In the new Apple ad, a crushing machine gets to work on both analog objects and digital symbols.
Apple apologized on Thursday for a new iPad Pro ad that shows a giant hydraulic press crushing a trumpet, piano, guitar metronome, cans of paint and other creative tools. The imagery generated swift and largely negative reactions, with critics hurling slams like “tone deaf,” “ghoulish,” “heartbreaking” and “comically stupid.”
“Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad,” Tor Myhren, Apple’s vice president of marketing communications, said in a statement obtained by AdAge on Thursday. “We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”
Apple titled the spot “Crush,” reflecting the slang use of the word, meaning to do something extremely well. Apple intended to symbolize a simulacrum of artistic tools getting compressed into one device. But many creatives didn’t appreciate the imagery.
“Why did Apple do an ad that crushes the arts? Tech and AI means to destroy the arts and society in general,” actor and filmmaker Justine Bateman wrote on X, formerly Twitter. The ad comes as the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence prompts passionate responses among artists—from excitement about its creative potential to fear it will steal jobs, and possibly alter the nature of art itself.
“The destruction of the human experience,” actor Hugh Grant wrote in response to Apple’s ad. “Courtesy of Silicon Valley.”
Apple says it won’t run the Crush ad on TV as planned.
The company released two new iPad Pros at its Tuesday “Let Loose” event, where it also unveiled two new iPad Airs, revamped Pencils and Magic Keyboards. It calls the iPad Pro the most powerful iPad yet, and the thinnest.
The device comes in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes, with a new brighter screen, a new keyboard and a new Apple M4 chip that Apple says readies the device to handle the demands of AI. The processor “is Apple’s way of saying how seriously it’s taking both the iPad and AI,” my Forbes colleague David Phelan writes.
It’s clear from the ad Apple is touting the iPad Pro as a tool for artists. “Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create,” Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote Tuesday when he posted the ad on X. One of the ad’s detractors countered, “But the video shows a thousand beautiful things being destroyed.”
Given the sensitive climate around generative AI and art, Apple shouldn’t be surprised by the pushback. In March, a metal band axed an AI-generated album cover following an outcry that it had insulted flesh-and-blood artists. The same month, an AI-generated publicity image posted by an Australian symphony orchestra hit a sour note with creative professionals.
“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world,” Apple’s Myhren said in the apology.
Backlash to the ad may have been fierce, but when it comes to art made with the aid of automation, the artistic community is far from monolithic in its views. During a Wednesday event on art and AI at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club, Hugh Leeman, an artist and art lecturer at Duke University and Johns Hopkins, cited the “bifurcation of narratives” in the art world at this pivotal moment in AI’s development and adoption.
“On one hand, we have that everyone’s going to be displaced, on the other hand we have this incredible optimism that it’s going to profoundly augment creative opportunity and creative abilities,” Leeman said.
Indeed, we’re witnessing AI’s power to unlock creative expression for people living with disabilities. Steve Gleason, a football hero with ALS is using the tool to make art again, and country music legend Randy Travis just recorded a new song through AI years after a stroke.
Still, one displeased actor, writer and producer decided the ad needed to be reworked.
“Here Apple, I fixed it for you,” Reza Sixo Safai wrote on X alongside the new version. In it, the crushing machine works in reverse, with the objects that got decimated in the original slowly coming back to life. Viewers immediately heaped Safai with praise. “This would have been a way better message,” one wrote. Said another, “Genius and totally changes the tone of the ad. Perfect.”
Update: This article, originally published at 1:46 p.m. EDT, was updated with Apple’s apology statement at 7:42 p.m. EDT.
