Crushing dreams
How Apple got their iPad advert so wrong.
Apple's latest advert for the new iPad is a big mistake.
Viewers are complaining, en masse, that the depiction of musical instruments, art materials, finished compositions, and various other tools being crushed into one iPad singularity by a hydraulic press is deeply disrespectful.
I'm really interested by this reaction. Clearly, Apple meant to show that everything you need to make art is held within the iPad. How this was interpreted was very different.
We live in a world where AI is touted by evangelist users as a way to make art without the need for artists. "It's accessible for everyone!" they say, while also complaining that their prompts are more sophisticated and therefore make better results... No, I don't get it either. Is AI being developed to make life easier for everyone, or is it just a way to make certain people’s approximation of what art is—a token with inherent value to be made and sold? I am an outspoken critic of AI, and while I find certain aspects of it useful in my other role as an SEO consultant to take away the monotony of repetitive and laborious keyword research, for example, I doubt I’ll ever be convinced of its merit in the fields of creative writing, painting, drawing, poetry, and music. In my opinion, it should be used as a powertool. It makes boring, labour-intensive jobs easier, in order to enable the creative and skilled work to be carried out by people who have the talent to do so. We are all good at different things. AI Art is not a leveller, it is a thief.
Anyway. What struck me about the advert was how tone deaf it was, and how this showed that everyone involved in making it—who must have been, themselves, in the creative industry—thought it was a good idea to show traditional creativity being destroyed by a single electronic gadget. It’s edgy, of course. But is it crossing a line?
The Japanese audience in particular thought so, with many of the complaints coming from Japanese accounts. Here are some of the responses on X (some translated by Google.)
“Many craftsmen value their tools… Musicians value their instruments, architects value their rulers, painters value their brushes and painting materials more than life itself. The video you presented “all in one”, but it will only disgust them. They may never want to engage with your company again. Your predecessors showed us their dreams, you showed us our nightmares.”
“I can't relate to this video at all. It lacks any respect for creative equipment and mocks the creators.”
“It is a heartbreaking, uncomfortable, and egotistic advertisement. When I see this result, I'm ashamed to buy Apple products since nineteen years.”
“There are a lot of memories, emotions and spirits in there. These things are people's 'selves' that have been smashed. You have smashed those extensions of people's selves and made a thin, cold something out of it, so it has no emotions or spirits. “
Find more comments here.
Maybe they didn’t mean to make an advert that seemed to promote the destruction of craft, care, and passion. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what it looks like they did.
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