Apple’s tone deaf iPad ad falls flatter than its crushed instruments

Hugh Grant leads backlash against the tech giant over a video showing symbols of creativity such as musical instruments and books being destroyed | WATCH

Apple's new iPad ad has gone down like a lead balloon in the artistic and wider community, fuelling fears about the impact of generative artificial intelligence on the creative industries. Picture: YouTube

Apple wanted to “crush” the limits of the new iPad, but now it is the company that finds itself under pressure over a “tone deaf” advert.

The short video shows traditional symbols of artistry - musical instruments, sculptures, books and cameras - being explosively crushed between metal plates to reveal a super-thin iPad.

Introducing the film, John Ternus, Apple’s hardware engineering chief, said: “Today, we’re not only going to push the limits of what you can do on iPads, we’re going to crush them.”

Apple fans at the launch cheered the video, but in the artistic and wider community it has gone down like a lead balloon and is being hailed as an example of an out-of-touch technology company. It has also fuelled fears about the impact of generative artificial intelligence on the creative industries.

Hari Kunzru, the British writer, wrote on Twitter/X: “Crushing the symbols of human creativity to produce a homogenised branded slab is pretty much where the tech industry is at in 2024.”

Crushing the symbols of human creativity to produce a homogenized branded slab is pretty much where the tech industry is at in 2024 https://t.co/BzOKsx8sX6

— Hari Kunzru (@harikunzru) May 8, 2024

The actor Hugh Grant said: “The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley.”

The British singer-songwriter and producer Crispin Hunt, said: “Crushing a piano, trumpet and guitar evokes the same primal horrific sacrilege as watching books burn.

“Surprisingly tone-deaf from Apple, who’ve previously enabled and championed creativity. But I imagine they’ll see how out of tune this is once they turn off the autotune.”

Geoffrey Miller, a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of New Mexico, said: “This is the most ghoulish, tone-deaf ad I’ve ever seen in my life. Fire all of your marketers. This is utterly catastrophic for your brand.”

The video shows traditional symbols of artistry being explosively crushed between metal plates to reveal a super-thin iPad. Picture: YouTube

Thousands of replies to an X post by Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, revealed the level of anger by creatives, many of whom are the core market for the new iPads.

Asif Kapadia, the British filmmaker, wrote: “Like iPads but don’t know why anyone thought this ad was a good idea. It is the most honest metaphor for what tech companies do to the arts, to artists musicians, creators, writers, filmmakers: squeeze them, use them, not pay well, take everything then say it’s all created by them.”

Actor Hugh Grant tweeted: ‘The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley’. Picture” AFP

Kunzru and others in the creative industries are at loggerheads with many big tech companies over the development of AI. Artists and authors are suing Microsoft, OpenAI and others for what they see is the unauthorised use of their works to train AI programs. Apple is not yet in that battle, but will be launching AI features at a conference next month.

Paul Graham, a venture capitalist, said: “Steve [Jobs] wouldn’t have shipped that ad. It would have pained him too much to watch.”

Apple was approached for comment.

The Times