People sure are pressed about Apple’s crushing iPad commercial

1 week ago

Apple did not publication nan room connected this one.

By Alex Cranz, deputy editor and co-host of The Vergecast. She oversaw user tech sum astatine Gizmodo for 5 years. Her activity has besides appeared successful nan WSJ and Wired.

May 8, 2024, 8:29 PM UTC

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Sometimes, this is me.

Screenshot: Apple

Credit wherever it’s due: nan commercialized for nan caller iPad Pro is impeccable. In nan commercial, a hydraulic press, for illustration nan benignant that crushes Skittles each time connected TikTok, slow descends onto a full amalgamation of creator endeavors. As nan ample metallic sheet drops for illustration Tesla’s banal successful 2024, it crushes philharmonic instruments and destroys classical sculptures. Tubes of overgarment popular for illustration balloons sending a cascade of colour crossed Apple’s cautiously constructed canvas of stuff. Finally, it accomplishes its job. This gathering of creations meant to correspond nan full history of quality productivity is laid level by nan unstoppable unit of Apple’s hydraulic press.

And then, arsenic nan property slow rises, each of that artsy messiness disappears. What is near down is Apple’s new, beautifully sleek iPad Pro.

I retrieve watching it during Apple’s livestream and thinking, “That’s very pretty,” and also, “Oh, this was not nan correct clip for this commercial.” Which must person been prescient connected my portion because now a full batch of group — primarily successful nan creator community — are furious astir nan commercial. Hugh Grant called nan commercialized nan “destruction of quality experience” connected X.

Apple’s intent is plain: everything you could do pinch each this worldly tin now beryllium done pinch a azygous iPad. Isn’t exertion remarkable? That’s a maneuver that has worked very good for Apple’s advertisers successful nan past, and they’ve touched connected this conception earlier — peculiarly successful early iPod and iPhone commercials.

But nan past clip Apple utilized this shtick, writers and actors successful Hollywood hadn’t spent half a twelvemonth campaigning to protect their jobs from AI. Game studios hadn’t laid disconnected thousands. AI musicians hadn’t proliferated connected YouTube and TikTok to nan fury of nan grounds labels and artists, and nan Tupac Shakur property hadn’t issued its first AI rap beef cease and desist order. The past clip Apple did this, group weren’t talking rather arsenic urgently astir AI automation snapping up each nan jobs humans erstwhile held.

The speech connected computers and automation has changed lately, and Apple, which was caught flat-footed past twelvemonth pinch nan proliferation of AI, conscionable stepped correct connected nan rake. Next time, Apple, possibly publication nan room alternatively of conscionable crushing it slow pinch a hydraulic press.