Apple apologises for iPad ad criticised as ‘destruction of the human experience’
Apple has apologised after an online backlash to an advert for its new iPad that features an industrial-sized hydraulic press crushing a collection of creative objects including musical instruments and books.
The ad, launched by Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, on Tuesday, shows the machine squashing various items – ranging from a piano and a metronome to tins of paint and an arcade game – before a single iPad Pro then appears in their place. A voiceover then states: “The most powerful iPad ever is also the thinnest.”
Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create. pic.twitter.com/6PeGXNoKgG
The implication that an iPad can squeeze humanity’s cultural prowess into an object with a depth of 5mm was viewed differently by commentators on social media. The actor Hugh Grant wrote on X that the advert represented “the destruction of the human experience, courtesy of Silicon Valley”.
