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              Apple Apologizes for Tone-Deaf "Crush!" iPad Pro Ad

   Adam Engst

   At Variety, [1]Todd Spangler writes:

     The iPad Pro ad generated fury among many in Hollywood and other
     creative industries, including Hugh Grant and filmmaker-actor
     Justine Bateman, who saw it as a vivid and literal illustration of
     Big Tech laying waste to culture. 'The destruction of the human
     experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley,' Grant had posted on X.

     On Thursday, Apple issued an apology for the spot.

   Although I was primarily perturbed by the ad's wholesale destruction, I
   empathize with creatives who saw their instruments, tools, and
   materials destroyed. Others have commented that the ad was an apt
   metaphor for how the tech industry sees culture as something to be
   distilled into a product that can be sold and controlled.

   With its imagery of the ephemera of a humanistic world pulverized by an
   all-powerful machine, 'Crush!' feels like the flip side of Apple's
   canonical '1984' ad that positioned human-driven technology as our
   savior from a conformist industrial world. Perhaps Apple thought it was
   one-upping the [2]YouTube genre of machines destroying everyday
   objects, but it's troubling that no one involved realized that a stunt
   video from one of the world's wealthiest and most influential companies
   would be viewed differently.

   [3]Read original article

References

   1. https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/apple-apologizes-ipad-ad-crush-backlash-1235997969/
   2. https://www.pcmag.com/news/the-best-online-videos-of-things-being-crushed-melted-and-destroyed
   3. https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/apple-apologizes-ipad-ad-crush-backlash-1235997969/

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