Apple apologized on Thursday after an ad for its latest iPad caused an uproar and angered artists by showing an industrial press crushing objects associated with human creativity.
Social media users were quick to criticize Apple CEO Tim Cook for releasing the ad on the X, which is painfully tone-deaf at a time when the creative community is worried about its future due to the emergence of generative artificial intelligence.
“Creativity is in Apple’s DNA, and it’s important to us to design products that empower creatives around the world,” Tor Myhren, Apple’s vice president of marketing, told Advertising Age.
“Our goal is to always celebrate the countless ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We fell short of our goal with this video, and we’re deeply sorry for that.”
The company also said it would not air the ad on television as planned.
The one-minute ad titled “Crush” is set to Sonny and Cher’s song “All Iever need is you” and sees a bunch of creative objects – including a guitar, piano and paint cans – explode under pressure from Apple . according to.
Finally, the media withdrew and showed off Apple’s latest tablet, the iPad Pro, which is claimed to be ultra-thin.
Actor Hugh Grant wrote on X in response to Cook’s tweet: “This is a destruction of the human experience. Thank you Silicon Valley.”
Hollywood director Reed Morano urged Cook to “read the whole room,” calling the ad “psychotic.”
The ad references viral TikTok videos of industrial printing presses and other machines, which have been viewed by millions of people on the platform.
Many critics said the ad betrayed Apple’s iconic 1984 ad that launched the first Mac computer and painted the company as a hammer-throwing rebel against the giant boss.
The ad comes as OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT and Dall-E, and other AI giants are facing lawsuits from artists and publishers claiming their material was used to train AI models without permission.