- Apple launched its latest line of iPads on May 7, 2024.
- But an ad for the iPad Pro has been slammed online for its visuals and message.
- Artistic tools like a piano and turntable were crushed by a hydraulic press in the commercial.
Apple sure got people to start paying attention to its latest iPads.
The tech giant unveiled its latest iPad models on May 7. But while the Cupertino-based company might have wanted people to focus on its blazing new chips and thinner form factor, some were taken aback by the product's accompanying commercial.
The minute-long ad titled "Crush!" showed various artistic tools — a turntable, a trumpet, a piano, and a collection of camera lenses — slowly crushed by a hydraulic press to make a shiny new iPad Pro.
The ad certainly made a statement, just probably not in the manner that Apple intended.
Apple CEO Tim Cook's X post of the video drew over 11,000 replies as of press time, with a large number of them panning the ad's visuals and message.
Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create. pic.twitter.com/6PeGXNoKgG
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) May 7, 2024
"Who thought this was a good idea??" X user Joe B. Transue wrote in his reply to Cook. "Did you hire the one person that liked the scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit where the bad guy dips the animated shoe in the toon-killing bath??"
Others offered backhanded compliments to Apple, saying that the ad could be a masterpiece if it were meant to be a critique of tech giants.
"Is this intentionally a metaphor for the damage to the things of value to humanity wrought by tech bros and gen AI for profit/greed? If so, bravo!" another person told Cook.
Some felt the commercial missed the mark compared to Apple's past work. The company made waves with its "1984" Super Bowl ad when it introduced its first Macintosh computer in the 80s.
"Maybe hire Ridley Scott again next time instead," read one X post referencing the award-winning director behind the "1984" ad.
Venture capitalist and Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham went a step further with his review of the ad.
Apple's commercial, Graham said, would've been an insult to the company's late founder, Steve Jobs.
"Steve wouldn't have shipped that ad. It would have pained him too much to watch," Graham said in his reply to Cook.
Jobs, who handed the reigns to Cook before passing away in October 2011, often sought to portray Apple as lying at the intersection of arts and technology.
"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," Jobs said when he unveiled the iPad 2 in March 2011.
Representatives for Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.