People are attacking Apple for its latest iPad ad

• Apple launched its latest line of iPads on May 7, 2024.
• But an iPad Pro ad has come under fire online for its images and messaging.
• Art tools like a piano and a record player were crushed by a hydraulic press in the commercial.

Apple surely got people to start paying attention to its latest iPads.

The technology giant presented its latest iPad models on May 7. But while the Cupertino-based company may have wanted people to focus on its new chips and slimmer form factor, some were taken aback by the commercial that accompanied the product.

The one-minute ad titled “Crush!” It showed several art tools — a record player, a trumpet, a piano and a collection of camera lenses — slowly being crushed by a hydraulic press to make a shiny new iPad Pro.

The ad certainly made a statement, but probably not in the way Apple intended.

Apple CEO Tim Cook x publication The video received more than 11,000 responses as of press time, and a large number of them analyzed the images and message of the ad.

“Who thought that was a good idea??” X user Joe B. Transue wrote in his reply cook. “Did you hire the only person who appreciated The scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit where the bad guy dips the cartoon shoe into the bathroom that kills cartoons??

Others indirectly praised Apple, saying the ad could be a masterpiece if it was intended as a critique of the tech giants.

“Is this intentionally a metaphor for the damage to things of value to humanity caused by tech bros and the for-profit/greed AI generation? If so, bravo!” another person said Cook.

Some felt the commercial missed the mark compared to Apple’s previous work. The company made a splash with its “1984” Super Bowl ad when it introduced its first Macintosh computer in the 1980s.

“Maybe we’ll hire Ridley Scott next time,” said one x publication referencing the award-winning director behind the “1984” ad.

Venture capitalist and Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham went a step further with his review of the announcement.

The Apple commercial, Graham said, would have been an insult to the company’s late founder, Steve Jobs.

“Steve wouldn’t have sent that ad. It would have hurt him too much to see it,” Graham said in his reply cook.

Jobs, who handed the reins to Cook before passing away in October 2011, often sought to portray Apple as a company situated at the intersection of the arts and technology.

“It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough; it is technology united with the liberal arts, united with the humanities, that produces the results that make our hearts sing,” Jobs said when he presented the iPad 2 in March 2011.

Apple representatives did not immediately respond to a BI request for comment sent outside normal business hours.