
3h32m

That's a huge marketing fail if that's what it made you feel because it would be completely contrary to their messaging during the rest of the iPad event. The 30 minute show was almost entirely about using the iPad in creative pursuits. Illustration, film making, photography, music, etc.

todd8
20 replies
8h12m

It's an advertisement. Get over it. If you don't like waste, wash your plastic yogurt cups and reuse them as cereal bowls.

I personally didn't like Apple's "Crush" ad, and I was much more interested in the rest of the announcement. It's interesting how power efficient iPad's have become, and my guess is that these positive developments in efficiency far exceed the waste produced by obviously staged crushing of some tools used by artists.

How should we assess the value or cost to society of an advertisement? To start out with how much did the ad cost to produce and execute and what was its world wide impact? Was it really that wasteful? Apple's net annual income is around 100 Billion dollars per year. No matter how Apple produces an ad campaign it costs money that could have been used for kinder, gentler, more impactful endeavors, say more animal rescue shelters. But Apple wants to sell its products, and ads are important for that. Clearly, Apple's products bring great value to humans across the globe--they've voted so with their wallets. Does the crushed piano (likely involving special effects) really impact the world in any significant way or is it just the visuals that are so disturbing?

If it's actually just the seeing of a musical instrument being crushed that is so upsetting, then what are we to think of the countless instruments thrown in the trash after our elementary school kids give up on being guitarists, drummers, trombone players, or violinists. Why do we even let a 7 year old touch a violin if only 1 out of 100 ever play a level that isn't torture to listen to.

The reaction to this ad reflects a pernicious societal descent into relying on emotion instead of reason and accepting innumeracy instead of analysis.

bambax
11 replies
8h4m

You missed the point completely.

The problem with the ad is not that it produces waste. If it was 100% CGI it would make absolutely no difference.

The problem is the message. Craftspeople, including artists, value, respect and love their tools. This ads tell them that those tools are valueless, obsolete, objects of ridicule, and that a big tech company can decide to replace them with yet another lifeless slab of aluminium and plastic.

Imagine an ad for condoms that would crush babies. (Why not! Thinness is an important attribute of condoms too.) Critics would not accuse the company producing it of killing babies, because everyone would assume there were some special effects involved. Yet it would be absolutely revolting.

This is the same.

heeton
6 replies
7h37m

There's a real element of media literacy (or lack thereof) that we have to consider in this issue.

What was the intent of the media?

This is obviously open to interpretation, but to me I see the intent being that all these tools for creative expression are being combined/squashed/pressed into this thing which is very thin. That's why they chose the press. They also chose the press because it looks visually interesting, they are trying to make a fun ad.

I really can't imagine that anyone in that ad was trying to imply that the iPad destroys those objects, or that those objects should be destroyed, or are now valueless. They are saying that this device contains the functionality of all these big items squashed into one crazy tiny thing. Amazement at what it can do, NOT a desire to destroy or make obsolete real pianos.

From that viewpoint, it's clear they VERY clumsily applied a metaphor (combining + crushing into the iPad) with a visually fun thing (the explosions), resulting in people thinking they want to destroy pianos.

But importantly (if one takes the above as true, which you may not), you can't then say that the ad is trying to "tell that those tools are valueless, obsolete, objects of ridicule", that's not the intent of the author.

speff
1 replies
7h9m

The intent of the author shouldn't matter when it comes to advertising - it's not the viewer's responsibility to figure out a deeper/alternative meaning. The ad company is injecting themselves between the viewer and the media they actually want to watch. The onus is on the advertiser to make the message as clear as possible to the viewer who doesn't care - and if it misses the mark, it's the advertiser which failed. Not the viewer's lack of effort on understanding it.

heeton
0 replies
6h54m

I agree, and I don't think this is a good ad for all those reasons.

But if you want to infer values of the company from an ad, and say things like "Apple wants to destroy pianos", then considering the intent of the author is absolutely relevant.

mwigdahl
0 replies
6h38m

The whole point was the destruction -- they spent basically all the time in the ad on slow, loving shots of all these artifacts being mangled and crushed. They weren't being combined, subsumed, or absorbed -- they were being flat out destroyed. And not quickly -- slowly and remorselessly.

The problem with the ad is in the semiotics -- the visual language of the ad was all about succession _through destruction_. The message was "all these things, that represent _good_ memories and experiences you've had, are now destroyed." And at the very end they show you a brief shot of the new iPad.

Where the hell were the focus groups on this one?

chrisjj
0 replies
2h33m

I really can't imagine that anyone in that ad was trying to imply that the iPad destroys those objects

Did you miss the many colours of "blood" dripping from the crusher's jaws?

bambax
0 replies
6h16m

But there are many ways to show that the iPad incorporates all of those things. Make a mini character enter the iPad and visit a succession of caves, each one full of artists doing art with traditional tools. Or put mini instruments in a drawer, one after the other, and when the drawer is opened again it only contains an iPad.

But no! They thought it was more fun to destroy everything. They wanted to make porn. They wanted to make their own little snuff movie.

And nobody in what one imagines to be a long chain of command, felt physically sick watching it.

adamsilkey
0 replies
5h0m

There's a real element of media literacy (or lack thereof) that we have to consider in this issue. What was the intent of the media?

You cannot ignore the impact of artistic decisions and processes when considering a piece of work, and calling that a "lack of media literacy" is grossly oversimplifying artistic analysis. Intent is important, but so is the impact on the audience. Art is a conversation between artist and audience, and as pointed out by the article and the other comments here in the thread, the message missed for a significant percentage of the audience.

amgcbus
3 replies
7h47m

I was flowing you until the analogy of crushing babies.

davidmurdoch
0 replies
7h38m

Same. Replace condoms with abortion clinic and the analogy might a little more accurate - but only because I suspect some will see it as story about murdering souls and some will see it as beneficial and necessary. But even then it's still quite a stretch.

chefkd
0 replies
5h12m

yooo i totally missed that for me it was the one angry bird being crushed that triggered me :)

bambax
0 replies
6h23m

I chose the analogy to try to reach people who don't find absolutely revolting the sight of musical instruments or photo lenses being destroyed.

I have spent most of my childhood dreaming that someday, maybe, I would own a prime photo lens and a trumpet.

To see a big company make a mockery of those artefacts of human creativity almost makes me cry (it actually hurts a little).

wiseowise
0 replies
2h18m

The reaction to this ad reflects a pernicious societal descent into relying on emotion instead of reason and accepting innumeracy instead of analysis.

Being a snob about things isn’t as cool as you think it is.

squigglydonut
0 replies
7h12m

You're wrong. Ads are feelings.

mouse_
0 replies
4h58m

If you don't like waste, wash your plastic yogurt cups and reuse them as cereal bowls.

Disingenuous prick.

logrot
0 replies
4h57m

Saying "this is just an ad" is like saying "have you stopped beating your wife?" is just a question.

jacurtis
0 replies
4h47m

I tend to agree. Most people have no idea that every commercial or film, ends up dumping or destroying almost all the stuff in the video.

I remember there was a Scene in one of the more recent mission impossible movies where the director was interviewed as joking about how they budgeted to destroy 3 lamborgini's for a action sequence but ended up needing to destroy 4 of them. These were brand new, straight off the lot lambos that just got shot at, crashed, and blown up for the movie. No one cries about that, instead they marvel at the "practical effects" of the movie.

This isn't even a unique example. A lot or props that DON'T get destroyed and are just used for one quick scene, like a chello in the background, often go straight to the dump after the scene is filmed, because they just bring in a dump crew to get rid of everything.

I guess the difference is ignorance is bliss. People don't see the amount of absurd waste that happens in commercials and movies, so they can enjoy it. Strangly, even seeing it on screen (like a car blowing up) doesn't bother them. But a slow crushing of an instrument for 20 seconds does trigger them.

The amount of waste that this produced is inconsequential, not even a rounding error for the amount of waste that a warehouse up the street from anyone reading this is performing as you read this comment. And yes, there are so many of these companies creating unfathomable amounts of waste that no matter where you live, you have one probably within a few miles of your home that you never knew about.

I would tend to side with those that are triggered if these instruments were antiques that couldn't be replaced. However, these appeared to be common instruments. I actually play guitar and the guitar actually looks like a pretty cheap guitar. These get bought at Costco and returned and dumped everyday. They are commodities, they are pumped out of factories en masse in Vietnam and contain a hundred bucks of parts, wood, etc. Most of these guitars end up in the dump anyway. The upright piano is a little different because they tend to be several thousands of dollars, but again this looks like a modern, generic piano.

I am happy to have discussions about the vast amount of waste humans have, because it is truly unfathomable. Most people have no idea how bad the problem is. But watching some paints, a metronome, a single guitar and piano get destroyed is not even the beginning of the real problem. So if we want to have a discussion about waste, let's have it. It's a serious problem, but this feels like a joke that a handful of items that doesn't even equate to what an average American probably dumps when they move houses, seems like a stupid hill to die on.

davidmurdoch
0 replies
7h41m

Descent? We're all trying to ascend into a life with more substance and soul. I think your line of thinking is upside down and seems absolutely miserable to me.

bingbingbing777
0 replies
8h3m

The reaction to this ad reflects a pernicious societal descent into relying on emotion

Spoiler alert: humans have emotions. Apple will gladly spit in your face about emissions all while giving you less product (taking chargers out of iPhones) so they can save the environment (more like, their profits). Not everyone wants to see the message of hundreds of years of art history being destroyed all so you can purchase new product to make some soulless AI generated garbage.

anon7725
0 replies
5h18m

If it's actually just the seeing of a musical instrument being crushed that is so upsetting, then what are we to think of the countless instruments thrown in the trash after our elementary school kids give up on being guitarists, drummers, trombone players, or violinists. Why do we even let a 7 year old touch a violin if only 1 out of 100 ever play a level that isn't torture to listen to.

This reminded me of an interesting documentary from the LA Times on the LA Unified School District's musical instrument repair shop.

https://www.latimes.com/shortdocs/la-short-docs-the-last-rep...

gizmo
7 replies
10h3m

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?

n1b0m
1 replies
9h55m

It’s not about the CGI, but the sentiment it expresses. Hugh Grant summed it up well: “The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley.”

gizmo
0 replies
9h49m

But that's not what I see! What I see is a beautifully crafted CGI animation that passionate people worked super hard on. The ad is technically very well done and the music suits it perfectly. And the message is about tech as a product for creative expression as opposed to content consumption.

The ad isn't about destruction just because it features destruction. We don't apply this standard to movies, books, or any other creative work.

chrisweekly
1 replies
9h51m

We cheer when rock stars smash their actual guitars after a live performance.

speak for yourself. also, see the flurry of comments elsewhere in the thread about the irrelevance of CGI to the message being sent

gizmo
0 replies
9h42m

Audiences do, in fact, cheer when a rock star smashes his guitar.

And for me it does matter it's CGI. Because actual destruction is not the same as simulated destruction. Cartoon violence can be funny but real violence never is.

rocketvole
0 replies
9h49m

The outrage is that supposed culture is being destroyed and turned into a soulless apple device. Apple implies that you can replace all the things with the ipad, which isn't true- you can't perfectly emulate a trumpet, for example. All in all a dystopian take

gr4vityWall
0 replies
7h24m

I don't understand it either. I do creative writing, and it didn't shock me or made me feel bad. I thought the ad was meant to show what kind of CGI you could make with an iPad.

Workaccount2
0 replies
6h2m

Having watched a whole bunch of hydraulic press content, it didn't stand out as particularly unreal. Books for instance violently explode when compressed.

major505
5 replies
9h37m

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.

xyst
1 replies
9h26m

No it’s a glorified iPhone in my opinion.

I had planned to use it to write code on the go but found it extremely limiting.

All of the power inside the tablet and it’s locked behind the Apple jail.

Have seen a few people use it as a laptop replacement though. They bring Bluetooth kb and mouse. But the experience seemed very janky to me. I asked to observe their experience and person was just web browsing lol.

major505
0 replies
8h51m

PRetty much. I have a Android Tablet. The only way I could use for work was to SSH into my server.

But using nvim all the time have its limitations. Sometimes you need an IDE.

So I just give up, and now is collecting dust.

ErneX
1 replies
9h32m

I do, I have an Air on my desk on a Logitech keyboard cover, it’s like a mini laptop where I do casual web browsing, access my piCorePlayer web UI to play music from my NAS or use Spotify/Apple Music to play tracks through the piCorePlayer. I also watch YouTube frequently on it.

major505
0 replies
8h50m

I used in the start, but since Im always using bluetooth headphones, It was a pain in the ass to change in wich device is connected.

thih9
0 replies
9h29m

Note that your comment too could be seen as complaining - and you yourself say that you’re not the target audience.

I also don’t use an iPad after switching to a pro max phone. But ideally I’d like a smaller phone and an iPad mini; maybe next iteration.

havblue
5 replies
5h39m

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.

hbosch
2 replies
5h33m

I'm trying to put a pin in exactly why this is offensive.

While the corporate read of this would be "look, we've crammed all this cool stuff into an impossibly thin device!", which was probably the marketing pitch... the subtext of an ad like to most regular people is "we are here to destroy and replace everything that you already love".

chefkd
1 replies
5h10m

That's what is confusing a little bit I wonder if people said that about horses when they were replaced by cars isn't the one thing that's constant in this world change? A whole ecosystem that relied on horses being the main mode of transportation died

chrisjj
0 replies
2h25m

I missed the advert depicting horses crushed to make cars.

Thankfully.

colechristensen
1 replies
5h29m

It’s offensive because the message is “we want to destroy all of these real things and replace them with a simulation that we sell you”. Apple is trying to kill the competition and the competition are now the people who make paintbrushes, violins, etc etc.

With more and more things being mass produced, simulated, and faked, people increasingly value things that feel “real”. Apple with this add is explicitly claiming to destroy the real and trying to sell that.

chefkd
0 replies
5h6m

But isn't it up to the free market to decide? If people like the convenience of an iPad and are willing to trade fidelity for it right?

An anecdotal example :- family used to work in translation when they were alive (ironically they were killed by traditionalist forces in my country) while Google offered Google Translate. People paid for my family for translation services because Google wasn't up to human level for certain languages does this mean I'm supposed to be outraged when Google LLMs outperform humans?

epolanski
4 replies
9h18m

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

Who cares of an Apple ad...

zulban
1 replies
9h5m

I wonder how much of the outrage is just manufactured by a marketing firm. I noted that mainstream outlets were writing about the outrage when the youtube clip had just 70,000 views.

epolanski
0 replies
6h55m

This as well.

This outrage made the ad seen 10 times more than it would've been otherwise.

madhato
0 replies
3h35m

I honestly don't even feel like I live in the same world as the majority of commenters on the Internet anymore. To be outraged because apple crushed some stuff for an ad is a new low, or I guess a new high for fake hysterically.

can16358p
0 replies
2h7m

People want to get offended by literally everything, even a harmless ad. They just want to attack something.

mikewarot
3 replies
9h53m

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.

exodust
1 replies
9h41m

Actual destruction isn't relevant. The idea of destroying musical instruments because a new iPad is in town, is jarring. The ad lingers on pointless destruction. Why not spend the time showing the new iPad? It's sad when advertising is stuck so far up its own clever-hole, it loses grip on reality.

Edit: I just watched it again. It's definitely not obvious CGI, not sure how you can say that. Camera lenses shattering, paint spilling, wood splintering realistically.

mikewarot
0 replies
3h40m

The press itself is ridiculous, you can't have two skinny cylinders like that pressing out a platen that wide and expect to get any reasonable forces. Maybe it's too much time watching the limitations of the 150 ton press, but it all just seemed like someone's idea of what a press is, instead of an actual press... in hyper-real cgi.

zarzavat
0 replies
9h36m

It certainly was not obvious to me that it’s CGI, I had to go back and check after reading your comment, and from what I’ve seen online most people think it’s real.

If their intention was to communicate that it’s CGI then that was an abject failure.

graypegg
3 replies
5h33m

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.

beefnugs
1 replies
5h21m

As easy as it is to interpret it as "fuck your cherished things! get indoctrinated by tech" It is just because tech's true colors have really exposed themselves as of late to be money grubbing criminals to the extreme. It is inevitable that any corporation of sufficient size (only acheivable by evil) will stop being able to be "cute" advertising anymore

graypegg
0 replies
4h42m

I could imagine some other ways of making this spot that I think would've changed the mood but still be cute. At a certain level of evil though, you have to poke at yourself.

Imagine some big team of apple engineers running around music halls and art galleries with notepads (or iPads with an apple pencil), taking notes on everything they see.

Cut back to factory, everyone is working on some comically Apple version of an artistic instrument. I'd absolutely get a laugh out of a big metal and glass piano or a solid aluminium canvas. These are obviously... framed as not ideal. Followed up by one of them frustratedly scrolling around on their iPhone in the break room, realizing lots of posts say "made on procreate on my iPad" or "garageband on iPad". Running back to the factory setting, hurriedly throwing everything in the crusher. Smush. New thin iPad.

havblue
0 replies
1h41m

I wonder if it's just about the ad or how we feel about the company. My uncontroversial opinion of apple is that they want us to spend as much of our lives in their hyperreal walled garden as possible. People might not have noticed if the ad was from, say, LG.

yungporko
2 replies
5h43m

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.

behnamoh
1 replies
5h41m

If you think Apple didn't owe anybody an apology then you don't know how corporate world works in competitive free markets.

yungporko
0 replies
5h36m

if you think the few people who were miffed about a lame advertisement could have any perceptible effect on apples bottom line whatsoever then i'd say it seems you know less about the market than i do.

stephc_int13
2 replies
7h14m

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.

hobbescotch
1 replies
5h57m

Their Apple vision ad was very dystopian feeling and to me looks like the same team did this one. They seem really out of touch. Very negative vibes in these recent ads.

stephc_int13
0 replies
5h49m

Ultimately, this is Tim Cook. The guy is a control freak, pretty much like Jobs was, but with different views and taste.

I find Tim Cook presence extremely chilling, highly sociopathic vibes.

readmemyrights
2 replies
9h2m

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).

fullshark
1 replies
5h58m

1. Conveys the idea that the ipad has all these creative / cultural digital services on it

2. Conveys the idea that it's thinner than ever

3. Seeing stuff get destroyed by a hydraulic press is attention grabbing, and gets you to look at the TV during that commercial break.

I get why they did it, it's striking. They just didn't understand just how massive the freakout in the creative arts industry is right now over technology companies, and why it would cause a backlash.

marcosdumay
0 replies
4h57m

On #1, people were very well aware of it already. All this ad does is making them reconsider the company's intent and see it as an enemy trying to destroy the services, instead of a friend making them easier to get.

On #2, it doesn't do that very well. For a start, the press never smashes the tablet itself.

This commercial is very well done with the purpose of making people revolt. Every element is perfect. I wonder if there was some miscommunication and the authors expected the scenes to be used in a different way.

nico
2 replies
7h23m

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

Seems like there really is no bad publicity

userbinator
1 replies
6h33m

But will this publicity help Apple sell more iPads?

Workaccount2
0 replies
6h0m

Probably.

People forget that it's something like 5% of people who participate in online discussions, and it tends to be the most vocal outrage prone people.

I would guess the average person will see the headline, watch the ad, and think "Meh, it was kinda neat....anyway let me check out what the new iPad offers."

millzlane
2 replies
7h22m

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.

kristofferR
0 replies
6h36m

Why not crush the basket of puppies? You can watch videos of puppies on an iPad.

hn92726819
0 replies
7h6m

I'm curious if they CGI'd your basket of puppies in there (after all, you can take puppy pictures on your iPad!), would you not be bothered by it at least a little bit?

karaterobot
2 replies
6h50m

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.

fullshark
1 replies
5h55m

How do you attack the actual thing? Some are trying with copyright lawsuits and potential gov't policy proposals I guess but it's much easier to attack a single company and get an army of outraged allies over something easily digestible (an advertisement).

karaterobot
0 replies
4h33m

I agree that there's two things: doing something about it, which is hard, and complaining about it, which is easy. What I'm saying is, if you're going to complain about something, might as well complain about the real problem rather than a harmless symbolic representation of the problem.

elzbardico
2 replies
5h12m

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.

mdhb
1 replies
5h4m

You are ironically doing the exact thing you are accusing others of but instead of being mad that people don’t know how a factory looks it’s you not understanding why people are upset at this and have very conveniently ended up at a position where:

- everyone who doesn’t like it is dumb

- you are a self proclaimed factory expert trying to pretend this is a physics argument which nobody claimed but you.

elzbardico
0 replies
4h49m

I don't care about the argument. I find it funny that a lot of people believe that a giant hydraulic press looks like that and is installed in an environment that looks like the engine room of a spaceship in a SciFi movie.

It is a tangent observation.

advisedwang
2 replies
1h28m

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!

rchaud
0 replies
1h20m

This might be true if the person watching it had just been defrosted from cryogenic storage. Apple releasing another iPad update is not an uncommon occurrence.

Smithalicious
2 replies
7h10m

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.

marcosdumay
0 replies
4h39m

Except that it makes some of the most relevant Apple customers see them as an enemy that is out to crush their dreams... and are sharing it so their friends get the memo and feel the same way.

kccqzy
0 replies
2h26m

I watched it and then resolved to never buy an iPad again. I'm sharing it with people who will make the same resolution.

INTPenis
2 replies
6h4m

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.

INTPenis
0 replies
1h15m

No, you see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40322371

It was all just stolen from an LG ad in 2009. And nobody got upset at that.

So clearly this is about Apple as a brand evoking emotions and fake outrage.

steve1977
1 replies
9h14m

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

raverbashing
0 replies
9h11m

1984 "See why you need Apple to crush the boring industrialist vision"

2024 "Giant faceless industrial hoodrolic press goes brrrrr on art and creativity" (with apologies to HP Channel)

squigglydonut
1 replies
7h16m

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

Clubber
0 replies
5h12m

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

Because of the ad, or because all the people complaining about the ad?

rglover
1 replies
8h15m

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

can16358p
0 replies
1h59m

People need to be offended by something. They chose a random innocent Apple ad this time.

nsxwolf
1 replies
5h54m

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.

can16358p
0 replies
2h5m

Yup I loved it too, yet the Internet People need to attack something, so they picked this ad today.

kypro
1 replies
9h35m

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?

Clubber
0 replies
9h12m

It's probably a manufactured outrage campaign.

freetime2
1 replies
9h28m

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.

Clubber
0 replies
9h25m

But it feels like people are almost going out of their way to get offended by this.

After all the news about this, I finally watched it. I don't get why people are complaining. It's either a ploy by Apple marketing to get people to watch it, or manufactured outrage by news sites trying to get clicks.

What an artificial world we live in today.

fl0ki
1 replies
2h58m

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.

brrrrrm
0 replies
2h56m

if anything the controversy increased sales. I watched the ad and thought it was pretty cool

endisneigh
1 replies
10h12m

Man, people get offended about everything these days.

7thpower
0 replies
10h5m

Yes. I am questioning whether I have some emotional deficiency because I just don’t get why people are reading so far into it and, to me, it perfectly encapsulates how people are constantly looking for something to be offended by.

I thought the ad was bad, but for different reasons. The ads and presentation have become so over produced that it feels like some giant inside joke for a company that is out of touch. I think their culture has mostly become (or maybe always was) sniffing each others farts and telling them how great that last one was.

So I suppose it is somewhat ironic in the sense that I imagine their own leadership are the most likely to be offended by the symbolism in the first place.

Anyway I can’t wait for the M4 MacBooks. Take my money, Tim.

brandonmenc
1 replies
5h12m

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

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

can16358p
0 replies
2h0m

Ssssh don't wake them up. They are just in the middle of their get-offended-by-literally-everything episode.

Amazing how people here on HN can be so... anyway I don't want a ban.

NotYourLawyer
1 replies
8h38m

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?

bsagdiyev
0 replies
7h51m

From upset to upset I suppose. Being perpetually upset has to be tiring.

Havoc
1 replies
9h51m

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

dguest
0 replies
7h8m

Did they pull the add?

DavidPiper
1 replies
8h44m

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

12_throw_away
0 replies
2h3m

This is a really good observation, it's uncomfortable to watch and listen to even beyond the really obvious but apparently unintended symbolism. The music is off, the sound is off, so many weird decisions here ... some ad exec using ChatGPT instead of doing their job?

1024core
1 replies
3h30m

Everybody loves to get outraged over every little thing nowadays.

can16358p
0 replies
2h4m

I literally can't understand the mindset of people who get offended by an ad that crushes objects. Not animals, not humans, just objects to give a message, yet people get offended by this.

zameermfm
0 replies
7h34m

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.

yard2010
0 replies
48m

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.

wwilim
0 replies
9h59m

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

wouldbecouldbe
0 replies
5h7m

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.

wnc3141
0 replies
54m

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 .

wiseowise
0 replies
2h32m

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

winddude
0 replies
4h45m

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.

unobatbayar
0 replies
8h0m

Personally, I liked everything about the ad.

twodave
0 replies
4h36m

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.

tsunamifury
0 replies
4h32m

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

tsunamifury
0 replies
4h28m

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.

tracerbulletx
0 replies
2h19m

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"

tonymet
0 replies
3h25m

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.

tokai
0 replies
9h24m

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.

tkdev2
0 replies
8h43m

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

tejohnso
0 replies
8h26m

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.

ted_bunny
0 replies
4h40m

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

ta1243
0 replies
4h3m

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.

surfingdino
0 replies
6h22m

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.

sssilver
0 replies
3h17m

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.

sph
0 replies
9h27m

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."

sombragris
0 replies
3h29m

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.

soci
0 replies
6h21m

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?

sneak
0 replies
7h24m

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.

snappr021
0 replies
2h48m

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.”

smsm42
0 replies
2h52m

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".

smm11
0 replies
6h6m

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.

skc
0 replies
8h21m

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.

sircastor
0 replies
6h54m

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.

shwaj
0 replies
5h15m

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!

sebastianconcpt
0 replies
8h2m

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

rybosworld
0 replies
4h59m

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

rqtwteye
0 replies
5h29m

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

romille
0 replies
7h5m

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.

robbyiq999
0 replies
6h4m

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

righthand
0 replies
8h0m

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.

refurb
0 replies
9h6m

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.

rchaud
0 replies
8h30m

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.

racl101
0 replies
5h29m

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.

perfmode
0 replies
3h42m

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.

password54321
0 replies
6h1m

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.

pard68
0 replies
8h4m

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.

outlore
0 replies
3h59m

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

nottorp
0 replies
2h41m

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?)

notfed
0 replies
2h18m

1. "We apologize for this ad"

2. <keeps ad up on YouTube>

3. Profit

nojvek
0 replies
7h35m

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.

newobj
0 replies
2h13m

They can never unring this bell in my mind

nbzso
0 replies
9h7m

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.

mvkel
0 replies
3h20m

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.

mrcwinn
0 replies
7h53m

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

mrangle
0 replies
1h32m

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

mjpuser
0 replies
1h34m

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

melenaboija
0 replies
4h37m

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.

matei88
0 replies
8h22m

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.

martini333
0 replies
2h49m

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

m3kw9
0 replies
4h13m

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

logrot
0 replies
5h1m

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.

largbae
0 replies
6h0m

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

knbrlo
0 replies
6h49m

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.

kernal
0 replies
2h57m

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.

kernal
0 replies
3h16m

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.

keepamovin
0 replies
8h58m

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

keepamovin
0 replies
8h55m

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! :)

kbos87
0 replies
1h17m

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.

jononomo
0 replies
6h30m

I thought the ad was arrogant and dystopian.

johnea
0 replies
3h8m

Do people actually care about this?

Apple made a stupid commercial and everyone is traumatized?

WTF?

jgrahamc
0 replies
8h37m

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.

jesprenj
0 replies
5h45m

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

jamesbfb
0 replies
6h31m

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.

icar
0 replies
9h9m

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

greentxt
0 replies
4h41m

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.

giobox
0 replies
37m

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.

geoffbp
0 replies
8h26m

All publicity is good publicity? Maybe not?

fagrobot
0 replies
1h48m

great ad. cucks being cucks in a cuck empowered world

elevatedastalt
0 replies
3h1m

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.

dzink
0 replies
4h20m

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.

dunekid
0 replies
8h3m

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.

donatj
0 replies
7h47m

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

discopicante
0 replies
9h12m

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.

dghughes
0 replies
6h53m

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

deadbabe
0 replies
9h48m

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

colmmacc
0 replies
1h3m

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.

causality0
0 replies
4h52m

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

can16358p
0 replies
5h55m

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

brushfoot
0 replies
4h36m

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

brentm
0 replies
5h45m

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

breadwinner
0 replies
7h1m

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

boringg
0 replies
6h58m

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.

bongoman42
0 replies
6h5m

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.

bittercynic
0 replies
6h2m

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.

bilsbie
0 replies
9h0m

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

baby
0 replies
6h55m

Overreaction of the century

b1-88er
0 replies
4h57m

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

arnaudsm
0 replies
10h20m

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

anonzzzies
0 replies
9h47m

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?

alex_young
0 replies
59m

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.

adamtaylor_13
0 replies
1h29m

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.

ada1981
0 replies
3h57m

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…

Tokkemon
0 replies
5h37m

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."

TheOtherHobbes
0 replies
9h27m

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.

TaurenHunter
0 replies
4h31m

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.

Simon_ORourke
0 replies
3h3m

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.

NiloCK
0 replies
1h36m

A stirring ad that captures my lived experience.

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

Madmallard
0 replies
2h6m

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?

Log_out_
0 replies
4h14m

Should have reversed the add..

LASR
0 replies
10h12m

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.

LAC-Tech
0 replies
8m

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?

Joel_Mckay
0 replies
4h41m

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.

FpUser
0 replies
9h26m

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

ClarityJones
0 replies
7h54m

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