[HN Gopher] Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed th...
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Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
Author : linguae
Score : 603 points
Date : 2024-05-09 22:50 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| asadm wrote:
| to me that ad screams "i will squish all your humanly creativity
| into this faceless slate".
| thsksbd wrote:
| And so did everyone not totally immersed in tech.
| swat535 wrote:
| That's not the message I got at all, it was like how all of
| these can be accomplished by this single device.
|
| I suppose it would have been cooler if it was the other way
| around: "iPad somehow expands outwards, filling the room with
| those things"
| arvinsim wrote:
| It's not the message that offends people. It's how the
| message was delivered.
| bmoxb wrote:
| It was clear to me that that's what they _wanted_ to express
| but their chosen visuals didn 't convey that well at all.
| Expanding outwards from the iPad would have made a lot more
| sense.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| 20 years ago people were amazed that your phone, mp3 player,
| calendar, email and 100 other things were all in one device.
| Now it's dystopian.
| sneak wrote:
| I think the #1 third party app is probably more responsible
| for this sentiment than the device itself.
|
| People can't emotionally separate their hatred and disgust at
| corporate social media taking over and censoring and
| monetizing the public square with the physical device that it
| leverages.
|
| On one hand, we have Facebook and Instagram. On the other,
| every person interacting with a cop has a cloud-uploading HD
| camera at the ready.
|
| For every Twitter, everyone can video call their
| parents/grandparents at any time for as long as they want for
| ~free from ~anywhere.
| deagle50 wrote:
| using "missed the mark" should have a prison sentence
| nickff wrote:
| You think someone using a common idiom should be in prison,
| while you can't be bothered to use punctuation?
| alistairSH wrote:
| Or capitalization.
| deagle50 wrote:
| lack of punctuation isn't used to avoid accountability.
|
| my comment was clearly hyperbole.
| silisili wrote:
| I've already opined my thoughts on the video, no need to redo
| here.
|
| Strictly speaking about the article, it feels more like 'go away'
| lip-service, especially seeing as the bottom contains the ad -
| still up on Apple's official YouTube. If they really felt it
| 'missed the mark' and were sorry about it, they'd have probably
| taken it down.
| gabesullice wrote:
| Apologizing bought them another round of "earned media". Not
| only did the ad get press, now the apology gets press, exposing
| the message "there's a new, thinner iPad" to people who didn't
| see the ad before.
|
| I personally don't care if the ad was good or bad. I'm not an
| interested shareholder and I'm not in the Apple ecosystem.
|
| But I just learned there's a new iPad via HN.
|
| Maybe they'll take down the ad next week for a third bite at
| the apple. The first line of the article might read: 'Apple has
| cracked under pressure after the company's botched launch of
| the thinnest M4 iPad ever. The company took down its "Crush!"
| ad on Monday.'
| Pikamander2 wrote:
| The week after: "Apple Slammed For Reinstating Infamous iPad
| Crush Ad"
| bmitc wrote:
| I'm always reminded of this from _South Park_ :
|
| https://youtu.be/15HTd4Um1m4
| trustno2 wrote:
| Yeah they still feature it online and on their official
| website.
|
| It's just "we take your concerns very seriously" fluff reply.
| thejazzman wrote:
| It really exemplifies the culture change from Steve's obsession
| with the INTERSECTION of humanities and science.
|
| Silicon Valley on a mission
| PurestGuava wrote:
| Steve Jobs would have probably fired whoever suggested this ad,
| at best. He always saw the Mac as an enabler of and conduit for
| peoples' creativity, not a replacement for other forms of it.
|
| Jobs' death is truly tragic in the context that Apple - and by
| extension, the rest of the tech world - could have gone in a
| very different direction if he were still around. He would
| probably be screaming his head off at the idea of generative
| AI.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > Silicon Valley on a mission
|
| Seriously and sincerely, I'd like to hear a dozen definitions
| of what people think that "mission" is in 2024.
|
| I think we long departed from "making the world a better
| place". And yet the change simply cannot be explained by greed,
| money, or obsession with growth.
|
| Surely a lot of the venture capitalists that frequent this
| forum must be as confused as the next person if they still hold
| on to the ideal of "doing good with money".
|
| What I see is the rise of a terrifying quasi-religious anti-
| humanist cult with overtones of masochism and self-hatred (of
| human life).
|
| I'm no big fan of Steve Jobs, but clearly he would be horrified
| by many of the anti-human sentiments expressed daily in forums
| like this.
|
| Is it too late to redefine digital technology as humane, and
| return to the roots of SV [0] ?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Another day, another stupid "controversy" where a few Twits
| complain on social media simply to get attention and publications
| pick it up as if it's a real issue. Why waste our time?
|
| Here's the ad:
|
| https://youtu.be/ntjkwIXWtrc
| Apocryphon wrote:
| As noted elsewhere in this discussion, the ad attracted
| particular criticism from Japan for what it sounds like
| cultural-spiritual sensibilities.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cld0rxlqgggo
|
| > People based in Japan appear to be prominent amongst the
| critics, which some said "lacked respect".
|
| > Some said this was based in "tsukumogami" - a term from
| Japanese folklore describing a tool which can contain a spirit
| or even soul of its own.
|
| > "The act of destroying tools is arrogant and offensive to us
| Japanese," one person explained, while another said musicians
| value their instruments "more than life itself".
|
| https://twitter.com/AngelicaOung/status/1788241764383678900
|
| > Everybody hated That Apple Ad but the Japanese REALLY hated
| it. I've never seen so many upset Japanese ppl commenting on a
| single thread
| russellbeattie wrote:
| So, let's reverse this. A Japanese company's online
| advertisement offends some American sensibilities (not a
| stretch to imagine). So a few hundred Americans comment on
| the video and on Twitter.
|
| Would that deserve a news article and a statement from the
| company?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| They might, depending on the slight. It's a culture that
| emphasizes politeness and propriety after all. You might've
| chosen one of the least effective counter-examples for this
| one.
| silisili wrote:
| Apple is advertising to a global audience here, and are big
| in Japan.
|
| I think the closest thing I can think of is Sony, perhaps,
| doing an offensive ad(to Americans) with the PS5/6. I do
| think it'd be written about and they'd apologize, though
| it's a little different because Sony has a specific US
| subsidiary which acts like its own company.
| voidUpdate wrote:
| Imagine a Japanese ad where they melt down guns, set fire
| to an F150 and turn some bald eagles into a burger. I
| believe a lot of Americans would call for the death of the
| company, not just a statement
| ahefner wrote:
| Never apologize.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| It will never be enough.
| noitpmeder wrote:
| It's a bit insane to me that Apple felt the need to
| "apologize"... so they made a crappy AD that didn't appeal to
| some audiences... is this really grounds for
| retractions/apologies these days?
| thorum wrote:
| It didn't just not appeal to some audiences. It actively
| alienated one of the _primary_ audiences of their product. Of
| course that requires a response.
| thsksbd wrote:
| And alienated them in a very very primal way. Artisans love
| their trade tools.
| rob74 wrote:
| Yeah, imagine telling a guitar or piano player that they
| can trash their respective instruments, because "all they
| need now is an iPad". Doesn't sound good, does it?
| guappa wrote:
| Feels good to the people who can't play an instrument :)
| thsksbd wrote:
| lol, touche
| alt227 wrote:
| Yep, thats the other horrible part of this ad.
|
| Apple is essentially saying 'Don't worry about learning
| to play an instrument, use an iPad instead!' which is
| just disgusting. The modern world has lost too much
| dicipline and creativity already. It doesnt need more
| people being encouraged to take the lazy option.
| blargey wrote:
| I'm confused about the confusion, really. It's not hard to
| imagine how "tech company compressing all your traditional
| art tools into a blackbox" imagery would have struck some
| nerves that were already rubbed raw by the AI-Art Discourse.
|
| It's not just general sensibilities, it's comically topical.
| wombat-man wrote:
| Well, we're talking about it
| rvnx wrote:
| Doesn't create the urge to buy an iPad, the same way that
| Elon speeches don't make people want to buy a Tesla.
| wombat-man wrote:
| If I'm being real I do kind of want an OLED iPad. But I'm
| almost positive it's not because of that ad.
| tharkun__ wrote:
| I had no idea this ad existed until this came through here. But
| having watched it: seems totally fine.
|
| They're just playing "earth". To make diamonds you apply
| pressure. The iPad is the diamond resulting from crushing all
| that creativity into a tiny form factor.
|
| Or something like that.
| pesfandiar wrote:
| The ad had multiple shots where the creative tools were
| crushed. There was too much emphasis on destruction as
| opposed to compression.
| marklyon wrote:
| Exactly. Had they invoked the idea of a shrink ray and
| knolled the tiny items, then pressed those into a unified
| object, revealed to be the latest iPad (with a needlessly
| spec-bumped processor and inflated price) then it might
| have accomplished their objective.
| dorkwood wrote:
| I've seen a few people mistake the outrage felt by artists as
| them misunderstanding the concept. I'm an artist, and I
| understand the concept just fine (all these tools are
| squeezed into the form factor of an iPad! Our thinnest one
| ever!) but the visual itself is tone deaf. Especially with
| artists feeling so threatened by tech companies this year,
| using a metaphor that shows their tools quite literally being
| crushed is insensitive.
|
| It's a bit like if you made a video that showed my dog
| getting crushed in a hydraulic press and replaced with a
| tamagotchi-like device. Like, I get the idea, but it still
| makes me want to cry.
| tharkun__ wrote:
| Now if you say it like that it does make sense to me why
| people would be outraged.
|
| While shorter than the very short "article" your comment
| actually explained it and makes me understand. The article
| did no such thing.
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| > _the *outrage* felt by artists_
|
| Which definition applies here?
|
| _Outrage:
|
| 1. An act of extreme violence or viciousness.
|
| 2. Something that is grossly offensive to decency,
| morality, or good taste.
|
| 3. Resentful anger aroused by a violent or offensive act,
| or an instance of this._
|
| I think people are just a little critical, more than they
| are _outraged._ I have a deep hope that you 're not
| outraged.
|
| I'm typically critical of Apple's value and technology, but
| I am far more offended by what is a clear oversensitivity
| to art, and expression, which is by far the greater crime
| to the arts and to society as a whole.
|
| The idea that people can't make art or express themselves
| for fear of other artists' _outrage_ is what 's truly
| outrageous.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I'd pitch for a mix of 2 and 3.
|
| To set my bias, I'm surrounded by music people and their
| instrument is basically an extension of themselves, they
| spent hours everyday touching it, for their whole life
| since 4. For some it's also the most expensive thing they
| own.
|
| Some violinists are put off by music videos with violins
| played in the rain. Apple's ad would be traumatic.
|
| > The idea that people can't make art or express
| themselves for fear of other artists' outrage is what's
| truly outrageous.
|
| Eliciting a reaction is part of art, and people getting
| outraged is par for the course. You're also totally free
| to outraged at the outrage, that's the cycle.
| timr wrote:
| > I'm surrounded by music people and their instrument is
| basically an extension of themselves, they spent hours
| everyday touching it, for their whole life since 4. For
| some it's also the most expensive thing they own.
|
| Meh. I was very into music growing up, and still play. It
| doesn't bother me in the least to see a musical
| instrument _that is not my own_ being destroyed, any more
| than I have a reaction to seeing a car being destroyed in
| a movie ( "some people really love cars!") or someone
| blowing up a building ("some people really love
| architecture!") or an artwork being
| burned/modified/mutilated ("some people really love
| art!"), or food being wasted/destroyed ("some people
| really love cooking!") all of which are more-or-less
| common in mass media.
|
| (To wit: someone else here pointed out the OK Go music
| videos where they -- professional musicians! -- destroy
| all sorts of things, _including musical instruments_.
| Those were great, btw.)
|
| While I do not exclude the possibility that _some people_
| may have feelings in reaction to seeing a generic musical
| instrument being destroyed, you can extend this metaphor
| to any number of areas where it 's completely accepted to
| see similar acts of destruction.
|
| > Some violinists are put off by music videos with
| violins played in the rain. Apple's ad would be
| traumatic.
|
| More likely is that a few people are truly bothered, but
| _lots of people_ engage in performative outrage for
| attention, which is so common that we have a name for it:
| pearl-clutching.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| A better reference for us could be to look at a monitor
| getting smudged with greasy fingers, people eating crisps
| above a keyboard, or a ball pen repeatedly scratching an
| 8k monitor ?
|
| I think everyone has their pet irritating thing.
| cnity wrote:
| On the other hand, many rock guitarists have destroyed
| guitars on-stage as an act of expression. Destruction is
| a perfectly valid mode of expression this way, and
| there's no "correct" way to handle an instrument just
| because one group of individuals idolise the form over
| its function.
|
| That said, this is exactly what is interesting and
| "triggering" to many about the ad, IMO. That it
| emphasises destruction, and therefore is a metaphor for
| the replacement of material expression with the
| immaterial, or something along those lines.
|
| Just to add, I play guitar every day. I don't handle my
| guitar with care: I ding it against walls, toss it onto
| the couch, fail to clean it as regularly as I should,
| drive with it in my car using no case to do so. But I
| love my guitar very much, because it enables me to play
| beautiful (to me) music. I don't want to be burdened by
| the "perfection" of my guitar. To each their own, I say.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I think modern guitars have their own niche, with a whole
| scene of people building, modifying, tweaking their
| guitars, and a flurry of accessories, variants and
| innovations that expand the artistic range.
|
| I kinda feel it's not so far from synthesizers in a way.
|
| Wind instruments will also probably fall in the "handle
| casually" space, while still sensible to being dinged and
| needing care ?
|
| Classic instruments have a harsher split between the
| centuries old instruments that just can't be replaced
| [0], and the modern versions that are left mostly for
| amateurs or pros expanding their range and aiming for
| different sounds. That's where pro instruments end up at
| five~six figures prices, and are definitely not tossed
| around.
|
| [0] I remember being told by a player that their
| instrument was there before their birth and will still be
| in people's hands way after they die.
| cnity wrote:
| I think that's broadly true, and possibly an aesthetic
| thing that in part is what pushes me away from certain
| types of classical music, but look up, for example,
| Rushad Eggleston[image: 0] for a counter-example of
| whether or not classical instruments (cello, here) are
| "allowed" to be tossed around.
|
| [0]: https://encrypted-
| tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQX0RCg...
| diputsmonro wrote:
| If you truly value art and expression, then why do you
| oppose people expressing themselves when they say they
| don't like the ad?
|
| The society you want is the one we have - an expression
| was made by Apple, and in response, thousands of artists
| have made their own expressions. This is what a society
| of free expression looks like.
|
| The world you're arguing for would be one where the
| expressions of tech companies are beyond reproach and
| other people are not allowed to express themselves in
| response. Why should tech companies get that special
| treatment?
|
| In my opinion, it says something about your mentality
| that you value the expression of one group but not the
| other.
|
| I hate this idea - this apparent _concern_ that Apple is
| getting "silenced". There is no such thing as being
| "silenced" when you're a billion dollar company.
| Moreover, the apparent "silencing" is simply people using
| their freedom of expression to voice an opinion of
| opposition. It is _the_ core feature of being able to
| express oneself.
|
| The ability of these common artists being able to speak
| their true thoughts against a billion dollar institution
| - and the institution feeling pressure to respond to them
| - is the whole _point_ of having the freedom of
| expression. What else is even the point of allowing
| discussion, dissent, and expression if you don 't want
| those to have any chance of affecting some outcome?
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Maybe they were trying to appeal to the MAGA audience, the
| same way Kristi Noem was so sure she could win the Vice
| Presidency by bragging and doubling and tripling down on
| shooting a puppy and a goat in the face with a shotgun.
| tivert wrote:
| > I had no idea this ad existed until this came through here.
| But having watched it: seems totally fine.
|
| I presume you're a technology person, so maybe it's a good
| illustration of how tech sensibilities are far from universal
| and can be _extremely_ tone deaf.
| tharkun__ wrote:
| See my other reply.
|
| What I neglected to add there is exactly what you mention.
| I'm a tech person.
|
| What's interesting is that an _ad department_ was so tone
| deaf. Those aren 't techies.
| xdennis wrote:
| You're being too generous to an ad which isn't even original
| ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo ).
| nxobject wrote:
| Ads target specific audiences, and I think they forgot to test
| theirs with very specific ones...
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| > is this really grounds for retractions/apologies these days?
|
| Ostensibly yes. Or maybe Apple has missed the mark on their
| apology too...
| powersnail wrote:
| The point of advertisement is to attract people to the product.
| If the ad alienates enough of their potential user base, it
| totally makes sense to try to take that back, and make amends.
| To me, that alone is enough ground for retraction/apologies.
| mjbamford wrote:
| I have been an Apple user since June 1983, and have repeatedly
| sung the praises of the company, its technology and its vision
| for decades to friends, family employers and employees. Some of
| my own identify is strangely drawn from being an Apple
| aficionado for so long. Personally, this ad was very
| disappointing, very crushing - to purposefully destroy
| instruments of creativity is rudely incongruous to my
| understand of the meaning of Apple.
| bmitc wrote:
| Apple is the most draconian company and operating system
| maker. It's astounding that they're associated with
| creativity. They make it really hard to even use their
| devices as computers. And they've made the same aluminium
| rectangles for decades now. Literally, where is the
| creativity?
| boxed wrote:
| You are talking about things that are unrelated to creating
| visual art and music.
| bmitc wrote:
| No, I'm not. Apple breaks music applications with every
| new release. They're all being held hostage due to OpenGL
| being deprecated on macOS. Apple is the hardest platform
| to develop creative applications for.
| boxed wrote:
| Which music programs broke in Sonoma?
| jusujusu wrote:
| All of them, due to usb hub issues.
| amatecha wrote:
| Logic was the absolute best for a while (IMO). Those were
| good times. Just don't update. I still have OS X 10.4
| machines with expensive upgrades. If you're doing
| serious/pro-level music creation on Mac you're not
| installing updates until you know every piece of software
| is supported. It's brutal to try to produce decent-tier
| music if you want to actually use the computer as a
| general personal machine (and keep it up to date),
| though.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| > They make it really hard to even use their devices as
| computers.
|
| that's a bit extreme. yeah, many of us had hoped ipad would
| be more of a laptop w no keyboard (vs a huge smartphone),
| but macbooks have long been the most capable dev laptops on
| the planet
| bmitc wrote:
| > macbooks have long been the most capable dev laptops on
| the planet
|
| I personally don't find that to be true. The jobs that
| forced Macbooks on me were fraught with development
| issues all stemming from macOS.
|
| In Windows, I am currently running Windows 11, several
| versions of Ubuntu, and even NixOS. WSL vastly outclasses
| VMs on macOS (which barely work anyway on macOS) and the
| "Linux but not Linux" nature of macOS.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Apple pretty ingeniously went after the tech-illiterate
| market, in part knowing that their users wouldn't know any
| better.
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| Yeah, I had the same impression (admittedly I was already
| slightly biased once I saw the ad). On a very deep level it
| shows, that there is some serious lack in core understanding
| why Apple is useful in the world. How anyone at Apple can see
| a destructive thing in an ad and say "Yep, that's us" is just
| beyond me
| globular-toast wrote:
| Any publicity is good publicity. "Some people find advert
| offensive" isn't a story. "Apple apologises for advert" is.
| willis936 wrote:
| This wasn't true before the internet and it is especially
| wrong today.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Its more that it pissed off its core market.
|
| The whole point of apple is that its aimed at the "creative"
| segment. Whether they are actually creative or not is another
| matter. One of the core pillars of apple's appeal is that
| creative people use it's stuff.
|
| The main pitch is that Apple helps you be creative as an
| augment. Look at all the other Ads they pitch to creatives.
|
| The ironic thing is that the advert neatly sums up what the
| tech/media giants are trying to do to the creative segment (and
| have been doing for a while)
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I think the real sore spot it hit is outing all the faux
| creative types who think owning an Apple product makes them
| creative.
|
| Apple probably looked at usage stats and saw that 100x as
| many people use the ipad as piano than hook up an actual
| piano.
| pompino wrote:
| Yeah, apparently its hard to just move on with your life after
| watching something you dont like. This making front page on HN
| is wild. The echo chamber is sealed tight.
| guappa wrote:
| I have a hard time taking seriously the opinion of someone
| named "blow job" in italian.
| anon373839 wrote:
| I don't think that's what's driving the attention. Plenty of
| companies make tasteless or unpleasant ads. But Apple? It's
| just bewildering.
| pompino wrote:
| 10 people on twitter are complaining so Apple must
| apologize.
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| Honestly, yes. Reading the overly emotive language in these
| comments, it's pretty clear that many people here are just
| looking to be outraged and / or got caught up in the herd
| mentality of it all. I genuinely don't think that most of the
| people here would feel this strongly if they hadn't seen it
| through the lens of some tweet or click-hungry Apple blog
| exclaiming "what the hell!"
|
| The error here, on Apple's part, is that they made an ad that
| people can so easily lean into hating and publicly attribute it
| to some sort of intelligent, intellectual attribute that they
| want to signal to others.
|
| And for the record, I don't really care about the ad one way or
| another. It struck me as unremarkable for an Apple ad. It's
| blindingly obvious that the right person lit a match at the
| right time, and this quickly turned into something else. I
| truly can't believe that Apple chose now to engage with the
| peanut gallery.
| pcurve wrote:
| They could say nothing. They could double down and explain. Or
| they could apologize, cut their losses and move on.
|
| Most company in the same situation would've done the same.
| Apple didn't have a choice.
| xyst wrote:
| Is it even a real apology? Apple has joined the ranks of
| issuing corporate apologies
|
| https://www.fastcompany.com/40574083/facebook-uber-wells-far...
| (From 2018)
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| I thought the ad was great but to actually have to apologize for
| it ?? I am a self admitted Apple fanboy but while I don't see eye
| to eye on this I really don't see the offensiveness .
|
| But in the grand scheme of things it might sell more iPads due to
| the Streisand effect.
| pertymcpert wrote:
| A lot of people have strong emotional connections to their
| artistic tools like instruments. It's a very common reaction to
| feel discomfort at the sight of an instrument being destroyed.
| Emotional attachments are irrational, but the point of an
| advertisement isn't to be rational otherwise they'd just show a
| spec sheet as a still in a video.
|
| Apple really fucked up here. Did no one on their marketing team
| bring this up?
| refulgentis wrote:
| When I was a young'n, Apple was very big on treating artists
| and creatives as a set of people they were humbled to have
| stumbled into helping.
|
| Marketing was driven by ideas like avoiding "speeds and feeds",
| in the words of Steve, and emotionally connecting with users:
| ex. famous lore is an Apple ad is never "Buy the New Galaxy
| Plus Pro S6 with the 120 megapixel 240x Zoom!" it's "Soft
| tinkling music as smiling father takes video of 5 year old
| sledding down hill in snow"
|
| I'm not saying they always obeyed those principles in every
| single ad until yesterday, but you'd be hard pressed (lol) to
| explain to someone a decade ago why Apple's first ad for a
| once-in-3-years iPad launch was...crushing a bunch of creative
| tools to communicate they shaved half a millimeter off.
|
| It's funny being old because the thing that confuses me is why
| people have reactions to reactions, ex. people saying "based,
| why should they have to apologize anyway, it wasn't
| offensive"...it clearly wasn't offensive in that sense! It was
| just bizarrely off-brand.
| PurestGuava wrote:
| > It's funny being old because the thing that confuses me is
| why people have reactions to reactions, ex. people saying
| "based, why should they have to apologize anyway, it wasn't
| offensive"...it clearly wasn't offensive in that sense!
|
| Some people just really seem to object to the idea that
| anyone could ever experience an emotion and have it not be
| based on some kind of cold rationality.
|
| The idea of feeling something in your gut, something
| visceral, is anathema to them.
| yareal wrote:
| Imagine something you care about, maybe a family dog. Now put
| it in a hydraulic press. Cut back to "Nintendogs now
| available!"
|
| For many, musical instruments and artists tools carry not just
| their functional nature but a spiritual or cultural identity. A
| piano isn't just a box with some metal strings inside, it
| represents something. That guitar could have been played,
| instead it's destroyed.
|
| The as is also needlessly wasteful. It communicates a sense of
| disregard for the value of stuff. If apple burned a hundred
| grand and then showed us an iPad, many folks might be like,
| "what the fuck?" Same sort of vibe.
| Nevermark wrote:
| For the right brand, with a consistently sick sense of humor,
| "ridiculous and uncomfortable" can work.
|
| But you never want to tell a story about shooting a happy
| young dog, and then ask people "Vote for me, I do tough
| things"!! Don't. do . that.
|
| As humans, we all get lost in our own context sometimes
|
| (Not making any larger political point.)
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| I get what they were trying to do which is "the iPad can do
| all of this and it is thin". I think I don't have the
| personality to have a personal relationship with artist tools
| ...
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| This is the third time I've seen someone compare the crushing
| of a musical instrument with the crushing of living, feeling
| beings in this thread and I think you are absurdly off base.
|
| People are mad when you crush their dog because it feels pain
| and experiences things and has some sense of self, things
| that inanimate objects cannot have. Not because they no
| longer have a dog or because of their emotional connection to
| that particular dog.
|
| Perhaps a better analogy would be putting the corpse of an
| already deceased family dog in the hydraulic press but that
| isn't too dissimilar from cremation.
|
| Probably best to avoid the crushing dogs analogy all
| together.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| > (Apple) released a "Crush!" commercial that shows things like a
| piano, record player, paint, and other works flattening under the
| pressure of a hydraulic press. At the end, only one thing
| remains: an iPad Pro.
|
| I thought it was gonna be something else.
| spiderice wrote:
| I'm just happy to see the overwhelming consensus on the internet
| is "apologizing for what". Apple shouldn't be apologizing at all.
| The add was cool.
| thsksbd wrote:
| Cool? Putting aside the controversial content, the aesthetic
| was cliche. Same edgy lighting, same colors saturation. It was
| terrible.
| divan wrote:
| It was very painful to see musical instruments and
| cameras/lenses destroyed. These things are so dear to many
| creative people that it feels like watching someone's arm being
| cut off. No matter how cool the camerawork is, it just sends a
| very negative message about the product and their marketing
| team.
| mindwok wrote:
| I play guitar and I didn't find it painful to watch. I
| thought it was a cool idea illustrating all those instruments
| being compressed into a tiny device.
| anon373839 wrote:
| The ad was strangely off-brand for Apple. But I suppose they've
| been trending edgier and moodier in their advertising lately. I
| just don't get why - they had a really effective brand to begin
| with.
|
| BMW, too, used to have an impeccable brand.
| fooker wrote:
| Expanding to markets outside the US, if I had to guess.
|
| Minimalism doesn't sell everywhere.
| thsksbd wrote:
| It was a creepy ad. They zoomed in when a doll's eye popped out.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Uh what's the problem? The ad isn't great, but why the
| pitchforks?
| pertymcpert wrote:
| A lot of people have strong emotional connections to their
| artistic tools like instruments. It's a very common reaction to
| feel discomfort at the sight of an instrument being destroyed.
| Emotional attachments are irrational, but the point of an
| advertisement isn't to be rational otherwise they'd just show a
| spec sheet as a still in a video.
| alistairSH wrote:
| It was an entire room in a press. I didn't even notice an
| instrument...
| jprete wrote:
| You didn't see the trumpet that was the focal point of the
| first few moments? The piano with paint cans prominently
| shattering right after that? The guitar towards the end?
| alistairSH wrote:
| Honestly no. First time I saw it, I just thought "huh
| they're crushing somebody's office". Didn't pay any
| attention to what was inside.
| pertymcpert wrote:
| Wait....how did you watch the ad and not look at the
| images in any detail? There were multiple close ups of
| instruments.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Dunno... I guess I just saw the first shot, thought "huh,
| they're crushing a room" and zoned out. It all just
| registered as "stuff in a room" not "expensive musical
| instruments".
| hestefisk wrote:
| I'm struggling a bit to see why this ad is controversial.
| Grazester wrote:
| It's the times we live in. People have just become overly
| sensitive it seems. Apple needs to apologize or risk a cancel
| culture backlash.
| switch007 wrote:
| Apple has absolutely no issue capitalising on "woke" in their
| tv shows. Like, really going all in.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| There are a couple I think are fine. Mythic quest and
| Severance, but that what was it? Foundation series, omg, I
| couldn't make it a whole episode.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > People have just become overly sensitive it seems.
|
| I hear this said a lot, but know of no psychological evidence
| that people have actually become more "sensitive" (by which I
| mean neurotic, defensive etc).
|
| What's happened is that people became better informed,
| educated, and communicative. They're more comfortable with
| expressing. And that's mainly down to technology which
| facilitated cultural change.
|
| It is natural for that to turn inward. This is the evolution
| of _critique_. It took many years from Gutenberg to Vanity
| Fair. Literary criticism only emerged once the medium itself
| was mature.
|
| The same thing is happening in technology as Lewis Mumford
| predicted. Technological critique. has come of age with AI.
|
| Anybody so unsophisticated as to ignore that, like Apple, is
| doomed.
|
| No one gives a shit how "thin" or "powerful" your gadget is.
| They care what it means to them and their values. Apple, of
| all organisations, should be mindful of that.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| >No one gives a shit how "thin" or "powerful" your gadget
| is. They care what it means to them and their values.
| Apple, of all organisations, should be mindful of that.
|
| My identity? Why, I'm an iPhone(tm) product(RED)(c) AIDS
| (or as I've recently taken to calling it, HIV+AIDS)
| REALief-Responder(r) and I can assure you Zero (0) of the
| child laborers have STDs.
| amatecha wrote:
| No one's like crying out here or jumping off a bridge. People
| are just kinda ticked, or disappointed. There's no "cancel
| culture" happening here. Why such a reactionary
| interpretation of the ad's poor reception? o_O
| diputsmonro wrote:
| Would you prefer a world wherein people aren't allowed to
| speak their mind instead?
|
| Stop being so sensitive about people "being sensitive" and
| engage in the discussion instead of dismissing it.
|
| All this complaining about "cancel culture" is just
| complaining that other people are using their freedom of
| speech in a way that you don't like. This is what freedom is
| speech means - disagreement. Stop whining about people
| disagreeing with you. Either address the arguments they're
| making to further the conversation, or deal with it.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| I'd prefer a world where people recognize their opinions
| are childish and keep it to themselves.
| diputsmonro wrote:
| People posting their opinions on Twitter does you no
| harm. Mute or block of you must, and move on.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Imagine if every Twitter user followed that advice
| Grazester wrote:
| It's fine to voice opinions but why does Apple feel it
| needs to apologize? No animals were harmed, no protected
| groups offended. Apple could have just internally said,
| "well that one kinda didn't work well",pull the ad and move
| on.
| diputsmonro wrote:
| They don't _need_ to. But they offended their main target
| demographic, so it 's probably a good business move to
| try to regain their trust.
| stale2002 wrote:
| When people make dumb arguments and overreact, its
| perfectly fine to make fun of them for it.
|
| I don't think the world is going to end because some people
| are upset about an ad.
|
| But I absolutely am going to laugh at and belittle those
| who are having an extreme and irrational emotional reaction
| to something this dumb.
|
| > Either address the arguments they're making to further
| the conversation, or deal with it.
|
| You missed the other option. Dismiss them and make them
| feel bad and embarrassed for overreacting.
| diputsmonro wrote:
| If you prefer to be a jerk, that's certainly an option,
| yes. Just don't be surprised or blame "cancel culture"
| when the people you belittle stop inviting you to
| parties.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Ok, but disagreeing is not what cancel culture is.
|
| It's attacking someone relentlessly, canceling their
| contracts, getting them fired, kicked out of institutions,
| debanked.
|
| I'm not sure if you are pretending to not know that, or
| really just don't know anything on the topic at all. But
| either way, it's kind of showing your cards.
| jprete wrote:
| Crushing the tools of art and fun into a tiny technological
| device is maybe a _little_ tone-deaf in the context of AI
| trying to crush all scrapeable human creation into a model that
| would fit on that same iPad.
| kccqzy wrote:
| They are destroying everything analog used by humans for fun
| and creativity, including a piano, a trumpet, paint, an arcade
| machine, synthesizers, and toys. In return we have one soulless
| bland iPad. If you have any object remotely similar to the ones
| depicted as destroyed, you will feel anger and pain at the
| sight of destruction.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| People who want to be "outraged" do it partly for the shared
| performance of it.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Because the average mental age of consumers has been decreasing
| rapidly
| TheGamerUncle wrote:
| When I was younger, I used to believe that the antiquated image
| of the hipster or upper-class white Starbucks artist who owns a
| Mac was a cliche, an invention of the boomers. But as I have had
| to deal with some creative teams.
|
| I have come to loathe and disdain this kind of person I did not
| think even existed a decade ago. The sad truth is that a lot of
| people of a certain demographic will prefer to die before even
| switching to Windows, let alone Linux or something open. And
| sadly, a small part of the tech world is the same; they think
| that their experience with Windows and Android more than a decade
| ago is reflective of how they work now. Thus, Apple could spit on
| their faces, and yet they will still like it. Sadly, nothing to
| do with people who just suck up to modern Apple.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Aside from the destruction of low-tech artistic tools triggering
| non-tech people aspect, tonally the ad was also overly edgy,
| which is off-brand for Apple. As noted elsewhere, it felt like a
| video game commercial from the '90s: gratuitous in its attention-
| seeking.
|
| https://twitter.com/cuniiform/status/1788013085392859171
|
| And it's actually already been done before, by Nintendo:
|
| https://twitter.com/rsnous/status/1788047377556791321
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzAo9HzOgtQ
| madrox wrote:
| 1984 was edgy for its time. I think the difficulty is that the
| iPad is no longer an edgy product. The least edgy thing you
| could be these days is an iPad owner, and this ad wasn't the
| one to change that.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| "1984" was edgy in a cool way, but that's not the type of
| edginess I'm evoking. Most '90s video game commercials that
| were edgy did so in a puerile, juvenile way as befitting the
| target audience. And not just video game ads, there was
| definitely a big "xtreme" trend as well.
|
| The Apple ad taps into that xtreme vibe by embracing
| destructive energy to depict a physical contrast. Which is
| visually attention-grabbing, but it puts the focus on the act
| of destruction, and reduction, and people who like the
| destroyed objects feel miffed.
|
| "1984" I'd say was edgy in a rebellious way as you point out,
| which I'd argue gives it more substance. The sledgehammer
| hitting the screen isn't even the focus, it's the climax to a
| sequence that carries more of a meaningful message than "wow
| look how much functionality we fit into this thin shell."
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > "1984" I'd say was edgy in a rebellious way as you point
| out, which I'd argue gives it more substance. The
| sledgehammer hitting the screen isn't even the focus, it's
| the climax to a sequence that carries more of a meaningful
| message than "wow look how much functionality we fit into
| this thin shell."
|
| Well, it just wasn't focusing on empty slowmo destruction
| of a big screen. It had an emotional message behind it. A
| bit like original Star Wars vs Rebel Moon.
| somenameforme wrote:
| 1984 [1] was edgy precisely because it worked as a criticism
| of society and culture, and then showed a way to 'break free'
| of mindless dystopia. This [2] ad is pretty much the exact
| and literal opposite. It essentially takes a sampling of the
| great things that culture and society has produced, destroys
| them, and then shows the Product, while literally singing
| "All I Ever Need Is You." Here [3] a guy basically reversed
| the ad, with the iPad being crushed, and then slowly lifting
| it up to have all the great stuff in society come out of it.
| And suddenly it's actually quite uplifting and positive!
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I
|
| [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc
|
| [3] -
| https://twitter.com/rezawrecktion/status/1788211832936861950
| amatecha wrote:
| Today's "1984" ad would have to include someone throwing a
| sledgehammer through an iMac, and similarly destroying an
| iPhone. It wouldn't be an advertisement for any corporation
| though, because a truly game-changing act today would be to
| opt out of the extractive and coercive cycle of modern
| proprietary technology.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| It was totally incongruous when it was made as well.
| Buying a computer from a company was never an act of
| rebellion.
| rvense wrote:
| Rebellion can't be bought, but in the 1980's I think it
| was still an open question whether computers would ever
| be something that non-nerds wanted. In hindsight, it
| seems inevitable that general purpose, user friendly
| computers would crush everything, but was that really a
| given? Isn't there a possible world where IBM and/or
| Xerox do own everything and never make it past huge,
| expensive systems that were only made for specialists?
|
| For everyone here that loved our C64 or DOS PC, how many
| of our peers actively rejected early computers because
| they weren't fun to use?
| fanatic2pope wrote:
| Besides which it seems to me that Apple has never really
| been against having a single giant corporation
| controlling everything you can see, do and say, they were
| just against that corporation not being Apple.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| What about rebelling against the cultural elements of
| rebelling? Much of the image of rebellion has been a
| futile cycle of (ironically) trying the same thing
| repeatedly and failing to make any changes. Not falling
| into the bullshit of old bearded white men who never had
| to work for a living, were total economic illiterates
| even if they called themselves economists, and have been
| dead-for centuries.
| svara wrote:
| This is incredible, (3) is literally the better iPad ad.
| Really goes to show how poorly thought out the original
| was.
| rchaud wrote:
| It was also edgy because the company CEO was a barefoot
| hippie who got fired from stodgy HP for, among other things,
| poor hygiene.
|
| Apple today is the one size fits all megacorp the 1984 ad
| railed against.
| aprilnya wrote:
| Re: the Pokemon commercial, I feel like the Apple commercial
| put way more focus into the actual destruction of the
| instruments... Like, a lot of its runtime was spent on actually
| showing each thing getting destroyed individually, so it has a
| completely different energy compared to the silly Pokemon one
|
| It's like if the Pokemon one showed each Pokemon getting
| crushed with splattering and gore...
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Yeah there was revelling in the visual and nuance of their
| destruction. Could have done the whole thing CG where the
| objects squished together satisfyingly like they were made of
| clay rather than cracking and shattering. Honestly was
| easier/cheaper to do also.
| mrzool wrote:
| > destruction of low-tech artistic tools triggering non-tech
| people
|
| This was really poorly worded and sounded very elitist and
| dismissive, I trust this was not the intention.
| jbm wrote:
| On the contrary, I wish this was dismissive. It's about time
| that the Overton window gets shifted about the overly
| nostalgic articles that get praised by "the right people",
| which means we need to "read the room" and share the same
| opinions.
|
| It is an absolutely good thing that an inexpensive device is
| replacing an expensive one, and that impoverished children
| will be able to create music with an inexpensive iPad and
| will not be forced to learn obsolete methods to "finger" an
| instrument.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Aside from whether the iPad is inexpensive or not, it just
| doesn't replace an actual piano or trumpet.
|
| If your use case is really covered by the iPad, you could
| also make do with a refurbished corporate DELL costing half
| the price or 3 years ago's Surface Pro, same way the track
| makers were doing 2 decades ago.
|
| So no, Apple's marketing would sure want us to think so,
| but impoverished children are probably not saved by 2024's
| thinner iPad in any significant way.
| mwigdahl wrote:
| I can just visualize the post iPad high school jazz band
| -- twenty kids sitting in chairs with their tablets,
| rhythmically tapping virtual buttons on their
| touchscreen. One stands for her solo, tapping her screen
| at a different cadence. Oh, she's playing trumpet? I
| thought she was a saxophonist!
|
| What artistry! What musicianship! Thank God for Apple and
| the new iPad!
| least wrote:
| I know this was written in jest, but I don't really see
| anything wrong with this sort of thing happening.
|
| I don't foresee it being the norm any time soon (if ever)
| but as a novelty it'd be fun to see.
| harry314 wrote:
| How to even start here.. Calling the ipad inexpensive will
| make people in most of the world to laugh at you (even the
| discounted stock of ipad 9th is unapproachable for many).
| While a guitar at a local store (just looked it up) costs
| under 80 EUR, needs no apps, no power, no subscriptions,
| has no EOL, doesn't have a battery that will go bad. Yes
| you need time to learn, but you do not necessarily need to
| invest more money with an analog instrument.
|
| I'm not touching the first part of your post.
| vundercind wrote:
| I've never seen a guitar under about $300US new that was
| actually playable without some serious attention from a
| guitar shop, and on the lower end they'll probably just
| tell you there's not much they can do to make it better.
| They may need frets filed down to remove rough edges,
| neck adjustments, to simply have the tuners replaced
| because they're so poorly-made they basically don't work,
| et c.
|
| Guitars that cheap are similar to crappy small-key $40-80
| electronic keyboards that can only sound like three notes
| at a time and sound terrible doing it--they're _so_ bad
| that they will tend to frustrate and turn off even a
| beginner.
| danjoredd wrote:
| Yes, a good Guitar will cost you more than 300 USD. But
| in 20 years you will still have that guitar.
|
| Buy an ipad mini for 500 USD: you might be able to
| replicate the sound, but you will need to replace it in
| two.
| leononame wrote:
| Yeah, how dare people have emotional connections with
| musical instruments! The great (and very inexpensive) iPad
| will finally allow humans to become equals and set poor
| people free. Nostalgia is exactly what's wrong with this
| world.
|
| Yes, this is very over the top, but the iPad is neither
| inexpensive (compared to your $50 garage sale guitar and
| synthie) nor is it sufficient to make music.
|
| People enjoy music from instruments not only because
| someone was able to compose a song on it, but because the
| instrument carries emotion, there is sweat and pain in
| learning it, people become masters of their instruments and
| have actual connections to them. The iPad is a powerful
| device for making music, sure. But it's not exactly the
| device I would choose to allow impoverished children to
| create music. And I, personally, enjoy music more when I
| know it's actual people playing instruments rather than
| just a producer mixing some stuff and only recording the
| singing. Calling playing an instrument obsolete and
| "fingering" is insulting.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > nor is [the iPad] sufficient to make music.
|
| I mean that's just a nonsense statement. You can say
| "make music (that I don't like)" but you 100% cannot say
| that an iPad is insufficient to make music when thousands
| of people do that every day and tens of thousands of
| people enjoy their output.
| guappa wrote:
| Source?
| least wrote:
| I get your sentiment, but I feel like your view on iPads
| and there being no musicianship to it is just wrong. The
| instruments in garage band have velocity sensitivity and
| can be played expressively by tapping the screen just as
| you can tap the keys on a piano or hit the marimba with
| some mallets.
|
| In fact on some of the synthesizers you gain an
| additional mode of expressiveness because you can adjust
| your input as you're playing notes, similar to MPE
| synthesizers like the Osmose.
|
| An iPad is more than sufficient for making music.
|
| I say this as someone that really enjoys playing my
| instruments (mostly guitars) and wouldn't trade the
| experience for an iPad ever.
|
| Luckily, I can have both.
| somenameforme wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
| darby_eight wrote:
| Man, this comment made me die inside. The future is bleak
| as hell.
| xxs wrote:
| it's sarcasm, quite deadpan at that.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I'm not so optimistic these days. Poe's Law has long
| since died. Even if this was misunderstood sarcasm, you
| can probably find this opinion around the net (mayeb even
| further down the post).
| xxs wrote:
| One thing that's doable on HN is checking poster's
| previous responses/history to form a better idea.
| jjulius wrote:
| Unless I'm daft, I'm not seeing sarcasm in their more
| recent comment history, nor do I see it in their post
| here.
| kashunstva wrote:
| > It is an absolutely good thing that an inexpensive device
| is replacing an expensive one.
|
| Professional musician (pianist) here. It's an outlandish
| take on solving affordability by destroying acoustic
| instruments and replacing them with iPads. Let's see
| someone play the Prokofiev Toccata in real time using
| Garageband, no MIDI files allowed.
| lm28469 wrote:
| I bought my German made mandolin that's like 100 years old
| for less than 10% of an ipad, and it'll never be obsolete,
| that's the whole point...
|
| It'll always be up to date, I'll always find the parts to
| fix it, and even if one-day it somehow gets damaged beyond
| repair I can recycle it in my fireplace in about 30 seconds
|
| I feel like people making your point don't see the
| fundamental difference between a functional tool like a
| hammer and an artistic tool like a musical instrument, and
| it's kind of scary tbh.
| xxs wrote:
| > I can recycle it in my fireplace in about 30 seconds
|
| not disagreeing w/ anything else (beside responding to a
| sarcastic comment, usually 'caring for the children'
| [esp. out of place] is a decent giveaway + repeating
| 'inexpensive'); however burning stuff is not recycling.
| If anything it releases all the carbon (CO2 + CO) in the
| atmosphere, compositing in the ground is a tad better
| option, but the lacquer might prevent that part... for a
| while.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > If anything it releases all the carbon (CO2 + CO) in
| the atmosphere
|
| Not more than burning my regular fire wood, and
| infinitely better than fossil fuel
|
| > compositing in the ground is a tad better option
|
| It releases the same amount of carbon in the atmosphere,
| burning it is just a tiny bit faster than having termite
| digest and fart it away
|
| The problem with carbon is when you take it from outside
| of the system (deep in the ground) and put it back in the
| cycle, anyways, you get the idea
| xxs wrote:
| >Not more than burning my regular fire wood, and
| infinitely better than fossil fuel
|
| Not recycling still, recycling would be making something
| out of it, e.g. a plate, a toy, whatever. Another option
| is making fiberboard alike material out of it from
| sawdust.
|
| Dunno about termites, it'd depend where you live, but
| then again, I am not sure how that came into the
| discussion. Anyway compost is used in gardening, so it's
| a form of recycling.
| sophacles wrote:
| When you turn the wood into co2, it eventually becomes
| more wood.
| guappa wrote:
| Wow you're so out of touch with reality.
|
| Low/medium end music instruments are certainly cheaper than
| ipads, and last way way more.
|
| Learning to use your own body is now obsolete? Ok...
| sure...
| guitarlimeo wrote:
| I haven't played my guitar in ages and this comment was so
| bleak that I had to pick it up and play a few songs just to
| feel good.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| There's a lot to break down here, but I'll take the less
| obvious angle. If you're calling the shiny new iPad an
| "accessible, inexpensive device for the impoverished",
| Apple's multi-billion dollar, decades long marketing has
| clearly failed you.
| rvense wrote:
| Yeah, why learn to play an instrument with your caveman
| hands when you can rent an iPad and make something that
| sounds the same with the AI in Garageband!
| jjulius wrote:
| Between the fact that you think that entry-level
| instruments cost more than iPads, that somehow "fingering"
| an instrument is a bad or obsolete thing, and that you
| think iPads are affordable to the impoverished, I'm
| _really_ not sure where to begin correcting you.
|
| Just... yikes. I hate to be flippant, but you're so out of
| touch that my only thought is to tell you to touch grass.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| we're on a technical forum, but "low tech" isn't inherently
| inferior. All the MIDI's in the world can't truly replace a
| good ol' acoustic sound. That's why we still have
| Orchaestras.
|
| The other half, sure. To think that all tech people are
| welcoming the current portrayal of AI/LLM's/Generative Art is
| simply tone deaf. Some of the most cynical detractors are in
| fact highly technical people.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| For low-tech I meant analog as opposed to digital. And I
| meant nothing pejorative in non-tech; these days, there's
| fewer and fewer positive connotations in being techie.
| yareal wrote:
| I'm a tech person, and I found the destruction of beautiful
| things quite distasteful. I don't think it was only non tech
| people who disliked it.
| bitwize wrote:
| Yikes, that was really offbrand for Nintendo also, but it fits
| within their 90s "Play It Loud" marketing strategy wherein they
| tried to compete with ow-the-edge Sega and later Sony.
| franciscop wrote:
| Tonally isn't it kind of like the 1984 Apple commercial?
| willis936 wrote:
| 1984 was about breaking free from the bondage of an Orwellian
| society. Crush is a celebration of creating that bondage.
| rchaud wrote:
| Yeah if the ad was for IBM.
| steve1977 wrote:
| I challenge you to manufacture a well-sounding and nicely tuned
| piano and then reconsider the term "low tech"
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I meant digital vs. analog, nothing pejorative
| jjulius wrote:
| > Aside from the destruction of low-tech artistic tools
| triggering non-tech people aspect...
|
| 604 comments on this HN post (at the time of writing this), the
| bulk of which appear to be opposed to this video, and you're
| trying to tell me that tech folk aren't, to use your word,
| "triggered"? C'mon now.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Of course people are, that's the main source of the
| controversy. I'm just exploring a side aspect about why this
| ad doesn't work.
| edkennedy wrote:
| Missing from this extremely short and underreported article is
| how badly this played out in Japanese market. The culture they
| have states that musical instruments, creative tools have some
| energy and imbued sense of spirit to them. So destroying these
| elements of culture is really really blunt and gauche to them.
| The majority of the push back came from Japanese people, and then
| artists empathizing with their sentiment.
| superb_dev wrote:
| Given that context, it's nuts that this ad was approved for the
| Japanese market
| smugma wrote:
| I've seen a few comments about this. Is there any English page
| that documents this in more detail? I find it really
| interesting.
| rjh29 wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto
| bitwize wrote:
| See also:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mottainai
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Really interesting to consider that this might be one of the
| few incidents that Shintoists, or at least "cultural
| Shintoists," have gotten offended at a western production.
|
| Makes me wonder if this is why Apple went out of their way to
| apologize for the ad. I think if this ad just had non-
| culturally-specific backlash, they would've simply moved on.
| But because this impacted a specific market's sensibilities,
| maybe they felt the need to do a public _mea culpa._
| xattt wrote:
| This is a market where shame and apologies still have
| significance.
| adrian_b wrote:
| I have seen recently a documentary about Japanese food, and
| an interesting fact was that the chefs at some big Japanese
| restaurant had a special decorated grave, in some nice yard,
| in which they deposited their old kitchen knives, when those
| were so worn out that they could no longer be used.
|
| They felt that it would be disrespectful to just dump
| somewhere the main tools of their work, after they had used
| those every day for decades.
| stuartjohnson12 wrote:
| This is a beautiful sentiment.
| p1nkpineapple wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what was the doco?
| adrian_b wrote:
| It was from 2015: "Wa-shoku Dream: Beyond Sushi". ("wa-
| shoku" means "Japanese food")
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3846402/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_t
| t_8...
| smsm42 wrote:
| I think a lot of people are a little bit Shintoist. That's
| one of the reasons why we have museums - we regard things as
| some kind of reflection on people and events, and a chair in
| which a famous person sat or an instrument they played is
| different for us than otherwise identical object that doesn't
| bear that imprint. We may not literally believe in things
| having spirits, but for many the things have some qualities
| that go beyond their physical structure. Emotional value,
| etc.
| brundolf wrote:
| I'm not Japanese and it was upsetting to me
|
| Not because eg one piano got destroyed; surely that happens all
| the time, even on camera for eg movies and such. But there was
| something about watching beautiful objects be destroyed, in
| slow motion, gratuitously, and with an upbeat/sunny tone, that
| just aesthetically made me squirm in my seat
| shmageggy wrote:
| It goes beyond aesthetics for me. It's like they took
| everyone's deepest fears about technology and AI, that it
| will replace or "crush" authentic human experience and
| creativity, and they just embraced and celebrate it by
| literally crushing representations of human creativity. At
| least I'm glad the corporate types were actually honest about
| their goals, though, instead of their typical doublespeak
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Exactly that.
|
| They predicted/showed us the future that is coming. They
| said/showed the quiet part loud.
| dogman144 wrote:
| This was what I understood it to be as well, they let it
| split out by accident/enough group think. I've worked in
| tech long enough to firmly believe this sentiment exists.
| leptons wrote:
| Agreed, that's exactly how tech companies are, and Apple
| is one of the biggest. Apple doesn't really care what
| people create, so long as they are buying an Apple
| product to create it on. It doesn't matter that an iPad
| doesn't feel or sound like a trumpet. If someone buys
| their product to learn to play a trumpet or a piano, then
| they were the fool parting with their money that Apple
| was hoping to find, and there's a lot of them apparently.
| lubesGordi wrote:
| Its such a testament to how indoctrinated and homogeneous
| that environment is.
| lifeinthevoid wrote:
| It looks animated to me, I don't think a lot of real objects
| were destroyed. (Not an expert though)
| Hamuko wrote:
| Yeah, it looks super CGI to my eyes. Especially the desk
| and the piano. I also can't imagine anyone trying to direct
| this kind of a video without having precise control on what
| the destruction looks like.
| dns_snek wrote:
| I don't think these objects being real or not makes much
| (if any) difference to those who view the ad negatively.
| The underlying idea that Apple is crushing these tools of
| human entertainment and creative expression, only to
| replace them with their own "jack of all trades" remains
| the same.
| mort96 wrote:
| Can confirm. I reacted negatively to the ad (in a "this
| ad causes emotions which the creators absolutely does not
| want an ad to cause" kind of way), and for me it's all
| about the imagery and symbolism. I hope and assume that
| the destruction is primarily CGI, but the visuals of
| destroying positive "soulful" things like instruments and
| replacing it with a lifeless slab of glass just doesn't
| sell the product to me.
|
| In fact, I think this would have been an excellent art
| piece if the message was "heartless tech corporations
| want to destroy the good things in life and replace it
| with a cold slab of glass".
| pantulis wrote:
| At first I had a negative reaction. Then, looking for
| comfort, noticed that the video is mostly CGI. But then
| again, I felt the same. It is what you say: the image of
| destruction of beautiful objects is bad per se, it's not
| what the objects are, it's what they represent.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Without expertise I would just casually guess that a
| hydraulic press this size does not exist, or if it did, it
| would not be used for that. So at least that part is CG.
| supriyo-biswas wrote:
| Exactly my thoughts - this ad does very little to invoke the
| desire for the product, unlike many other Apple ads.
|
| It's not like Apple has forgotten how to make such ads - the
| recent one for iPhones with family members asking to not be
| let go while the owner tries to delete photos represented a
| familiar experience of people trying to free up storage, and
| how they wouldn't have to do that if they bought a new
| iPhone.
|
| On the other hand, this ad just shows stuff being destroyed,
| just like some of those useless Youtube videos which shows
| perfectly usable stuff being destroyed under the pretext of
| "ASMR" or whatnot. Not only is it very difficult to watch as
| someone who didn't have a lot of money and was taught to make
| careful use of it from an early age, it just invokes negative
| vibes, as if possessing a musical instrument is something to
| be ashamed of.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Their marketing team has been missing the mark for a while.
| The "big and bigger" billboards with people in the distance
| holding up phones to the camera with a giant hand tiny body
| look feels like something Samsung would have done in the
| early 10's
| vorador wrote:
| Also the ad where mother nature visits apple park to
| check in on their green targets. Did she park her car at
| their huge garage too?
| (https://archive.curbed.com/2017/4/13/15274024/apples-
| new-cam...)
| xdennis wrote:
| I'm not bothered by the destruction. Destruction itself can
| have artistic value. For example, you can't portray the Nazis
| on screen without showing how destructive they were.
|
| What bothers me is the arrogance to say that an iPad, a
| device which will be obsolete in a few short years, can
| replace all those instruments and tools that last more than a
| generation.
|
| This is similar to the history channels which use AI
| colorized historical footage which wildly shifts objects from
| red to blue in a few frames and have the audacity to claim
| this is an improvement over the original.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I am. If they had a "No objects were harmed in the making
| of this ad" notice at the end, I'd feel much, much better
| about it.
|
| It would still bother a lot of people for other reasons,
| but it's the wanton destruction that bothers me the most.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| I had same reaction to the 'niceness' of what they were
| crushing. Things looked too good, like still usable. What if
| they were slightly older and dinged, scuffed up, looked more
| like they were done being useful.
| jacobsimon wrote:
| I haven't seen anyone mention this yet, but I think the
| concept here was inspired by all the viral hydraulic press
| videos on Instagram and TikTok. Here's a similar video
| showing random objects and consumer products being crushed in
| slow motion with similar upbeat music:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q9BtYEnrkg4
| brundolf wrote:
| Sure, maybe that was the intent. But most of the objects I
| see in the linked video are cheap and mass-produced (a
| water bottle, some sticky notes, some plastic toys), which
| makes it feel totally different
| s3p wrote:
| For me it was just because of the damage it caused. I guess
| if I heard someone was throwing out a piano I wouldn't think
| much of it, but the destruction of everything in the ad made
| me uneasy. I just felt like it was so wasteful to destroy
| things in the way they did. But again, maybe I have a double
| standard, because if I saw someone throw a trumpet or an old
| camera in the dumpster I probably would not care as much.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Honestly, _so what_. Japan is not a utopia some Westerners
| think it is whose opinion should be treated as gospel. I can
| see why liberal arts majors look up to them, but if you correct
| for the fact that in Japan appearances matter the most, and it
| 's work for the sake of work taken to the inefficient extreme,
| it can't be treated as seriously.
|
| Which doesn't preclude the fact that this ad is pretty
| uninspired, a Tim Cook personification, if you will. Totally
| agree here.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Have some compassion.
|
| Let me take something of your prize possession and crush it
| for an iPad. Not all can afford one and such items brings
| them entertainment.
|
| For some advert to advertise, "your a schmuck for having
| these, buy an ipad" is just out of order.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Who would take this ad literally? As in "go toss the piano
| in trash and buy an iPad Pro"?
| doublerabbit wrote:
| I'm sure many. Many who are gullible to adverts as if
| folk weren't there wouldn't be advertising.
|
| It's not that they will go and do so. But more the
| symbolism of "you don't need any of these ever again
| because you can do it on this!"
|
| While okay; sure but again those who can't afford an
| iPad, were instruments are of an important value to see
| them destroyed is heart breaking.
| wiseowise wrote:
| It's more like "your cool thing is uncool, but our
| soulless machine".
| mrguyorama wrote:
| "How dare you react to the text, you were only supposed
| to read the sub-text"
| falsaberN1 wrote:
| I'm honestly shocked. This is not okay, specially when the
| parent post is not even praising that country in any
| exaggerated way, just stating a fact.
|
| There are no acceptable targets when it comes to culture.
| falseprofit wrote:
| I agree that the comments on Japanese culture were
| unwarranted, off-topic, unnecessary, offensive... and while
| I know very little about Japan, I feel I should ignore
| random internet opinions on it.
|
| But can you elaborate on your second paragraph? Should
| culture always be immune to criticism?
| falsaberN1 wrote:
| I always understood the whole point of political
| correctness was to not spew hateful words about _anyone_
| and that should be the standard.
|
| Criticism is one thing, but the poster felt the need to
| "educate" all of us about how an entire country's opinion
| is invalid because "it's not an utopia". Nobody brought
| that up, and disregarding an entire culture's opinion of
| an advertisement campaign because weebs have unrealistic
| expectations, in a discussion with a valid and
| informative point about said culture, is tastelessly
| petty. And why belittle liberal arts majors anyway?
| redwall_hp wrote:
| Let's call it what it is: racism and intolerance of other
| cultures.
|
| I feel like this ad is also a litmus test for empathy: if
| someone can't spot the inferred symbolism or understand
| why people have a problem with it...they are very
| impaired in that regard.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Fairly certain a lot more western "technologist" types are
| looking up to them.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| You missed the point. Apple want to make money in Japan.
| OJFord wrote:
| Err, if you want to advertise effectively to X market you
| generally try to make it appealing to X people?
| numpad0 wrote:
| Absolutely no offense - I don't see what this has to do with
| Japan at all although this has been repeated everywhere. I
| think this is just an unfortunate natural intuition.
|
| Japanese users normally aren't exposed to the rest of WWW at
| all, even on social media, so there's intuition that any
| notable interactions observed has to do with the four-seasons
| and egg sandwiches way. But it's also true that there are 0.35x
| as many of the people here as there are US Americans, or 1.5x
| more than Germans, which creates a lot of presence in itself,
| possibly even grossly exaggerated on Twitter due to cultural
| fit and ongoing collapse of its en-US bubbles. I think this
| instance is example of the latter being the case mistaken as
| the former.
| blhack wrote:
| Was there a similar backlash to this identical ad from LG in
| 2009? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo
| type0 wrote:
| Apple ads team should apologize to LG for stealing their ad
| _zoltan_ wrote:
| Do you know if it aired in Japan as an ad?
|
| If not, then I am not sure what you're talking about.
| rideontime wrote:
| It aired on the Internet, which is available in Japan. You
| can see some examples of backlash from Japanese people in the
| replies to this tweet, if you have a twitter account.
| https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/1787864325258162239
| nomel wrote:
| I see several people stating they're ashamed to owning an
| iPad, and will never buy one again. Is this a form of
| hyperbole to push a message, or is there really this much
| emotion?
| Osmium wrote:
| Good, the ad was really disturbing. An ad is just an ad and not
| the biggest deal in the scheme of things but that was really
| unpleasant to watch. For me, it was the visual of needless
| destruction and waste as much as the meta-message.
| PurestGuava wrote:
| It's the needless destruction that really gets to me. I have a
| fairly visceral reaction to seeing things that someone put
| time, effort and scarce resources into making get destroyed for
| no reason, and Apple's ad hit so many nerves in that respect.
| It's just a complete waste, and that's before we get into the
| whole subtext of "tech is going to destroy 'IRL' art forms"
| that many people got.
| poochkoishi728 wrote:
| How do you know they weren't broken items anyway?
| PurestGuava wrote:
| I don't, but it's still unpleasant to see.
|
| Not everything has to be perfectly rational.
| Clubber wrote:
| Irrational outrage and anger isn't a trait to strive for
| I wouldn't think.
| daniel_reetz wrote:
| Especially emotional responses.
| simiones wrote:
| What baffles me the most is the choice to include human
| figurines (the bust, the statue, the smiley right at the end).
| The imagery of human figures getting crushed is going to look
| disturbing even to the least environmentally conscious viewers.
| vehemenz wrote:
| Most people didn't find the ad disturbing, so the offensiveness
| is a relation between you and the content, not the content
| itself.
| iamwil wrote:
| I saw it felt nothing other than a morbid kind of "will it
| blend?". I think the ad is fine. It did its job. I mean, people
| are talking about it. They just can't use the same schtick again.
| But there's no need to apologize for it.
| madrox wrote:
| This really shows how much sentiments about technology have
| changed in the last five or so years. If this ad came out in 2018
| it would have been received differently, I think. The buzz has
| worn off. People don't see doing everything on your device as
| progress. iPads are no longer novel.
|
| Apple has been so used to growing new markets that I don't think
| they even know how to market when they're on top. All their best
| ads have been when using their products speaks to being a rebel.
| Nowadays the least rebellious thing you could be is an Apple
| user.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The (m)Ad Man's Dilemma
| thorum wrote:
| Many artists now view the tech industry as a credible threat to
| their work and livelihood, because of AI. If you want them to
| buy your products, it's probably a good idea to show some
| sensitivity to that concern.
| john2x wrote:
| I hope that it's this. Artists are trend setters, and often
| define a generation's culture.
|
| Alienating them is (or should be) a huge mistake in my mind.
| bitwize wrote:
| Alienating artists should be off the fucking table for
| Apple, for whom creatives are the core customer base.
|
| But it's 2024, everything is enshittified, God has forsaken
| us.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| > This really shows how much sentiments about technology have
| changed in the last five or so years. If this ad came out in
| 2018 it would have been received differently, I think. The buzz
| has worn off. People don't see doing everything on your device
| as progress. iPads are no longer novel.
|
| I think not. 2018 was not so different. People talked about
| what is now called enshittification. Apple, Google, and
| Facebook introduced screen time controls because concerns had
| grown year after year.
|
| I think an ad showing the same objects sucked into a tablet
| would have been received much better now. I doubt the lurid
| destruction of art, creative tools, and symbols of culture and
| history would have been received much better in 2004.
| jjulius wrote:
| >I think an ad showing the same objects sucked into a tablet
| would have been received much better now. I doubt the lurid
| destruction of art, creative tools, and symbols of culture
| and history would have been received much better in 2004.
|
| Except that the opposite appears to be true. There are
| numerous examples throughout this HN thread of companies like
| LG and Nintendo doing similar things (LG back in 2018,
| Nintendo I'm not sure when) without receiving the same kind
| of flack as this ad is.
|
| You have to remember that it was only in the past year or two
| that AI has really scared the shit out of the creative
| community. That sentiment didn't exist in the past when these
| kinds of commercials were previously made. There _has_ been a
| shift, and right now, whether you like it or not, or whether
| you think artists should be scared or embrace it, to artists
| it feels like the tech community is pointing a giant middle
| finger at them.
|
| In 2004, this kinda thing was brand new, and you could spin
| it as promising to artists. Now that 20 years have passed and
| people have seen the reality of how things have played out,
| there is a lot more negativity and apprehension towards it.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| How many people saw LG UK's ad? Very few Japanese people
| probably. Social media as it exists today was new.
| Reporting on social media trends was rare. And artists were
| not important to LG.
|
| Nintendo's ad was not similar. The animated characters were
| clearly not real and shown unharmed. The bus was not a
| creative tool or a symbol. Destruction was implied through
| editing. The target audience was children.
|
| I know artists. I know their concerns about AI. I think you
| over estimate how many musicians would have celebrated an
| advertisement luridly destroying instruments in 2004.
| Animats wrote:
| Whatever happened with their head-mounted display thing?
| Haven't heard that mentioned in a while.
| xyst wrote:
| Or maybe we are just tired of the wanton destruction of
| perfectly good items for the sake of ...
|
| a stupid ad.
| Animats wrote:
| Was that made with Unreal Engine 5? The physics has that look.
| ExMachina73 wrote:
| I'm still waiting for Jim Beam to apologize for their "Sweet
| Caroline" ad.
| ak217 wrote:
| This reminds me of a Google Chromebook ad from a long time ago
| where they destroy 25 Chromebooks:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm-Vnx58UYo
|
| It felt so sad and tone deaf, a celebration of disposability. I
| don't think Google ever felt the need to apologize for that one,
| but then again it was a lot less... graphic than this new Apple
| ad. It's safe to say Apple outdid Google in this competition.
| nox101 wrote:
| The google ad was showing you your data, what's important to
| you, is safe.
|
| The Apple ad is showing things people love being destroyed and
| replaced by a inferior replacement
| rpy wrote:
| If a bunch of CGI objects being crushed is disturbing to people
| wait til they see this movie of a train coming directly at you.
| smugma wrote:
| What about the video makes you think it was CG?
| rpy wrote:
| Are you suggesting the emoji squeeze toy conveniently rolled
| perfectly to the edge of the hydraulic press at exactly the
| right moment and then its eyes uniformly popped out? A
| perfectly uniform explosion of dust actually burst out the
| press? Seems doubtful.
| jprete wrote:
| Using real objects for 90% of that effect is probably the
| cheapest way to go. The two things you mention could be
| added in.
| ch_sm wrote:
| I don't know if that's the case here, but Apple has a long
| history of doing real-life photoshoots of their products
| that end up looking like CGI. It's an extremely clean,
| perfectionist aesthetic. Realistically, it's probably a
| real-life shot with CGI sprinkled in.
| tiagod wrote:
| Just because it's not CGI, doesn't mean there isn't a lot
| of trickery involved. They could have filmed the emoji toy
| part as stop motion, for example.
| latexr wrote:
| > wait til they see this movie of a train coming directly at
| you.
|
| The reports of fear about that movie have been greatly
| exaggerated.
|
| https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/did-a-silent-film-abou...
| xnx wrote:
| 9to5Google pointed out that the Apple ad is a near exact copy of
| this LG ad from 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo
|
| The (accidental?) plagiarism of the ad is nearly as bad as the
| vibe.
| lioeters wrote:
| So not only was it tasteless and out of touch, it wasn't even
| original. Can't help but feel that it's a reflection of where
| Apple is at these days.
| jen729w wrote:
| Because Apple are famous these days for copying other
| people's ideas?
|
| I don't believe that this is the general consensus.
| cm2187 wrote:
| On the other hand if your product has become a commodity and
| the new version barely changes from the previous one, you are
| entering detergent advertising territory.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Wow, you're not exaggerating. That actually does bring a
| legitimate accusation of plagiarism to the table. Compare 0:13
| in the LG ad to 0:37 in the Apple version.
|
| Never mind that the artwork itself looks straight out of DALL-E
| 2, with its orange-bluish cast. Who is calling the creative
| shots at Apple these days?!
| cjk2 wrote:
| The amber/teal stuff is mostly because it makes the
| foreground warmer and the backgrounds colder drawing the
| audience's focus. Or so the theory goes. I think it's just
| more of a case of _" fuck it, no one is going to complain if
| we do this"_
|
| Check out the transformers films - those are the canonical
| punch in the face in that department.
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| Did LG get backlash from the Japanese community? It might be
| interesting to compare why and why not.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| LG in 2008 was not on Japanese people's map regarding to
| phones, their "Chocolate" line was an utter failure that got
| the brand promptly forgotten. I doubt that spot was even
| aired in Japan.
| ekianjo wrote:
| LG was never big in Japan while most Japanese people use an
| iPhone
| trashtester wrote:
| Korea and Japan have .... history ....
| delusional wrote:
| Eh, It's a pretty obvious premise. I think it's reasonable for
| two creative teams to come up with the same
| unoriginal/uninteresting premise. The execution of the Apple
| version is also miles ahead.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| ...as is technology.
| guappa wrote:
| *streets ahead (sorry, I just watched that episode a few days
| ago)
| odiroot wrote:
| "Plagiarism" (and years late at that) is something they're very
| familiar with ;)
| serial_dev wrote:
| In my opinion, it's one of those ideas that are so obvious that
| I wouldn't necessarily think it's plagiarism.
|
| > It's a small electronic device that replaces so many real
| world things. It's like all these things 'zipped' into one...
| Okay good idea, but how do we make it look cool?... Epic
| music... And Explosions!
|
| The ad is actually less embarrassing than the fact that how
| uncreative this is.
|
| On the other hand, it's also hard to imagine that a bunch of
| people working in the ad business / phones / creative
| marketing, and not one of them said while working on this ad:
| "hey guys, aren't we just redoing that phone ad from 15 years
| ago?"
| Terretta wrote:
| > _how uncreative this is ... aren 't we just redoing that
| thing from 15 years ago?_
|
| People of a certain age are informed by shared cultural
| touchstones.
|
| Those making ads in these timeframes are ages where they all
| experienced the Star Wars trash compactor scene as a visceral
| moment pressed into their psyches:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u3QInIMVME
|
| As a child, the blasters and light sabres are make believe,
| but the compactor closing in slowly on Luke, Leah, C3PO, that
| felt real. Kids could feel that big squeeze. It was ...
| VIVID.
|
| When you start making create visual experiences (ads in
| particular), it's not uncommon you'll reference such
| touchstones. You'll get approved by marketing committees
| because they too have that touchstone in their pasts.
|
| The original scene plots out as an increasing stress, but
| ends with a relief. Ad creatives often "quote" these if they
| feel they can match/replay the original emotional beats, here
| implied looming threat, visceral danger building agonizingly
| slowly, realization of total destruction, saved by suddenly
| revealed relief.
|
| Nintendo, LG, and Apple all tried to have their "product
| placement" land in that surprise moment revealing the
| pressure relief: a sleight of hand where this moment, this
| thing, is the MacGuffin associated with the stress vanishing.
|
| Is this uncreative? "Aren't we just redoing Star Wars New
| Hope?" Sure. But ads that connect to the beats of touchstones
| inside the viewer do evoke more reaction, and the ads aren't
| quoting each other, they're quoting the original.
|
| Art often quotes art, the quoting considered both creative
| and effective.
| stef25 wrote:
| Damn. The plagiarism is at least as bad as the vibe. WTF Apple.
| montag wrote:
| Folks, this is not plagiarism. It's simply unoriginal.
| adhvaryu wrote:
| What an untasteful advert.
| xyst wrote:
| So Apple picked up a ad directory from the LG reject pool. How
| sad.
| itronitron wrote:
| But the hydraulic press in the Apple ad has rounded corners.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The "documentary" tone of this one makes it way less bad than
| the Apple.
| _zoltan_ wrote:
| and nobody complained then, just as nobody should complain now,
| but unfortunately the world turned into this in the last couple
| of years.
| Nition wrote:
| And that one looks actually real, whereas I'm pretty sure the
| Apple ad is 100% CGI with no objects actually destroyed.
| s3p wrote:
| That's what I really want to figure out. I feel like I
| wouldn't have a problem with it if I knew it was 100% fake
| and not actual items being destroyed.
| WWLink wrote:
| Apple: We're so environmentally friendly!
|
| Also Apple: We still use these fancy boxes that are a pain in the
| ass to recycle and will more than likely just end up in the trash
| anyway. They can't be reused for literally anything else because
| of their size, shape, and way they're glued together. Also, the
| materials aren't eco-friendly. But who cares because we stopped
| giving away power bricks and wrap the cables in paper instead of
| plastic! So Eco Friendly!
|
| Also Apple: Let's take this pile of useful nice stuff, some of
| which has collector value, and smash it all to make a commercial.
|
| Also they really need to get out of their own ass here. The iPad
| isn't a piano. The iPad isn't a guitar. You cannot replace any of
| those musical instruments with an iPad. You can't paint on canvas
| with an iPad, so destroying paint is silly.
|
| I won't go with "sensitive" here. I see it as tasteless waste.
| That commercial is tacky AF. What are they trying to market the
| iPad to? "Fuck your feelings" types that just bought a new
| cybertruck and have more money than brains?
| pompino wrote:
| They are also notoriously anti-repair, block access to spare
| parts (despite their recent fake pro-repair marketing) so all
| their repairable products end up in landfills. People are
| focusing on the irrelevant ad, but the real harm is elsewhere.
| thiht wrote:
| > The iPad isn't a piano. The iPad isn't a guitar. You cannot
| replace any of those musical instruments with an iPad. You
| can't paint on canvas with an iPad, so destroying paint is
| silly.
|
| Literacy truly is dead...
|
| Do you know the iPad is not even built by pressing guitars and
| toys and paint together?
| WWLink wrote:
| I'm a computer engineer, yes of course I do. What are you?
| card_zero wrote:
| To be fair, you probably can paint on canvas with an iPad, if
| the canvas is sufficiently large and you use the impasto
| technique.
| servus45678981 wrote:
| The things were cgi, nothing was destroyed in the process.
| lambda_lord wrote:
| The commercial uses a ton of CGI, props, and camera tricks, so
| how can you be sure it was environmentally unfriendly?
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Someone posted the ad in reverse, the implication that the new
| iPad could unleash creatively instead of crushing it.
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2024/05/09/ipad-pro-ad-backwards/
| jprete wrote:
| Doing something like that for real (not just a quick edit to
| demo the idea) would have been a way cooler ad.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| iPad Pro: _Emerge_ (cue Fischerspooner)
| epiccoleman wrote:
| The backwards version of the ad is leaps and bounds better. I'm
| sure some ad "creative" type somwehere is kicking themselves
| for not having the same idea.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40312595
| mgdlbp wrote:
| Brings to mind the OK GO music video with all the exploded
| guitars that they stated were already junk. Spilled paint is
| reminiscent of their videos too.
|
| They also smashed pianos in the Rube Goldberg video, and a TV
| with a sledge. Now I wonder if that was a 1984 reference.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BTnGgzO-tU
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w
| hayley-patton wrote:
| Sledgehammering a little TV was done in the video for Gary
| Numan - We Are Glass which predates the 1984 ad, which
| supposedly led to the video being banned from Top of the Pops:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWR8vitO6wQ&t=67
| willis936 wrote:
| OK GO did it in artistic expression (with a message of "be
| excellent to each other" even), not in a promise to destroy the
| concept of art.
| ykonstant wrote:
| Related concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_no_aware
| compressedgas wrote:
| Not really. There is another Japanese term that I once read an
| article about that I don't recall and haven't been able to find
| again which meant:
|
| > the anger one feels when sacred objects are desecrated.
| rjh29 wrote:
| Maybe mottainai?
| white-moss wrote:
| "boutoku" (Mou Du ) ?
| phmx wrote:
| And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mottainai I guess
| smarri wrote:
| It just seemed really wasteful
| ypk2 wrote:
| I used to play piano and guitar. This ad is soul-crushing.
| silvestrov wrote:
| A soul-crushing as this: https://adage.com/videos/general-
| motors-robot/567
|
| I feel sorry for the robot, I definitely don't feel like buying
| a car.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Then you need to watch this to the end:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU-cori12KU
| pcurve wrote:
| One of my all time favorite ads. :)
| xdennis wrote:
| I like it, but it matches my morbid sense of humor. I'm
| surprised that was aired to the general public though.
| amatecha wrote:
| Yeah, a single piano is like a portal to another world
| manifested by beautiful, expressive music. Possibly a life-
| changing object for a person (or even a whole family) to
| receive one in their home. It's an insult to the arts to
| suggest that an iPad is somehow the distillation of that.
| Nothing surprises me anymore, but it is still disappointing to
| see such a tone-deaf creation from a company that has been so
| closely aligned with artists/musicians in the past couple
| decades.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| There is nothing inherent in a piano that can't replicated by
| a keyboard.
| amatecha wrote:
| Oh dang, I didn't know plastic keyboards can produce
| booming, auditorium-filling sound covering a broad spectrum
| of frequencies, somehow perfectly replicating the audio
| produced by striking padded hammers against carefully-
| tuned/tensioned strings, modulated by subtly-actuated
| dampening or sustaining pedals. Cool! Good to know. Why
| spend $20k on the real thing when I could just get a $150
| keyboard?! No clue why orchestras even bother with all that
| expensive wood and brass stuff, now that you point out this
| astonishing fact.
| stef25 wrote:
| Exactly, you need to have a seriously good argument to backup
| crushing a piano
| criddell wrote:
| If I had access to a hydraulic press, there's plenty of times
| I might have crushed my guitar over the years. Learning an
| instrument has been very difficult and frustrating for me.
| sneak wrote:
| https://youtu.be/QvW61K2s0tA
|
| How about OK Go exploding tons of guitars?
|
| Making video art is more than a legitimate reason to destroy
| props. This feels like a silly discussion.
| alleskleber wrote:
| "The guitars are all defects. They're manufacturing
| defects. You know, we want to blow up guitars but we don't
| actually want to keep musical instruments out of the
| world." https://youtu.be/2dFdNUz2cQc?t=73
|
| OK Go identified the potential issue beforehand and found a
| solution that would work for them.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| They aren't some kind of mystical magic talisman, just a
| bunch of wood and metal. Might as well say you need a
| seriously good argument to crush a dining room table.
|
| People struggle to find someone to take their crappy upright
| pianos for free because they are worthless. Violin players
| refer to cheap student instruments as violin shaped objects.
| You can have a trumpet shipped to your door with same day
| delivery for $90 on Amazon.
| lukko wrote:
| why did you stop playing?
| Satam wrote:
| Why is it soul crushing? It looks to me like people are
| projecting their fears and insecurities onto this single ad.
| Sure, strategically Apple possibly should've caught on before
| releasing, but people are still being overly sensitive. Should
| everyone be throwing tantrums about Devin as it's presenting
| itself to replace developers? It is what it is, things change.
| maxbond wrote:
| If you want to know why someone feels a certain way, you will
| set yourself up for failure by first explaining to them why
| they shouldn't feel that way (doubly so if you imply they're
| "throwing a tantrum" or "being overly sensitive"). You've
| telegraphed your unwillingness to hear them out, so why
| should they give you any of their time?
|
| Frankly, I have to wonder if you actually want to know or
| whether the question was a feint so you could express a very
| personal criticism less directly. If you weren't comfortable
| saying it to them directly - maybe that's a sign you still
| have swipes to edit out.
| Satam wrote:
| Technology is going to keep marching forward as it always
| has. Most of the gadgets being destroyed in the ad are
| fairly recent innovations. And they had already done their
| fair share of disruption too. Speakers made live music less
| necessary, cameras made portrait painting less popular, and
| typewriters started the slow death of handwriting.
|
| Should we mourn their technological predecessors or
| recognize we live in an ever-changing world we've only seen
| a small snapshot of?
|
| And so ad where a guitar and some camera lenses are
| destroyed isn't "soul-crushing". Saying that is being
| overly dramatic.
| maxbond wrote:
| If you think that the reason people play guitar is that
| they haven't come across a better piece of technology,
| then I think you fundamentally misunderstand. I think
| these people simply value certain experiences and ways of
| relating to the world that you don't value (which is not
| a criticism, that's fine). Maybe it would seem less like
| an overreaction to you if you shared their values. Maybe
| you would have a more interesting time if you tried to
| understand what those values were instead of trying to
| explain to people why they're wrong for holding them.
|
| ETA: I think this nugget of wisdom from Pirate Software
| is good to keep in mind.
|
| https://youtube.com/shorts/S9xrkjUXuUM
|
| People frequently express themselves in ways that are
| infuriating and unhelpful (myself included,
| embarrassingly often). Learning to cut through the noise
| and learn from them despite that is a valuable social
| skill. We can't change the fact that people act this way,
| but we can decide how we will receive and respond to it.
| Satam wrote:
| I understand we do these things because we find enjoyment
| in them. But none of these instruments and gadgets are
| even going extinct. There might be real shifts happening
| in our culture but at the end of the day this is just an
| ad. The emotional baggage that causes someone to be hurt
| by this should probably be handled at a personal level.
|
| And thanks for sharing your thoughts. There isn't
| anything you said I'd disagree with. My original point
| was quite simple: people shouldn't be so soft. Although,
| I guess that's not really helpful and me saying that
| won't flip a switch in someone's head.
| maxbond wrote:
| Appreciate you taking the time to consider. I just feel I
| should note:
|
| > I understand we do these things because we find
| enjoyment in them.
|
| It's not that people _enjoy_ making art (though they
| usually do). People have a much more profound
| relationship to art than that. I 'll try to illustrate in
| a way that's more grokkable to the technically inclined.
|
| Once I was injured and couldn't use a computer other than
| a phone for 10 months. I was very frustrated and
| depressed. I felt like I had lost access to a part of
| myself.
|
| There were definitely moments that were soul crushing. In
| particular times when I couldn't get software to work,
| because I couldn't even extract an error message or any
| relevant telemetry from the confines of a nerfed
| operating system, so I couldn't even begin to
| troubleshoot. I wasn't accustomed to my computer being a
| black box I couldn't interrogate. It ran counter to my
| image of myself and my abilities.
|
| One time, several years later, a friend almost spilled
| wine on my ergonomic keyboard (which I absolutely need to
| use a computer after my injury). I told them to be
| careful. They pretended to spill it again. I told them
| that absolutely wasn't funny to me. They told me I was
| overreacting.
|
| Do you think that's because I enjoy using Linux and
| writing Python? Or do you think there could be a bit more
| than that going on?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| So you open up asking someone for their opinion, and in
| the next comment you dismiss it with "well you can't stop
| it".
|
| I'd rather not beat around the bush if you simply wanted
| to disagree with a user instead of pretending to seek out
| an alternative POV.
|
| >Should we mourn their technological predecessors or
| recognize we live in an ever-changing world we've only
| seen a small snapshot of?
|
| You can still buy vinyl records today that work in a
| phonograph made in the 60's. It is hard (but not
| impossible) to truly "kill off" old mediums. It
| definitely can't be done on the order of decades.
|
| No one's mourning the death of music, because music isn't
| dead. And you don't get to tell people how they should
| react and feel to media.
| Satam wrote:
| It was a rhetorical question. I can't force people to
| feel a certain way but I can certainly say that they're
| being overly dramatic.
|
| And right, exactly, none of these things are actually
| extinct yet, so why dramatize? And if at some point they
| die off, it won't be Apple that caused it. It will happen
| because people stop caring, practising and using the
| things in question.
| alt227 wrote:
| > so why dramatize?
|
| You dont have the right to tell other people how they
| should feel and react to things based on your own
| thoughts and opinions.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Actually, yes we do have the right to make fun of people
| who are acting overly dramatic.
|
| Its ironic, because you too are telling people how to act
| and feel, by telling them that they can't do that.
| maxbond wrote:
| "You have no right" here means you have no moral right,
| not a legal right. Yes, you have every right to make fun
| of people. But it is a jerk move. It's the prototypical
| jerk move.
|
| As for hypocrisy - if someone says, "you're acting like a
| jerk" and you say, "I have every right to make fun of
| you," you're not going to be able to convince me these
| are equivalent positions.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >yes we do have the right to make fun of people who are
| acting overly dramatic.
|
| Not on hacker news:
|
| >Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at
| the rest of the community.
|
| Dang isn't some overbearing dictator, but you'll find
| your time here short if the behavior continues.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
| of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith.
|
| >Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet
| tropes.
|
| We don't do that here, so I urge you to reconsider that
| approach next time.
| alt227 wrote:
| > Saying that is being overly dramatic.
|
| ...In your opinion.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| From a tech person POV the big difference is I buy a
| camera I can do what I want on it, I buy and iPad and
| have to pay Apple a tax for all computing that goes
| through it.
| danjoredd wrote:
| Tone deaf responses like this are a big reason why
| resentment is building towards Silicon Valley.
| conradfr wrote:
| Yes I'm amazed people care that much about an ad from
| <Megacorp> for their <very expensive device>.
|
| It has probably actually make the ad very successful.
| 23B1 wrote:
| THESE are the sort of comments I come to HN for, and I am
| just _drinking_ it up.
| danjoredd wrote:
| HN is great for news, but man it sometimes feels like I am
| browsing LinkedIn when I go to the comments. The cult of
| techno optimism and progress at all costs is strong here.
| It is entertaining, but man it is also depressing.
| pquki4 wrote:
| Do you play guitar or piano personally?
|
| If not, you are not going to understand the feelings here,
| whatever "objective" but useless words you write here.
|
| btw Devin is just a hoax. Look it up, and find better
| arguments in the future.
| lvnfg wrote:
| Imagine an ad for a virtual puppy game using hydraulic press
| to crush real dogs, showing closeup of twisted broken head
| and blood splashing on camera and all. Surely you can
| understand why most people can get very upset seeing that,
| and dog owners in particular can feel like their soul is
| being crushed?
|
| Well, artists and musicians can have as much emotional
| attachment to their tools as pet owners to their pets. To
| most people the ad is only slight disturbing, but to the
| artists (and the nostalgic) it's soul crushing. That's why
| Apple is apologizing: they've offended their core market.
| sneak wrote:
| I cannot fathom how one can compare crushing inanimate
| objects (commodity ones, at that) to murdering living
| things.
|
| Even then; we regularly celebrate movies in which human
| beings are depicted as having their brains splattered out
| of their heads (The Departed won best picture), so I'm not
| sure where the basis to complain about depicting even
| murder in video art comes from. Not everyone likes puppies;
| pretty much 100% of everyone loves at least some humans.
| lvnfg wrote:
| Sure. I'm not claiming that everyone must find the ad
| disturbing, just that the ones who do tend to feel much
| more strongly than those who don't, and their feelings
| tend to not to be dismissed as hyperbole by the general
| public. I chose puppies as example since many people love
| dogs, but you can just as easily substitute your favorite
| objects / animals here.
| bmitc wrote:
| I don't think one needs to be Japanese to be offended by that ad.
| Also, it's amazing at how accurate it is describing Apple's
| general corporate approach.
| ammo1662 wrote:
| They just apologize for not be able to express "users can
| express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad".
|
| They don't care about destroying those things.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Making and breaking a pile of props is a pretty normal
| consequence of filming something. The actions of the crew are
| not the problem.
| ammo1662 wrote:
| Yes, but it is the point what people complain about. This
| "apology" just ignore that.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I'd say it's the disrespect the ad shows that is the
| problem.
|
| But you're right that "missed the mark" is not really an
| apology for anything in particular.
| bagels wrote:
| I don't think one needs to be offended, it's a choice.
| bmitc wrote:
| Is less about being offended and more about having a negative
| emotional response, which is perfectly natural and often
| involuntary.
| amatecha wrote:
| Yeah, it's a hilarious mimicry of their own process: "recycle"
| (aka destroy) everyone's old tech and sell them the new version
| of the same thing. It's like the most direct/blatant depiction
| of the lifecycle of consumer tech I've ever seen.
| seydor wrote:
| Wow , pretty horrible ad, and not in a good way. Was it CGI or
| real ?
| gjjydfhgd wrote:
| It's pretty obvious it's real. Cheaper than CGI and better
| looking.
| laserbeam wrote:
| Probably a mix. The paint is likely real. The eye popping
| rubber ball emoji is likely CGI.
|
| Edit: I take that back. My money is on full CGI. I can't
| imagine how a brass trumpet would break when placed above an
| arcade with no physical deformation on the arcade below it.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _can 't imagine..._
|
| One way would be practical effects.
|
| Multiple items / layers filmed separately for controlled
| crushes, then combined in post.
| rpeden wrote:
| A trumpet is a lot weaker in that direction than you're
| assuming, and a plywood arcade cabinet is a lot stronger than
| you're giving it credit for.
|
| I'd be very surprised if a bunch of thin brass tubes
| transmitted enough for force to cause any deformation in an
| arcade cabinet when being crushed in that direction.
| Nition wrote:
| I thought it was clearly 100% CGI, but there certainly is a
| mixture of opinions here.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| If they would stop producing all those ads nobody would notice.
| o_m wrote:
| To me it was weird to see a company who tries to brand themselves
| as environment friendly destroy what seems to be perfectly fine
| objects, just for an ad. Even if it was CGI or if the objects
| were defected.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| Was it weird, though? Environmentally friendly branding for
| companies has never required a company to be environmentally
| friendly, it's almost always just about being fashionable and
| avoiding accountability.
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| You're just looking for things to feel emotional about now.
| "Even if it was CGI". That's really just leaning into an
| uncharitable interpretation for the sake of it.
| aredox wrote:
| Funny to see the difference between the comments here and the
| comments on this HN thread that was flagged:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40310893
| badcppdev wrote:
| I liked this comment from that thread:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40310941
|
| Linking to a reversed version of the Ad. Definitely making it
| better
| repelsteeltje wrote:
| So much better indeed!
|
| (Though this version of the ad won't persuade me either to
| buy an iPad)
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Your internal view of the brand is being changed or challenged.
| This causes a type of psychological stress. The iPad is only a
| machine but Apple the brand has carefully created a brand with
| emotions feeling and thoughts around it.
|
| People invest themselves in their ideas. the ad isn't concerning
| for what it does in the ad, but for how it is changing the
| internal feeling of the brand.
|
| It is like remembering when thinking about a car changed for you.
| From just a car as a kid to something else, something with more
| meaning. It's why all car adverts are about emotions.
| draugadrotten wrote:
| > It's why all car adverts are about emotions.
|
| This is my favourite emotional car ad -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sWPHKU1XZU
|
| Apple products does not inspire to such emotions, not anymore.
| The apple fans are not going to be waiting 20 years for poop
| emojis.
| Jordan-117 wrote:
| Deep Philosophical Video:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybZ9PVcf6X8
| gjjydfhgd wrote:
| Very insightful take.
|
| But the ad also caused me stress, and I own no Apple devices,
| nor am I a fan.
|
| So there must be more.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| hmm, thinking quickly, two things.
|
| Firstly the brand feelings exist even with people who don't
| own anything to do with the brand. Again with the cars, car
| adverts mainly seek to install sentiment in non car owners.
|
| Secondly, I think the ad "as art" on it's own is disturbing
| and menacing.
| XorNot wrote:
| I get how the creative team got here, but boy I'm surprised it
| aired: I would've thought you'd focus group something like this
| in the target market?
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Anyone know when was the last time Apple apologized for anything?
| thrownaway561 wrote:
| i don't get they need to apologize. I watched the ad and though
| it was very creative and the the squeezy ball at the end was
| funny. why is everyone getting so up in arms and offended by
| this? I guess this is our society now where people just look for
| things that they want to trigger and offend them.
| bjornsing wrote:
| Feels hard to imagine Steve Jobs tweeting this video... I guess
| the lesson is: it's very hard to preserve mission and vision
| without the visionary.
| amatecha wrote:
| I recently got a new iPhone. I'm picturing Steve Jobs yelling
| at this thing nearly every day. It's mind-blowing how poor the
| user experience has become compared to early versions of iOS!
| :\
| xattt wrote:
| "What the hell is this Vision Pro shit? Do people really want
| to be riding rollercoasters while they're taking a crap?"
|
| [1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/jobs-dismissed-ipad-
| mini...
| pquki4 wrote:
| Judging by the (assumed) sales number of iPad mini, Jobs
| was not really wrong. And actually iPad mini screen size is
| around 8 inches (with tiny texts already), 7-in would have
| been much worse. Well I have said too many useless words
| here.
| behnamoh wrote:
| At some point the companies just want to milk their
| customers. Nokia did it, but where is Nokia now?
| vundercind wrote:
| iOS 6 was peak user interface, especially for non-computer-
| geeks. It was _brilliant_. It's been downhill ever since.
| vertis wrote:
| Just load up a LLM with everything he ever wrote or said
| publicly and privately (*_*)
| supriyo-biswas wrote:
| I know your statement is sarcastic, but it's disturbing how
| common this sentiment actually is.
|
| It assumes that humans are unchanging, inflexible automata
| whose actions can be predicted entirely by what they have
| said or done, let alone that it doesn't consider the fact
| that they may simply be a facade. In reality, it is their
| unstated framework of thinking that guides their speech and
| actions.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| Marketing strategy nowadays is governed by market
| specialists and when the money is the only thing they
| value, it comes like that... There's no vision in money
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >it is their unstated framework of thinking that guides
| their speech and actions.
|
| oh don't worry, humanity will probably have BCI technology
| for that in 20 years. and maybe the rest of society in 40
| years.
|
| But yeah, I don't have anything original to say. You're
| right, but a lot of the powers that be are putting a lot of
| money into trying to convince society that we're ready to
| automate out 90+% of labor in all sectors. Creative or
| otherwise.
| rvense wrote:
| Eh, I only just realized that this idea is basically the
| character Dixie Flatline from Neuromancer.
| vertis wrote:
| I always thought Dixie Flatline was more a braindump than
| loading up all his "outputs"
| rvense wrote:
| Well, it was, but that's probably more because that's
| what seemed like the reasonable way to do it at the time.
| TillE wrote:
| I know it's silly to say "Steve Jobs would never...", but Steve
| did earnestly love music, it was a huge part of his
| personality. I absolutely think he would have found this ad
| distasteful.
| cess11 wrote:
| Have they done outrage advertising to get reach before? How about
| expressing ads in YouTube genres, is that a new thing for Apple?
| jaimex2 wrote:
| It's been ages since I've clicked on The Verge. Surprised its
| still around.
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| This is all really silly. Don't people have anything better to
| get upset about? I wish companies/Apple didn't cave every time a
| couple of people start crying.
|
| It must be really annoying to work in such industries, you spend
| a large amount of time making something and then have no idea if
| people will get upset about it or not.
| swores wrote:
| Nothing to do with the industry - it's marketing, it's designed
| to make people like the company/product more, and the very
| nature of marketing and people means that if you do a bad job
| it can have the opposite effect.
|
| This is just how marketing to humans is, and anyone creating a
| promo video for any type of product knows that the goal is to
| increase positive sentiment and the risk to try to avoid is
| increasing negative feelings instead.
| 23B1 wrote:
| Marketing is a corporate behavior that is tied to sales, brand
| equity, expansion, product innovation, and financial
| performance. Criticizing it is as legitimate as criticizing
| accounting practices or device capabilities.
| can16358p wrote:
| This ad is a perfect example of the fact that if people want to
| get offended, they will literally get offended by anything: an
| ad, a color of something, a made-up pronoun not being present
| in a list, or anything else.
| self_awareness wrote:
| I think the ad is great and funny.
|
| It says: you don't need those anymore. Just buy the iPad. Look at
| all this space you'll save. All the items you won't need to buy.
| Minimalism, utility, fun.
|
| I think people who get offended by seeing objects being destroyed
| are being hyper-hypocritical, because I bet you all replace your
| phones every few years, replace your cars every few years,
| replace all of your stuff even if the older versions work fine.
| But here you get offended. Take a good look in the mirror is all
| I can say.
| tiagod wrote:
| We all know what the ad is supposedly saying. But there's
| something called context. This add doesn't exist in isolation.
|
| In my view, is not offensive due to the destruction of the
| objects, but by the deeper meaning of crushing the cultural
| representations of human creativity with this machine.
| self_awareness wrote:
| The ad literaly presents a better way to express creativity
| (according to Apple). How would anyone can think it tries to
| crush it? I wouldn't use the word "deep" in your example, but
| rather "shallow".
|
| Also, everything can be offensive if you dig deep enough.
|
| And if you dig really deep, then even knowledge will start
| looking as only faith.
| guappa wrote:
| > I bet you all replace
|
| Yeah, AFTER they stop working, not when they are perfectly good
| :)
| gizajob wrote:
| This would never have happened on Steve's watch.
| zython wrote:
| If you play it in reverse it works much better while
| simultaneously being more or less still the same commercial.
| joduplessis wrote:
| I just found it a bit lacklustre & uninspired.
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| Maybe it was all done on an iPad after they crushed all their
| creative tools?
| advael wrote:
| I think Apple and many other tech companies are still trying to
| brand themselves as mavericks who are upending a stuffy
| establishment, a mythology which is exemplified well by ads like
| this. I think the gaucheness of it was very intentional, and
| exactly the kind of provocative boasting that appealed to a
| certain kind of young, counterculturally-inclined creative people
| when Apple was first running ads on TV
|
| I think when you're a trillion dollar company, one of the major
| players in an industry that has very much become The
| Establishment, and are speaking to artists for whom technology
| companies - and Apple in particular - have been constantly
| "innovating" in ways to decrease their share of the fruits of
| their labor for the last twenty years, and the last 3 or so have
| been a constant news blitz of smug techbros claiming all
| creatives should accept whatever scraps they can get because
| they're about to be replaced by ML models that are from their
| perspective sophisticated stochastic plagiarism bots that seem to
| frame the entire premise of releasing your work online as the
| setup for a long con... Yea, maybe it's gonna read as a bit
| tonedeaf
| tecleandor wrote:
| They missed the opportunity of, instead of destroying everything,
| "compressing" it all in an iPad to show "all the things that you
| can fit inside that tiny device" or something like that. The
| destruction seemed pointless.
| Hamuko wrote:
| What? They are quite literally compressing those things in the
| video. And if you apply compressive force to a bunch of objects
| using a massive press, the objects would obviously get
| destroyed.
| tonylemesmer wrote:
| I take tecleandor's comment to mean "metaphorically"
| compressing rather than actually doing it.
| Hamuko wrote:
| But they are metaphorically compressing them. If you put a
| grand piano under a hydraulic press, it doesn't turn into
| an iPad at the end like it does in the ad.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| If you're being serious, I guess that shows how this
| could have passed review without anyone going "hang on,
| is this ad really saying what we want it to be
| saying...?"
| carstenhag wrote:
| Compressing in software terms means it doesn't get
| destroyed. Just compacted. You can uncompress it and it
| gets restored, maybe with a small loss. In the ad, the
| furniture etc was completely destroyed.
| jprete wrote:
| The metaphor is compression, the visual is crushing. An
| actual destructive action doesn't work as a metaphor for an
| imagined conserving action, the connotations of each are
| almost entirely at odds with each other. The best reason to
| do it is probably to make the audience deeply uncomfortable,
| which works if you're making a movie but is maybe not so good
| for ads.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _If you apply compressive force to a bunch of objects using
| a massive press, the objects would obviously get destroyed._
|
| But in being destroyed turn into a diamond, and diamonds are
| forever?
| planede wrote:
| It's obviously a lossy compression then.
| kuschku wrote:
| Yeah, I would have done it kind of like a puzzle.
|
| You show the frame of an ipad, without the insides or the glass
| on front. But it's actually giant.
|
| A person playing a gameboy puts it into this frame. An artist
| puts their color pallette in, too. Many people come out,
| putting more and more into this frame.
|
| A robotic arm puts a sheet of glass ontop of it, but you can
| still see the contents.
|
| An animation plays from bottom to top, displaying the iPad UI
| and covering up the items previously visible. In the spots
| where the individual items were, the iPad UI shows matching
| apps now.
|
| Same message, but without the disrespect.
| Grimeton wrote:
| Apple a company, that:
|
| - spies on you while telling you they protect your privacy
|
| - removes feature after feature from their devices, telling you
| that you want this and that it's better w/o it for you
|
| - locks you in more and more controlling every aspect from
| hardware to software to development environment and the store
|
| - acts in bad faith every time someone threatens that fenced
| garden
|
| And you people worry about an ad that just tries to justify why
| 50 bucks in hardware have to cost 1000+ dollars?
| hoc wrote:
| "The only problem with Apple..."
| sunshinerag wrote:
| Who would you give as an example of taste. Microsoft?
| hoc wrote:
| Why Microsoft?
|
| Belt holsters in future Apple keynotes just do not seem that
| impossible anymore.
|
| (Phone holsters, of course.)
| stuaxo wrote:
| Someone made a reversed version and it works well (it's the only
| version I've seen)... yeah, crushing musical instruments just
| comes across as needlessly destructive.
| Mtinie wrote:
| I had not considered that option, thank you for sharing that
| someone had.
|
| Conceptually it makes a lot more sense in reverse.
|
| "Look at every type of creative tool and instrument *contained*
| within this thin iPad" is inspiring.
|
| "Look at how we've crushed all these creative tools and
| instruments" is decidedly not.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| iPad rests on table. Kid/Teen/le artist sits down and touches
| the screen. iPad explodes into stage of "creative
| instruments", le artist is le jamming. Cut to title card.
| Mtinie wrote:
| Exactly! Promote it as a modern day, virtual "Bag of
| Holding" and you win over the table top gamers, too. :)
| HPsquared wrote:
| Someone made a nice reversed version:
|
| https://youtu.be/XYB6JJoDSuk
| fetzu wrote:
| Yes, this version would have been so much more positive and I
| can picture someone pitching it during a meeting and just being
| shutdown because << you have to end with the product, not start
| with it. >>
| sourabhv wrote:
| Yeah the add shows off iPad as something more than it probably
| is. I don't like the destruction part but meh... to me the ad
| speaks nothing special or wow except the exploding paint buckets,
| which was fun. But there is nothing to apologize for. Its an ad,
| they are not coming into your home and breaking your piano and
| guitars, chill. Don't like it? Don't buy it.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| People _aren 't_ buying iPads (at least not as much as iPhones,
| Macs and Watches), that's exactly the problem (for them) that
| they're trying to solve.
| g3z wrote:
| Maybe it's a sign that I am approaching 40s but who got offended
| by that, come on, it's just an ad
| lionkor wrote:
| I like it. You throw away all your hard-earned, expensive
| instruments, tools, and crush them to be sure. You then go buy an
| iPad, and the circle is complete: You're now a next-generation
| Apple consumer! Just turn on YouTube kids and watch slime videos
| for the rest of your life.
|
| Reject culture, consume the slop.
| xyst wrote:
| Join the Apple ~~~jail~~~ ecosystem, or die.
| baq wrote:
| Still less dystopian than the vision pro with a dad running
| around his kids with a walled-garden-camera-helmet.
|
| Once may have been a mistake, twice means there's some
| psychopath marketing VP at the helm OR a joker trying to see
| far they can go before somebody actually watches ads they're
| doing before they go live.
| amelius wrote:
| Twice means this is really the company vision, not just a bad
| marketing officer.
| chongli wrote:
| There is no vision. All I've seen from Apple since Steve
| died is continued momentum in the same direction.
| k7sune wrote:
| "What's a computer?" Should count as one too. But back then
| we just scoffed at the idea that an iPad can replace a
| computer. Now somehow we are offended or even terrified by
| the same absurdity that an iPad can replace a real musical
| instrument.
| portaouflop wrote:
| I am both offended and terrified at the idea that an iPad
| should replace my computer
| z500 wrote:
| I feel like people were very much offended by the "what's a
| computer" ad too, at least on Reddit.
| infecto wrote:
| "psychopath marketing VP" - how do you build such a
| narrative?
| morbicer wrote:
| Psychopath? Perhaps a stretch. Soulless? Absolutely.
| Probably not just VP but whole department if no one raised
| the voice and said guys, maybe people won't vibe with this.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I think there is a third option. Deliberate outrage.
|
| People yelling at each other on twitter over your ad is free
| marketing. Tons of it.
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| I was giving them the slight benefit of the doubt for that
| one, the VP can consume 3D photos and they hadn't released
| the new iPhone that can take those photos, so it was more of
| a derived situation to get the plot to "you can rewatch
| rewarding 3D movies you took".
|
| I do agree the test marketing groups are not providing good
| feedback about secondary interpretations...
| mc32 wrote:
| Apple is too skittish.
|
| There's no reason to apologize. It's taking the 'crushing
| carbon into diamonds metaphor' and using it for their product.
|
| In the beginning it looks over the top, 'ultra violent', but
| then it becomes a metaphor for how they view their product.
|
| Now, sure, it's preposterous to think that this diamond of a
| thing can be as good as all the real objects it replaces, but
| that's advertising.
| achrono wrote:
| Even if so, that metaphor was not executed faithfully, and
| for a company like Apple that is bad.
|
| But more so there is an unmistakeable 'destruction is cute'
| aspect to the ad that is uncalled for, that is what the
| reaction is toward.
| mc32 wrote:
| I don't know that it's bad. I think it's a fringe minority
| that think it's bad. You're always going to have people who
| dislike these kinds of ads.
|
| To me it's more a metamorphosis rather than
| authoritarianistic crushing of the spirit.
|
| Lots of Super Bowl ads are of the 'stupid, dumb, frat/soro'
| variety. Some are a hit, some are duds.
|
| Maybe they tried being to clever by half. Let the ad run
| out; no need to apologize though.
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| I don't know whether they have a reason to apologise or not.
| But... this ad is not doing what they wanted it to do. It's
| too heavy handed, it's too weak in its value proposition.
| It's just a bad ad. Compare it to the original introduction
| of the iPhone. Jobs just stated "we build a new phone, a new
| iPod and a new ?calendar?" [0] repeated that 5 times and
| asked "Do you get it?". The (implicit) statement was "you
| won't need any of those again". This message is what they
| aimed for with that ad. But instead of the (admittedly
| arrogant) prediction "YOU won't want any of those anymore",
| they went for "you can't use the other stuff anymore" [1].
| And that just makes them look far, far weaker than e.g. the
| iPhone intro
|
| [0] not sure about the last one [1] In German we'd say
| "alternativeless", which has a nice set of negative
| connotations nowadays
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > In German we'd say "alternativeless"
|
| Out of curiosity, what's the actual German word? (Or is
| that the actual word?)
| portaouflop wrote:
| alternativlos
| hydroreadsstuff wrote:
| If that was the intend an animation that doesn't literally
| crush things would have worked much better. Let it fall into
| a black hole and let an iPad emerge or whatever. The dramatic
| effect of a hydraulic press adds nothing positive.
| jasoneckert wrote:
| I thought Apple did a great job of providing an ad that makes a
| bold statement (which is the ultimate goal of advertising).
|
| In other words, I think Apple crushed it (pun intended).
| wrasee wrote:
| Did you watch the announcement event where on introducing the
| ad John Ternus made the same pun?
| pquki4 wrote:
| What's the bold statement? Throw away all those things, get
| an iPad instead which can "do everything" and is thinner?
|
| I thought everyone could see the absurdity in there?
|
| For me personally, crushing an upright piano is like Apple
| showing a middle finger to anyone who plays on a real piano.
| bingbingbing777 wrote:
| Apple should go back to the ads where the bold statement is
| generic upbeat envato elements music and the only new feature
| in their new products: phone colors
| the-grump wrote:
| We should be commending the honesty!
| llm_trw wrote:
| >Reject culture, consume the slop.
|
| Culture from the last 20 years has been the slop and the people
| complaining loudest here have been making the sloppiest slop of
| all.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > Culture from the last 20 years has been the slop and the
| people complaining loudest here have been making the
| sloppiest slop of all.
|
| 10 years, I would say. It went downhill somewhere around
| 2015-2016, imo.
| azemetre wrote:
| It feels like this is the turning point when corporate
| social media giants found out that anger/depression are the
| easiest ways to increase engagement.
| Clubber wrote:
| >It feels like this is the turning point when corporate
| social media giants found out that anger/depression are
| the easiest ways to increase engagement.
|
| Rush Limbaugh figured this out in the 80s. He made lots
| of money and everyone followed suit.
| jader201 wrote:
| Maybe you're younger than I am, but I definitely feel like
| the introduction of the smart phone -- and the iPhone on
| particular -- was when things started to decline steeply.
| ziddoap wrote:
| Out of curiosity, why do you say the iPhone in
| particular? I think smart phone ubiquity, regardless of
| smart phone choice, is what has led to significant
| cultural changes (some positive, many negative). But I
| can't really think of a reason why the iPhone should get
| more blame than the Galaxy's and whatever other smart
| phones are out there.
| jader201 wrote:
| I guess I feel that the iPhone was the innovator for a
| lot of things that are in use today, ultimately leading
| to the cultural fall.
|
| For sure, today the iPhone is no more to blame than other
| smartphones. But the iPhone lead the charge, IMO.
|
| And FWIW, I've only owned iPhones, so it's not like I'm
| anti-iPhone. But perhaps I have unfair bias and am giving
| too much credit to Apple.
|
| But just like this ad reinforces, I feel like their goal
| from the beginning was to replace these devices,
| destroying much of the culture that we used to know.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Smart phones were good until new age social networks,
| imo. Instagram, Tinder, new Facebook, new Vkontakte, etc.
| is where it went downhill.
| xd1936 wrote:
| Don't forget to take your ibuprofen.
| arnaudsm wrote:
| I bet they were about to release a behind the scenes video to
| brag how they did everything practically with no CGI
| endisneigh wrote:
| Man, people get offended about everything these days.
| 7thpower wrote:
| Yes. I am questioning whether I have some emotional deficiency
| because I just don't get why people are reading so far into it
| and, to me, it perfectly encapsulates how people are constantly
| looking for something to be offended by.
|
| I thought the ad was bad, but for different reasons. The ads
| and presentation have become so over produced that it feels
| like some giant inside joke for a company that is out of touch.
| I think their culture has mostly become (or maybe always was)
| sniffing each others farts and telling them how great that last
| one was.
|
| So I suppose it is somewhat ironic in the sense that I imagine
| their own leadership are the most likely to be offended by the
| symbolism in the first place.
|
| Anyway I can't wait for the M4 MacBooks. Take my money, Tim.
| LASR wrote:
| Yeah what was that ad even.
|
| I am not a creative. But I do play the piano from time to time.
| It's an old 15 year old Roland electric piano. I wouldn't like to
| see it crushed. Even if it is obsolete. I bet a lot of actual
| creatives do have sentimental values attached to their tools.
|
| Destroying things needlessly is very much off brand for Apple.
| benrutter wrote:
| When I watch the trailer, it feels very cringe.
|
| I can absolutely see what they're going for- something like
| "you're iPad contains the power of all these cultural tools", but
| visually that connection isn't there. It just looks like "Hooray!
| Culture has been destroyed, now there is only iPad!"
| passion__desire wrote:
| I took the message that all that culture is now available in an
| even slimmer form factor. This is the problem with art.
| Unambiguous messaging is impossible as one casts a wider net of
| interpretation
| benrutter wrote:
| Very true- I wonder if the prevailing interpretation would be
| different if this was 20 years ago. The destruction of all
| those tools would probably have a much more "punk rock"
| interpretation from people if Apple weren't the megacorp they
| are today.
| bitlevel wrote:
| I found it super ironic how they blathered on about all of
| the recycling going on in their products, then blatently
| show all those items being destroyed when they could
| clearly be recycled.
|
| I do think that the 'rendered' idea was the best - almost
| thinking differently, or something...:S
| gizmo wrote:
| It's an animation of items being destroyed. It's very
| fake and Apple used an exaggerated cartoon style
| animation so it couldn't get mistaken for reality.
|
| It's like getting mad at road runner for dropping a piano
| on Wile E Coyote.
| hu3 wrote:
| I think real instruments were destroyed. Am I wrong?
| tpmoney wrote:
| I wouldn't think most (if any of it) was real. At the
| most I'd expect they were destructive props in the same
| way the table with the legs sawn to break in the just the
| right way for a movie stunt is a "real" table, but not a
| "real table".
| hu3 wrote:
| Interestingly, Nitendo did it before:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzAo9HzOgtQ
| gizmo wrote:
| Yes, you're wrong. The giant hydraulic press from the ad
| doesn't exist.
| hu3 wrote:
| The giant press might be CGI. But some closeups look
| real.
|
| Like the paint cans exploding over the piano:
|
| https://youtu.be/ntjkwIXWtrc?si=N6QWwagucRyKp40P&t=20
| gizmo wrote:
| I'm sorry but that looks 100% fake. Liquids are not
| compressible. The hollow piano would give in first.
| Nition wrote:
| I'm pretty certain it's 100% CGI.
|
| As the other comment says, the cans would never crush
| flat before the piano starts to deform at all. Then when
| the front of the piano comes open, a pile of all the
| dampers just falls out, despite that area not being
| touched yet. It's all done to look exciting but not
| realistic.
| LtWorf wrote:
| Source?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Yes. Why in the world would a director use practical
| effects for something like this?
|
| The CG isn't even that good. It looks like something out
| of DALL-E.
|
| It calls to mind yet another way in which the ad could
| have been crafted to communicate without controversy or
| offense -- the instruments could have been more obviously
| cartoons.
| hu3 wrote:
| > Why in the world would a director use practical effects
| for something like this?
|
| Why wouldn't them? It might be cheaper and more realistic
| for this scene.
|
| The giant press might be CGI. But some closeups look
| real. Like the paint cans exploding over the piano:
|
| https://youtu.be/ntjkwIXWtrc?si=N6QWwagucRyKp40P&t=20
|
| If you got a source please share.
| mulmen wrote:
| Most of it appears to be fake to me. It has a very
| generative AI feel.
| skywhopper wrote:
| It's not about the actual instruments that probably
| weren't actually destroyed to make the ad. No one is mad
| about that. The visual of instruments being pointlessly
| destroyed can be viscerally upsetting. Just because you
| have no emotional attachment to such objects doesn't mean
| other people do not.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| There's nothing anti-establishment on the commercial. They
| need some minimal amount of punk if they want a "punk rock"
| aesthetic.
|
| All that is there is a megacorp stealing a previously
| popular (comical) format, to show people's culture being
| (quite forcefully) transformed into establishment. The
| commercial is repulsively anti-punk.
| drak0n1c wrote:
| 20 years ago there were healthier vestiges of traditional
| arts and culture across society - it's easy not to
| appreciate or miss things until they're gone.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| > This is the problem with art.
|
| Sorry, but this polished piece of corporate messaging is
| anything but art. It's at best shiny kitsch.
| ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
| 1. It's not a problem, it's the point.
|
| 2. It looks like you're implying the ad is somehow a piece of
| art. It's not, it's an ad.
| least wrote:
| Why does something being an ad prevent it from being art?
| ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
| Advertisement serves a specific purpose: promoting a
| product/service. A piece of art can't have any such
| motivations behind it by definition.
| least wrote:
| By whose definition? Art is creative expression and
| there's no qualifiers in standard definitions to exclude
| work that is used to promote something else.
|
| I'd say flyers for shows are art. or movie posters. or
| book covers, for that matter. Or trailer music? corporate
| jingles? They're all art.
| bingbingbing777 wrote:
| It's not art, it's an advertisement.
| latexr wrote:
| I'm not saying this ad was art, but art and advertisement
| aren't mutually exclusive.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell's_Soup_Cans
| bingbingbing777 wrote:
| That's not an advertisement. Irrelevant.
| antonyt wrote:
| I hate ads, but I'm struggling to understand how
| something being an ad disqualifies it from being art.
| Advertising is a creative human endeavor. Ads are
| designed to make you feel something, just like art.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| At their core, their for commercial/promotional purposes.
| Ads are inherently meant to drive consumerism, where as
| art is not.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Some ads clearly are art. Speaking of Apple, their 1984
| ad was very much a work of art. Things can have more than
| one meaning and purpose.
| seti0Cha wrote:
| The romantic ideal is that art is not about consumption,
| but the reality, both historically and currently, is that
| art objects are by and large made to be bought and sold.
| If you disqualify all works meant for consumption, you
| would have very little left that we currently recognize
| as art.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _romantic ideal is that art is not about consumption_
|
| I believe this comes from the Church having been a major
| sponsor of art in the West for centuries.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_art
|
| There are a long list of arts with adjectives in front of
| them. commercial art, applied art, fine art, etc...they
| aren't art just because you have co-opted art to mean
| only fine art. Also see:
|
| https://miguelcamarena.com/blogs/news/fine-art-vs-
| commercial...
| firebat45 wrote:
| Plenty of artists make art for commercial purposes. In
| fact, that's kind of the dividing line between
| "professional" and "amateur" artist.
| splatzone wrote:
| Ads can absolutely be art though - consider the poster
| for Le Chat Noir. Millions of art prints sold
|
| https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/prints/person/42321/le-
| chat-...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Everything is art. You can't do something that isn't.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Advertisement is art, by almost every definition of art. Of
| course, it might not be fine art, but there is plenty of
| art that isn't.
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| I think everybody agrees that that was the _intended_
| message. But it's a forced transition. At the end of the ad
| there is _just_ an iPad. It's not as if the user has any
| choice now. And that makes the ad very weak. Why is Apple
| even going into the destruction business? They are supposed
| to be a creative (creating?) company, if it were an Lockheed
| Martin ad it would have fit ;)
| mattnewton wrote:
| I think the mark of a good ad is that you can turn the music
| off and most people will get the message. The imagery of
| destroying the things is the problem, if you turn the music
| off you really don't know how you are supposed to feel about
| this. Apple conveyed similar messages before with animations
| that did not destroy the underlying album arts, just shrunk
| them into an iPod. It would hit very different if they
| crushed a bunch of music paraphernalia people got a lot of
| enjoyment out of.
| mulmen wrote:
| What if they crushed a stack of unsold Songs of Innocence
| albums?
| password54321 wrote:
| That was obviously the point. It was about compression not
| destruction.
| sangnoir wrote:
| I'm not so sure about that; the emoji with the eyeballs
| squeezed out of their sockets didn't exactly scream
| "compression" to me. It felt like they were aiming for over
| the top cartoonish destruction - but destruction
| nonetheless.
| passion__desire wrote:
| Maybe they took inspiration from hydraulic press and Will
| It Blend channels
| skywhopper wrote:
| The ad clearly didn't communicate that message to a huge
| portion of its audience. There's plenty of us who can see the
| intent but still don't like the ad. There are so many other
| ways to communicate that message in a more effective way.
| adverbly wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| Its not Apple's style, but they could have opened the ad with
| some cringe fake scientists discussing how to shrink and/or
| combine and/or smush music, books, art, etc together. And then
| at the end show them excitedly rushing to the IPad as if
| they've solved everything.
| mulmen wrote:
| So an Aperture Labs reference? They could have Chell pick up
| the iPad and throw it at a screen of Cave Johnson's
| motivational speech. Then it could bounce off without causing
| damage, showing how lightweight it is, and who it truly
| serves.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > So an Aperture Labs reference?
|
| It might seem that way to people of a certain age, but thw
| "humorously inadvisable science" trope is _wayyy_ older.
| password54321 wrote:
| I really hope you don't celebrate AI generators then because
| that is actually set out to destroy culture and tools.
| chefkd wrote:
| Where I'm from they said the phone was the devil it's a
| totally valid and human reaction to change. Change is almost
| always violent
| password54321 wrote:
| This doesn't tell me anything and I literally have a
| masters in AI.
| whydid wrote:
| It has the vibe of something made by a team who have never
| created only for the pure love of art.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Hahahaha you've never worked in ad creative have you? It's
| full of people who have been crushed by their inability to
| support themselves making pure art.
|
| This ad makes perfect sense from that perspective.
| atmosx wrote:
| Okay, Zappa is a bit defeatist although what he says is true, I
| don't think it's that bad... But here it is:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88zvm7-fhKo (Frank Zappa on
| American culture)
| jeremyjh wrote:
| Frankly it's bizarre. He was a fantastic rock musician who
| seemed to forget where delta blues, jazz, bluegrass comes
| from. They drew on older traditions but were distinctly
| American culture. Maybe his point was really that it's not
| _popular_ culture but you can criticize any country's pop
| culture.
|
| edit: I'm surprised at the downvote. I'm a huge Zappa fan. I
| know that he was into many kinds of music. That is why I find
| it strange that he doesn't even consider the rich tradition
| of American folk music to be part of our culture.
|
| So which is it, am I wrong that he was a great musician? Am I
| wrong about the rich tradition of American folk music? Am I
| wrong about pop culture in other countries? Is it because I
| didn't mention country music?
| jacobgkau wrote:
| I didn't downvote you (just upvoted, since you got me to
| stop and pay attention to that parent comment).
|
| I understand and agree with your point that certain genres
| of music have significantly evolved, if not been entirely
| created in, the US, and that it's weird for a professional
| musician to take the stance that that isn't the case.
|
| At the same time, I've often thought similar things to what
| Frank Zappa said (despite never hearing/reading that
| interview before, or knowing much about him at all). I
| often think about how a lot of the
| social/racial/religious/etc unrest we have going on in the
| US is because we have no national identity. We are a
| melting pot, but we're also _just_ a melting pot.
|
| Similar to convincing people to stop perpetuating racial
| issues in the US, when race used to be connected with
| nationality (and still is in some places)-- or convincing
| people to stop raking modern-day Americans over the coals
| for people 250 years ago taking the land from Native
| Americans-- it's going to be difficult to convince people
| to draw a line at a point in time where we stopped
| "stealing" or "being influenced by" other countries' music
| and started legitimately creating our own. It will simply
| never have been "from scratch," and people will either
| figure out how to accept that and (critically) move on at
| some point, or they'll keep being upset about it for
| eternity and we'll keep tearing ourselves apart.
| gizmo wrote:
| I don't understand the outrage. It's cgi, and very obvious cgi at
| that. The items bend and explode in an exaggerated cartoon
| fashion.
|
| It's whimsical. No instruments have been destroyed. No actual
| paint has been spilled. We don't get mad at destruction in a
| pixar movie. We cheer when rock stars smash their actual guitars
| after a live performance. We don't live in a culture that abhors
| destruction.
|
| Do people just not recognize CGI? Is that's what's happening
| here?
| n1b0m wrote:
| It's not about the CGI, but the sentiment it expresses. Hugh
| Grant summed it up well: "The destruction of the human
| experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley."
| gizmo wrote:
| But that's not what I see! What I see is a beautifully
| crafted CGI animation that passionate people worked super
| hard on. The ad is technically very well done and the music
| suits it perfectly. And the message is about tech as a
| product for creative expression as opposed to content
| consumption.
|
| The ad isn't _about_ destruction just because it _features_
| destruction. We don 't apply this standard to movies, books,
| or any other creative work.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| > We cheer when rock stars smash their actual guitars after a
| live performance.
|
| speak for yourself. also, see the flurry of comments elsewhere
| in the thread about the irrelevance of CGI to the message being
| sent
| gizmo wrote:
| Audiences do, in fact, cheer when a rock star smashes his
| guitar.
|
| And _for me_ it does matter it 's CGI. Because actual
| destruction is not the same as simulated destruction. Cartoon
| violence can be funny but real violence never is.
| rocketvole wrote:
| The outrage is that supposed culture is being destroyed and
| turned into a soulless apple device. Apple implies that you can
| replace all the things with the ipad, which isn't true- you
| can't perfectly emulate a trumpet, for example. All in all a
| dystopian take
| gr4vityWall wrote:
| I don't understand it either. I do creative writing, and it
| didn't shock me or made me feel bad. I thought the ad was meant
| to show what kind of CGI you could make with an iPad.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Having watched a whole bunch of hydraulic press content, it
| didn't stand out as particularly unreal. Books for instance
| violently explode when compressed.
| wwilim wrote:
| If they had just replaced the crushing with CGI cartoonish
| squeezing and flattening, it would have been all good
| croes wrote:
| The spot is a copy of a LG spot from 2008
|
| https://twitter.com/asallen/status/1788428991118164356
| mikewarot wrote:
| Without Hanna and Lauri, you can't have a good hydraulic press
| moment.
|
| It was obvious from the moment it started that it was CGI, so...
| no actual destruction occurred. Rewatching it, it seems rather
| random, like they wanted cinematographic moments, without any
| actual narrative. It was designed to be forgettable. Not a good
| use of marketing budget.
| exodust wrote:
| Actual destruction isn't relevant. The idea of destroying
| musical instruments because a new iPad is in town, is jarring.
| The ad lingers on pointless destruction. Why not spend the time
| showing the new iPad? It's sad when advertising is stuck so far
| up its own clever-hole, it loses grip on reality.
|
| Edit: I just watched it again. It's definitely not obvious CGI,
| not sure how you can say that. Camera lenses shattering, paint
| spilling, wood splintering realistically.
| mikewarot wrote:
| The press itself is ridiculous, you can't have two skinny
| cylinders like that pressing out a platen that wide and
| expect to get any reasonable forces. Maybe it's too much time
| watching the limitations of the 150 ton press, but it all
| just seemed like someone's idea of what a press is, instead
| of an actual press... in hyper-real cgi.
| zarzavat wrote:
| It certainly was not obvious to me that it's CGI, I had to go
| back and check after reading your comment, and from what I've
| seen online most people think it's real.
|
| If their intention was to communicate that it's CGI then that
| was an abject failure.
| Havoc wrote:
| I do like that they did a simple apology. Most corporates these
| days will go out of their way with Weasley corporate speak to
| avoid saying as much
| dguest wrote:
| Did they pull the add?
| hartator wrote:
| I think the part that was really upsetting is they crushed real
| good objects. After all of that talks about climate friendly.
| They could have crushed 3D renderings and up the clip with
| "rendered on iPad. No harm was done on real objects." And that
| would have been a good ad.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"And that would have been a good ad."
|
| No it would not. It would still be as disgusting as it is now.
| alt227 wrote:
| > No it would not. It would still be as disgusting as it is
| now.
|
| For me the disgust was purely in waste of perfectly good
| items. Those instruments could have provided a whole music
| department for a struggling school or youth center. The paint
| could have even been used to brighten the place up.
|
| But No, Apple just squashed it all to show off.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"For me the disgust was purely in waste of perfectly good
| items."
|
| For me it is in your face ruthless "fuck you and what you
| do, submit to us" nature of the ad. We are different
| people.
| SlightlyLeftPad wrote:
| How do you feel about the thousands of hours hydraulic
| press youtube videos each with millions of views?
| alt227 wrote:
| They are not created by a trillion dollar company as
| advertising to sell more product.
| labcomputer wrote:
| So it's ok merely because the creator makes less money by
| doing it? Because, make no mistake, the hydraulic press
| channel does it for the money.
| SlightlyLeftPad wrote:
| I feel like the reactions here are selective outrage.
| Real objects and sometimes living organisms are created
| and destroyed in the name of science every minute of
| every day.
|
| An ad that was likely done in a single take, let's be
| real, doesn't matter at all in the big picture.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| Luckily, I haven't bumped into anything like that yet.
| Watching one of these would probably make me feel
| physically sick.
|
| I've turned away from favorite bands in the past whenever
| I'd find out they habitually destroyed musical
| instruments on stage.
| lxgr wrote:
| Do you have the same reaction to musicians destroying their
| instruments after a performance? If not, why not?
| least wrote:
| I find this to be in poor taste too, and I used to go to
| a lot of punk shows.
|
| ...but really, it's not punk rockers slamming their
| guitars on the stage and destroying them; they can't
| afford to.
|
| I suppose that it's destruction of the material to
| advance the immaterial (the performance itself) but it's
| still self indulgent and wasteful.
| yokoprime wrote:
| Why? I don't understand how this ad triggers emotions beyond
| the waste of physical objects
| pja wrote:
| Because it destroys the tools of art by crushing them into
| a featureless grey rectangle.
|
| Which is a little on the nose for the way artists are
| feeling right now...
| williamcotton wrote:
| I'm an artist and I feel great. As a singer-songwriter
| I've already come to terms with Swedish mega-producers,
| drum machines, Live Nation, and whatever drives people to
| consume corporate music.
|
| What exactly makes things any harder for artists than it
| has ever been? Was there some glorious moment in the past
| when people didn't look down at the average poets for
| being lazy and useless?
|
| Sure, laud the best of the best, but you know for a fact
| that you've thought it a bad decision for someone you
| know who isn't gifted with genius level talent to pursue
| a career in the arts.
|
| It has never been easy.
|
| Frankly, if AI makes a pop song or if Lana Del Ray's
| producers make a pop song, it really is no different to
| me. No one is going to replace the folk singer because
| the audience is already selecting for the _poet_ , not
| the product. Who cares what frat bros are chugging beer
| to?
|
| Is part of the response to this ad the subconscious
| realization that one doesn't make or actively appreciate
| organic art to begin with?
|
| When was the last time most of us went to an open mic? Or
| bought a painting from a local artist?
| matwood wrote:
| Many tools can be used for art, even the featureless grey
| rectangle. Your attitude feels a lot like gatekeeping to
| me similar to when cameras replaced paintings, then
| digital replaced film, then phones replaced big bodies,
| etc...
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| For whatever reason I feel compelled to share my initial
| reaction to this comment:
|
| Just because you managed to use "tool of art" as a
| literal phrase doesn't make your point more clear. Why
| should I care if a couple of these pieces are destroyed.
| Presumably they didn't destroy anything of historical,
| cultural, personal, or scarce significance. Are you sure
| you're not making an argument based _only_ in emotions?
| FpUser wrote:
| >"I don't understand..."
|
| You do not have to. To me the feeling was kind of visceral.
| I usually do not have habit of analyzing my feelings. But
| ok, I'll try. It feels like an ugly imbecile walking into
| art museum, crushing everything around and saying: what a
| useless piece of shit, here, use this brick instead.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> I think the part that was really upsetting is they crushed
| real good objects. After all of that talks about climate
| friendly._
|
| Considering how much global e-waste and environmental damage,
| companies like Apple(and others of their size) are responsible
| for with their products, destroying a few objects for an ad is
| like spitting in the ocean in the scheme of things.
|
| People complaining about the waste generated from this ad, are
| really missing the big picture, and is one of the reason
| companies like Apple mostly focus on posturing the image of
| climate friendliness and environmental sustainability, rather
| than actually enforcing it across their entire supply chain
| where it actually makes the big difference.
|
| _" Sure, the minerals in our devices are mined by kids in
| Congo with chemicals dangerous for the environment, and
| assembled by workers in sweatshop factories with suicide nets,
| but our posh donut-shaped HQ in Cupertino runs on 100%
| renewables and serves only vegan food with soy lattes, that's
| how environmentally conscious we are here at Hooli."_
| </gavin_belson.jpg>
|
| ^Because this greenwashing is what people buy into from
| advertising.
|
| Reminds me when Formula 1 switched form V10 engines to hybrid
| V6 to be more "environmentally friendly", when actually, the
| gas burned by those V10 engines during races only accounted for
| <0,2% of the total emissions, being far offset by the massive
| emissions of transporting that entire circus around the planet
| bouncing across continents all year round, yet nobody addressed
| that, just the engines for some cheap greenwashing.
| typeofhuman wrote:
| For real, if Apple actually cared about the environment
| they'd release new models every several years instead of
| several times yearly.
|
| They'd allow you to upgrade the RAM in your MacBook instead
| having to replace the ENTIRE machine!
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| Devil's advocate: RAM on SOCs is not upgradable due to
| technical limitations on frequency and latency needing the
| RAM chips to be as close as possible to the CPU. You can't
| beat physics.
|
| I do hold them accountable for the non-upgradable SSDs,
| which are not needed to be soldered to achieve their full
| speed, and slim PCB connectors for PCI-E speed connections
| do exist.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Devil's advocate: sell replacement drop-in boards and
| reuse the chassis.
|
| Are they still fusing displays into lids on the "pro"
| level MacBook?
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> Devil's advocate: sell replacement drop-in boards and
| reuse the chassis._
|
| Apple's response if regulators push for that: "Sure,
| that'll be 1600$ for the board please. (on an 1800$ new
| machine). Oh, and BTW, the board is paired to your iCloud
| account so you can't then re-sell it on the used market,
| for your own protection of course. You're welcome."
| pseudalopex wrote:
| The topic was what Apple would do voluntarily if they
| cared about the environment.
| mrob wrote:
| Or better yet, sell the stacked SOC + RAM modules. Any
| good repair shop can replace BGA devices.
| KronisLV wrote:
| > Devil's advocate: RAM on SOCs is not upgradable due to
| technical limitations on frequency and latency needing
| the RAM chips to be as close as possible to the CPU. You
| can't beat physics.
|
| What about LPCAMM2? https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/7/241
| 51369/lpcamm2-laptop-me...
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| That just came out, let's see if it goes anywhere and if
| they keep pushing it in other products, or if it's just a
| marketing exercise for one product, but I'm skeptical its
| here to stay.
|
| I also remember how upgradable GPUs in laptops using MMX
| slots were pushed by Dell and a couple of others a few
| times 10-15 years ago, but abandoned each time.
|
| I hope this catches on though, but like I said, I'm
| skeptical.
| labcomputer wrote:
| That's still several times farther from the CPU than a
| memory die placed directly on top of it.
| epolanski wrote:
| I don't buy it completely.
|
| It's like when I read arguments such as "Aramco most
| polluting company in the planet by CO2" or "eating a burger
| pollutes more than driving an SUV for 100 miles"...
|
| Apple, Aramco, your local butcher are merely serving your
| needs. Aramco ain't forcing you to buy 5L V8 trucks, and
| you're butcher ain't forcing you to eat beef rather than
| poultry or vegetables.
|
| Apple releasing new products is just a normal tech company
| serving the need of users to have the latests shiny gadget,
| shareholders to see equity and employees and contractors
| having jobs.
|
| What do I mean? While in principal I agree that many
| companies should do a lot more to limit their pollution, at
| the end of the day this pollution is a direct consequence
| of us average Joes neverending consumerism.
|
| If average Joe doesn't give a damn about using public
| transport or using a used hybrid or to adapt his lifestyle
| to be less polluting, legislators and companies are gonna
| adapt to people not giving a damn besides whining on
| Twitter.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> Apple, Aramco, your local butcher are merely serving
| your needs. Aramco ain 't forcing you to buy 5L V8
| trucks, and you're butcher ain't forcing you to eat beef
| rather than poultry or vegetables._
|
| Marlboro wasn't forcing you to smoke either, yet too many
| people did against their own health and own best
| judgement, so we had to get government regulators to rule
| them in to protect people form damaging themselves and
| others with their own desires.
|
| Just because consumers want something, doesn't mean it's
| what's best for them and that the capitalist free market
| should just be free to unregulatedly deliver whatever
| consumers want, at the expense of societal health or the
| environment, because then that's just "privatizing
| profits while socializing losses" with extra steps.
|
| We also had governments regulate car emissions to save
| our air quality which meant engines had to be much more
| efficient and less environmentally damaging. All for the
| greater good, and few people complained about the cleaner
| smog- and tobacco- free air despite loosing a few HP on
| their engines and Marlboro selling fewer fags.
|
| What makes you think e-waste should be exempt from such
| regulations?
| alt227 wrote:
| > at the end of the day this pollution is a direct
| consequence of us average Joes neverending consumerism.
|
| However the subliminal advertising of big companies
| causing manipulation of weak human minds is what drives
| the never ending consumerism. Take away the ads, and the
| buying of crap will drop significantly.
| kgwgk wrote:
| > if Apple actually cared about the environment they'd
| release new models every several years instead of several
| times yearly
|
| Thankfully last year's model still works and is supported
| for several years. Nothing prevents you from ignoring the
| new models and act as if they didn't exist.
|
| Auto manufacturers release many new models every year and
| most people do not buy them all. Nor do they wish that
| appliance manufacturers stopped releasing new models so
| they could keep their fridge for longer.
| rpcope1 wrote:
| > Auto manufacturers release many new models every year
| and most people do not buy them all. Nor do they wish
| that appliance manufacturers stopped releasing new models
| so they could keep their fridge for longer.
|
| Generations of vehicles seem to be sold for at least half
| a decade, with maybe slight facelifts but largely
| functionally unchanged. My 20 year old truck, perhaps
| barring some safety features, also does basically the
| same job as a newer truck and drives down the same roads
| and so on. Thankfully the auto manufacturers haven't yet
| found a way to make your car or truck obsolescent in 3-5
| years.
|
| As far as appliances I swear to god I know I and a large
| number of other people would absolutely kill for an older
| Kenmore washer and dryer as they basically run forever
| and are easier to service. We keep jamming useless crap
| on everything (of course my refrigerator needs an
| embedded screen and internet of shit connection, so that
| it can spy on me and generally be another worthless shiny
| doodad that's going to break) while making things
| simultaneously harder to service. My 15 year old fridge
| does the exact same thing as the newer shitheap Samsung
| fridges they sell at big box retailers but without
| needing to be replaced every 5 years. Barring some
| marginal advances in refrigerant and insulation, some of
| the old stuff legitimately is better.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > destroying a few objects for an ad is like spitting in the
| ocean in the scheme of things.
|
| I understand your point but the greater irony of the
| expression is that, at scale, our spitting (flushing,
| dumping, spewing) into the ocean has created an ecological
| disaster.
| IshKebab wrote:
| > destroying a few objects for an ad is like spitting in the
| ocean in the scheme of things
|
| Yeah I think the biggest lesson from this is that people
| don't understand the amount of resources it takes to build an
| iPad.
|
| Another example: Apple removing the stickers because they're
| plastic. A tiny tiny bit of plastic. Probably 0.001% of the
| plastic used in the production of an Apple device but people
| think it's significant because they can see it, and all the
| other plastic is hidden behind closed doors.
| rossant wrote:
| Honest question: how do we know for sure it's not CG?
| IshKebab wrote:
| I wondered that, but go and watch it. Absolutely no way
| anyone is modelling all that in CG. It's 100% not CG.
|
| Also if it was CG Apple would have immediately said that.
| millzlane wrote:
| How many pianos do you think they had to crush to get that
| ball to roll just right up to the edge of the press?
| abenga wrote:
| It doesn't have to be 100% one or the other.
| Izkata wrote:
| The shots towards the end have nothing around the items
| being focused on, such as remnants of the larger items.
| Doesn't need to be CGI, just multiple takes stitched
| together.
| jayd16 wrote:
| It is certainly not "100% not CG"
|
| You think they got a real ball to roll out to the edge and
| filmed that live? Ridiculous.
|
| I would be surprised if any of it was real.
| somehnguy wrote:
| I don't think anyone can say with any certainty, and
| certainly not with 100%, without actually talking to the
| people behind the video. Modern CGI is absolutely insane.
| There is so much in modern movies & TV that goes right past
| the viewers without any suspicion at all.
|
| The Corridor Crew YouTube channel taught me that CGI is
| everywhere and I don't have a clue. Highly suggest checking
| out some of their videos.
| ARandumGuy wrote:
| Yes, this could have been done with CGI, but that seems
| unlikely. As others mentioned, doing this level of CGI
| destruction is super expensive, and destroying stuff is
| pretty cheap.
|
| But there's also the bigger factor that, if Apple didn't
| destroy a bunch of stuff, why haven't they said so? It
| seems to me that if this ad was entirely CGI, Apple would
| admit that to minimize the backlash.
|
| Therefore, unless Apple says something (or someone does
| some very convincing analysis), I'm inclined to believe
| this ad was done primarily with practical effects. That's
| just where the evidence is pointing right now.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Economics. It's way cheaper to buy a few old instruments (buy
| extra in case you want to do multiple takes) and just record
| them being crushed than to pay a team computer artists for
| weeks to simulate the physics and draw this all in
| photorealistic CG.
| jayd16 wrote:
| CGI is way cheaper than a full crew arranging, shooting,
| cleaning and rearranging this shot multiple times.
| crazygringo wrote:
| No it's not. Not even close.
|
| CGI modeling of a shattering string instrument that looks
| realistic would be an insane amount of work, and insanely
| expensive.
|
| This was definitely mostly practical. The squished emoji
| ball at the end might have been CGI, but not most of
| this.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Why do you think its insane to model realistic looking
| explosions? It's done all the time. Even if it started as
| a practical prop it was certainly doctored to all hell.
| Stone statues don't squish and guitars don't actually
| explode...
|
| If you look through it you can see the top of the guitar
| is even cut off at the neck, either as a prop or
| digitally.
|
| Movie magic, guys!
| pard68 wrote:
| You do know what it takes to make lithium ion batteries right?
| jayd16 wrote:
| It's almost certainly mostly CGI but even if it was done with
| practical props, they are still not "real good objects." They
| are props. No one crashes real Ferraris in an action movie. You
| use fakes and empty chassis.
| Hamuko wrote:
| They do crash real cars in movies though. The Wolf of Wall
| Street saw an actual Lamborghini Countach with a VIN get
| crashed quite a lot, John Carpenter's Christine went through
| like twenty Plymouths and The Dukes of Hazzard TV series
| destroyed hundreds of cars ("an estimated 309 Chargers were
| used").
| runeb wrote:
| John Landis film The Blues Brothers crashed a reported 104
| cars
| decafninja wrote:
| If it is CGI, then this outrage is stupid. There are a lot
| more important things to be outraged over than some virtual
| objects being crushed.
| deadbabe wrote:
| The people who liked the ad tend to be the same kind of people
| who think AI art is cool.
| anonzzzies wrote:
| Always wonder how blind these company people are? If they
| would've shown this (the plan/proposal of the marketing agency)
| to anyone, they would've said it's a bit... Strange?
| thih9 wrote:
| > missed the mark
|
| It didn't! It is a good clip.
|
| It accurately shows how tools are being replaced with digital and
| cloud. It's a violent process and precious things get destroyed
| along the way. It totally hit the mark.
|
| But true, it doesn't make people want to go grab an ipad, so I
| get why they don't want to use it.
| alt227 wrote:
| > It accurately shows how tools are being replaced with digital
| and cloud.
|
| No it doesnt, it shows thats what Apple thinks which is the
| whole problem here.
| pquki4 wrote:
| > It accurately shows how tools are being replaced with digital
| and cloud.
|
| No it doesn't.
|
| Throwing away all other sentiments, I really would like to see
| a 100lb digital piano replacing a 500lb upright piano while
| keeping its action, feel and sound, if not a grand piano. That
| hasn't happened yet, not even remotely, after all these years
| of technology advancenent. Anyone who is serious in learning
| and performing piano would be doing that on a real piano. And
| of course iPad isn't even in the conversation -- what can you
| do with a touch screen?
|
| Which is exactly why I find this ad ridiculous.
| Tarq0n wrote:
| When world-class artists come to the NPR studio, a place with
| high end upright and grand pianos, to perform; many of them
| bring Nords Korgs or Rolands. Why do you think that is?
| pquki4 wrote:
| We are not talking about the same kind of piano here. And
| different artists value different things or just need other
| features, and the "authenticity" of an upright piano is
| very likely what they are looking for, which is totally
| fine. This really is another topic. Sorry.
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| Your question is why do they bring a compact piano to the
| tiny desk concert?
| llm_trw wrote:
| >That hasn't happened yet, not even remotely
|
| It has happened, you just can't afford the price tag of the
| digital replacement because close enough is good enough.
| pquki4 wrote:
| Would like to see the exact models and price tags and
| understand what you think I can't afford.
| llm_trw wrote:
| There are no price tags and models because these things
| are build from scratch per project.
|
| If you can't afford to hire a contract EE, FPGA and
| acoustics engineer for two weeks + parts you're getting
| shit.
| pquki4 wrote:
| Dude, that's not an argument and not how you discuss
| things.
|
| You need to at least put a link to some article that says
| someone built it, and other pianists agree it can replace
| both the ACTION and the SOUND of a piano. Oh, it should
| weigh about 100lb, not 500lb.
|
| (And if such a thing exists, why wouldn't it commercially
| be available so that everyone can buy it? Plenty of
| people include me would want it. Why wouldn't Yamaha or
| Roland build this 20 years ago, as if they don't have the
| resources for that?)
|
| Also, looks like your comment only focuses on the sound
| part of it -- if real at all -- and ignores the
| mechanical part of it. That's a big no.
|
| Before seeing more evidence, I'll just assume such a
| thing does not exist.
| pwnna wrote:
| There is the kawai novus5 which is a digital piano with
| the action and soundboard of a real upright piano and
| enough speakers to sound almost exactly like a real
| piano. There are also some new roland models I haven't
| tried. Many dealers lump these into their acoustic piano
| offering and don't market them differently because they
| are that good.
|
| See https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4DaaafyAUqA and
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oLsPK2ATJcY. He is a
| pianist and he bought a novus5 to replace his own upright
| piano...
| jader201 wrote:
| You're talking about whether an iPad can accurately reproduce
| the quality of the original tools.
|
| While I would certainly agree, like it or not, many of these
| things are being replaced by iPads/iPhones and other smart
| devices.
|
| Many people used to carry around point and shoot cameras,
| calculators, watches, flashlights, etc. but those things are
| just short of completely depreciated.
|
| Sure, this ad included things that aren't quite as
| deprecated, but the trend is in that direction, and not away.
| thih9 wrote:
| > I really would like to see a 100lb digital piano replacing
| a 500lb upright piano while keeping its action, feel and
| sound, if not a grand piano. That hasn't happened yet
|
| It absolutely has. The sales of upright pianos are down,
| while sales of digital pianos are up. I'd call that
| replacing.
|
| _" Hybrid pianos have gained immense popularity among music
| lovers. These pianos are increasingly being used to provide
| keyboard lessons as they combine the electronic, mechanical
| and acoustic aspects of both acoustic and digital pianos. In
| addition, hybrid pianos take up limited space and can be
| easily moved due to their small size and lightness. In
| addition, these pianos require little maintenance.
| Temperature and humidity do not affect their configuration
| due to amplifiers and speakers. They can also be connected to
| digital interfaces, laptops, iPads and other devices. As a
| result, pianists are increasingly preferring hybrid pianos,
| prompting vendors to launch more innovative products that
| will boost market growth during the forecast period."_
|
| source: https://www.businessresearchinsights.com/market-
| reports/pian...
| nomel wrote:
| I know someone learning piano for fun. They carry their
| lightweight digital Yamaha to the couch, plug it in, and
| start paying, walk up to their room, play some more.
| Digital keyboards/pianos are great, if creating music is
| your concern, rather than the instrument.
| jader201 wrote:
| > I really would like to see a 100lb digital piano replacing
| a 500lb upright piano while keeping its action, feel and
| sound, if not a grand piano.
|
| I get the impression that you've not played a digital piano
| lately.
|
| While purists will definitely not touch an electric, most
| casual players -- and especially beginners -- will be fine
| with, and are buying -- and preferring! -- a _good_ electric
| piano over a grand or even uprights these days.
|
| I wanted a grand myself for years, but couldn't justify the
| cost or space consumption of a grand.
|
| We're now the happy owners of a Roland FP10, and it's great!
| The sound, IMO is amazing, and about as close as an electric
| can get to the real thing.
| kccqzy wrote:
| We recently sold the digital piano after 3 years of playing
| on it and replaced it with a traditional piano (an
| upright). It's true that a digital piano works for
| beginners. But for someone with dedication, they outgrow
| digital pianos extremely quickly.
|
| EDIT: it actually depends on what you play. We usually play
| traditional pieces, especially those by Chopin so a digital
| piano definitely doesn't cut it.
| reikonomusha wrote:
| The r/piano subreddit is full of amateur pianists who own a
| high-quality digital piano who share their experiences
| playing a grand piano for the first time. 99% of the time,
| they express astonishment, amazement, and their wish to
| someday own a grand piano. 1% of the time, they complain
| that the grand piano they played on was way out of shape
| and was difficult to tame.
|
| For a lot of people, and it seems yourself included, a
| digital piano is an excellent compromise. It gets the job
| done, but if all else were equal and circumstances
| permitted, such people would still prefer to own a grand
| piano, for significant and non-negligible reasons.
| jader201 wrote:
| Without a doubt. I've played on a grand and upright, but
| I'd still call myself just barely above beginner. But I
| do have a good ear for appreciating music and acoustics,
| and agree that they're definitely much better.
|
| But it's crazy the progress they've made in the past
| decade or so in reproducing the sound -- and particularly
| the feel of the hammer action -- of acoustic pianos.
|
| And whether it's budget, space, and/or experience level,
| a digital piano serves as a great replacement.
| rchaud wrote:
| If anything, an ad like this is too real and lets slip the mask
| that is "Apple is for artists". Nope, Apple is for expanding
| the existing Apple-only ecosystem.
|
| A classic arcade game experience is not going to be
| reproducible with a subscription to Apple Arcade. A
| stradivarius violin is not going to be replaced by Apple Logic
| Pro.
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| To reduce the issue, "Let's burn books! It's ok because you can
| just buy them on the Apple Books Store for the iPad"
| sneak wrote:
| Burning books certainly doesn't have the connotation it used
| to, given that the idea of a book is now mostly divorced from
| the physical implementation.
|
| You could burn every physical copy of most recent books and
| no data would be lost; I assume most authors write with a
| word processor.
| Draiken wrote:
| Given all the DRM and other shenanigans implemented on
| ebooks, I'm not sure that's true anymore.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Yeah, right, until they start rewriting classics, because
| they don't fit in today's agenda.
| racl101 wrote:
| That would've be hilarious as parody of this commercial if
| the hydraulic press shot out flames too and burnt some books.
| Make that message even more ambiguous lol.
| dehrmann wrote:
| It's a good clip because people are here talking about it.
| resource_waste wrote:
| This only applies to things that we don't have knowledge
| about. Everyone knows about iPads already.
|
| When you are already familiar, this is just bad press.
|
| But don't sweat it, according to chatGPT4, Apple is the best
| company at marketing of all time. They wont be losing for
| long.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > This only applies to things that we don't have knowledge
| about. Everyone knows about iPads already.
|
| I actually agree with the comment saying people have almost
| forgotten about iPads.
| Nicholas_C wrote:
| Agreed. This will be considered a huge win by Apple's
| marketing department. People (online at least) are talking
| about the iPad like I haven't seen in years.
| major505 wrote:
| People complain about anything this days...
|
| Offtopic about the ipad, Im curious, does you guys use tablets
| like the ipad in anyway in your dayily lifes?
|
| After phones seem to be getting bigger, I see no use for a
| dedicated device like an Ipad.
| ErneX wrote:
| I do, I have an Air on my desk on a Logitech keyboard cover,
| it's like a mini laptop where I do casual web browsing, access
| my piCorePlayer web UI to play music from my NAS or use
| Spotify/Apple Music to play tracks through the piCorePlayer. I
| also watch YouTube frequently on it.
| major505 wrote:
| I used in the start, but since Im always using bluetooth
| headphones, It was a pain in the ass to change in wich device
| is connected.
| thih9 wrote:
| Note that your comment too could be seen as complaining - and
| you yourself say that you're not the target audience.
|
| I also don't use an iPad after switching to a pro max phone.
| But ideally I'd like a smaller phone and an iPad mini; maybe
| next iteration.
| xyst wrote:
| No it's a glorified iPhone in my opinion.
|
| I had planned to use it to write code on the go but found it
| extremely limiting.
|
| All of the power inside the tablet and it's locked behind the
| Apple jail.
|
| Have seen a few people use it as a laptop replacement though.
| They bring Bluetooth kb and mouse. But the experience seemed
| very janky to me. I asked to observe their experience and
| person was just web browsing lol.
| major505 wrote:
| PRetty much. I have a Android Tablet. The only way I could
| use for work was to SSH into my server.
|
| But using nvim all the time have its limitations. Sometimes
| you need an IDE.
|
| So I just give up, and now is collecting dust.
| kypro wrote:
| Could someone who feels passionately about this help me
| understand why?
|
| In my eyes the ad was clearly trying to be playful and
| metaphoric. I feel like people are are taking the ad far too
| seriously and literally then jumping to the conclusion that it's
| implying a message that very obviously wasn't intended.
|
| I'm not saying the ad couldn't have been better, but I can't
| understand the controversy here at all. Yet, I seem to be in a
| small minority.
|
| Could someone explain specifically what it is that they find
| upsetting about the ad? And not just "they crushed real objects",
| but specifically why it is that you find that so troubling, etc?
| Objects get broken all the time for media for lesser purposes and
| with much less creativity. Is it the context here that is the
| problem?
| Clubber wrote:
| It's probably a manufactured outrage campaign.
| freetime2 wrote:
| I liked it, for the same reason I'll occasionally watch videos on
| YouTube of things getting crushed in a hydraulic press. Morbid
| curiosity, I guess. It also looks like a decent amount of
| craftsmanship went into shooting and editing it. I would be
| curious to know how much was real vs. CGI.
|
| I can understand how people could find it distasteful with its
| almost pornographic depiction of destruction. But still, it feels
| like people are almost going out of their way to get offended by
| this.
|
| That being said, I think Apple is smart to apologize. It doesn't
| cost them anything, it softens some of the negativity surrounding
| the story, and probably got the new iPads an extra day of
| coverage in the news cycle.
| Clubber wrote:
| >But it feels like people are almost going out of their way to
| get offended by this.
|
| After all the news about this, I finally watched it. I don't
| get why people are complaining. It's either a ploy by Apple
| marketing to get people to watch it, or manufactured outrage by
| news sites trying to get clicks.
|
| What an artificial world we live in today.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| One of the tells of narcissism is love bombing followed by
| entitlement followed by covert and overt devaluation and
| antagonism.
|
| Seems we're at the late stage now.
| sph wrote:
| Jesus... this is not even worth to being called a 'first-world
| problem', yet this apparently seems to be an important issue to
| most of HN and "social media," judging by the comments herein.
|
| I believe the apt suggestion is to go and "touch grass."
| FpUser wrote:
| BTW Dang, why am I flagged for submitting info about the same
| thing?
| tokai wrote:
| It's othering to the extreme seeing people get so riled up by
| this. Some years ago the "kids in Africa could have eaten that
| inedible-object" meme was popular to make fun of people that gets
| angry about other people destroying or throwing away their own
| property. Guess we need to bring it back. If you get a strong
| emotional response to this ad your emotional priorities are
| seriously out of calibration.
| epolanski wrote:
| I really don't understand why the internet needs to turn
| everything into a stupid argument..
|
| Who cares of an Apple ad...
| zulban wrote:
| I wonder how much of the outrage is just manufactured by a
| marketing firm. I noted that mainstream outlets were writing
| about the outrage when the youtube clip had just 70,000 views.
| epolanski wrote:
| This as well.
|
| This outrage made the ad seen 10 times more than it would've
| been otherwise.
| madhato wrote:
| I honestly don't even feel like I live in the same world as the
| majority of commenters on the Internet anymore. To be outraged
| because apple crushed some stuff for an ad is a new low, or I
| guess a new high for fake hysterically.
| can16358p wrote:
| People want to get offended by literally everything, even a
| harmless ad. They just want to attack something.
| steve1977 wrote:
| "You'll see why 2024 will be even worse than '1984'"
| raverbashing wrote:
| 1984 "See why you need Apple to crush the boring industrialist
| vision"
|
| 2024 "Giant faceless industrial hoodrolic press goes brrrrr on
| art and creativity" (with apologies to HP Channel)
| discopicante wrote:
| I'm wondering if this is a consequence of employing your own
| internal ad agency - maybe you are at risk of being out of touch
| with the audiences you are looking to reach.
|
| Apple ads (created by TBWAChiatDay) used to be part of the
| Zeitgeist: 1984, Think Different, iPod silhouette, Mac vs. PC,
| etc. Now the only Apple ads that people talk about are the
| cringiest of the cringe: this iPad ad, the 'Mother Earth' bit
| from last year's iPhone/Watch keynote, etc.
| icar wrote:
| I think this ad is exquisite. I wish people reacted this
| euphorically for more important things.
| nbzso wrote:
| You cannot talk brand identity here. Most of the people here
| don't know what pays those big salaries. They think that clean
| code, scrum, pair programming, CI, CD are the critical points of
| a corporation.
|
| Yes, I am arrogant. Because I read here from 2008, and I know
| some things. Apple is just too big of a corporation to be
| adequate anymore.
|
| This ad is a total f*k up. Apple is build over the work and ideas
| of creative people. This is the direct result of nepotism in a
| corporate ladder and design by committee.
| refurb wrote:
| This ad worked _perfectly_.
|
| I never would have heard about it had people not gotten upset by
| it.
|
| Apple "apologizes" then counts the money as it flows in.
| readmemyrights wrote:
| The biggest thing that makes me wonder about this ad is: "why?".
| It certainly costed more to make than an average ad, regardless
| if it was CGI or real, it should be obvious to anybody who has
| ever itneracted with humans why crushing a bunch of instruments
| and tools they use would be a bad idea, all to get it mention
| more often thanks to society's backlash? Apple isn't some
| newcomer who needs all the attention they can get, every man,
| woman, child, dog and cat who can afford apple products has heard
| of them and I doubt hearing about the brand new iPad pro a
| million times more is going to change their decision to buy it or
| not. Most of their userbase is people up to their eyes in the
| apple ecosystem, all they have to do is send a push notification
| about the newest iProduct, initiate the planned obsolescence
| procedure, and watch the cash pour in, the rest would just need
| to see an ad about the amazing new health app or whatever with a
| suttel subtext of "and if you don't buy this you're a poor low-
| status chump lol". But again, I don't run a trillion+ dollar tech
| company so what do I know?
|
| This also reminds me of those 4chan pranks where they tell people
| that the new software update made the iPhone waterproof or they
| can charge it by putting it in a microwave. This time they
| wouldn't even have to make fake ads: "look, apple said new iPad
| can't be crushed, post a tiktok of yourself stomping your iPad
| nothing can go wrong!" (disclaimer: the previous text in quotes
| is in quotes for a reason; don't do that to any of your devices.
| There's no warranty to the extent permitted by law, etc etc).
| fullshark wrote:
| 1. Conveys the idea that the ipad has all these creative /
| cultural digital services on it
|
| 2. Conveys the idea that it's thinner than ever
|
| 3. Seeing stuff get destroyed by a hydraulic press is attention
| grabbing, and gets you to look at the TV during that commercial
| break.
|
| I get why they did it, it's striking. They just didn't
| understand just how massive the freakout in the creative arts
| industry is right now over technology companies, and why it
| would cause a backlash.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| On #1, people were very well aware of it already. All this ad
| does is making them reconsider the company's intent and see
| it as an enemy trying to destroy the services, instead of a
| friend making them easier to get.
|
| On #2, it doesn't do that very well. For a start, the press
| never smashes the tablet itself.
|
| This commercial is very well done with the purpose of making
| people revolt. Every element is perfect. I wonder if there
| was some miscommunication and the authors expected the scenes
| to be used in a different way.
| bilsbie wrote:
| They should have just run the video in reverse and it would have
| gotten the same point across and been a lot rosier.
| keepamovin wrote:
| They have apologized! Send them to re-education!!! Cancel the
| execution.
| mindwok wrote:
| It's not my place to tell anyone how they should feel about
| anything, but the number of comments here suggesting people had a
| strong emotional reaction to this does kinda worry me. How do
| those of you who feel so strongly about this ad get through daily
| life? If I was feeling so upset about something like this, life
| would be pretty bad. Genuine question.
|
| EDIT: I appreciate the amount of good-faith discussion on this
| comment. To be clear, if your reaction to the ad was along the
| lines of 'this is distasteful and I don't like it', I totally get
| that. I'm referring to some of the comments I saw that likened it
| to 'stress inducing' or 'like watching someone's arm get cut off'
| which are much more emotive.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| I agree. This a the quote from the article, someone called it
| the "destruction of human experience". We have to be a little
| bit tougher than this, right?
| red_trumpet wrote:
| I agree that one can see the ad as depicting "destruction of
| human experience". This does not mean that my day is ruined
| after viewing the ad. Disliking the ad and calling it what it
| is does not mean one is not tough.
| waynesonfire wrote:
| and i'm shocked that your response is to tell people to man
| up cry babies. maybe try reflecting why there was a reaction
| to the ad from a human experience perspective. there is a
| reason apple appologized instead of telling them to man up as
| you're suggesting.
| camillomiller wrote:
| The fact that you think it's normal to use the word
| "shocked" to describe how you feel after reading an
| anonymous comment on an internet board about a tv ad
| ironically reinforces the entire point.
| Satam wrote:
| If they apologized it's because it's the best PR move. The
| execs definitely aren't sweating over "destruction of human
| experience".
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| If that's true, then it's probably because they've never
| had a human experience in their lives
| frereubu wrote:
| "We have to be a little bit tougher than this" is not the
| same as "Man up cry babies". That's a hyperbolic rephrasing
| which I think significantly misses the tone of the
| original.
| ricardonunez wrote:
| Apple did it because that's the typical corporate response
| to a backlash, that said nobody should tell you to man up,
| you feel the way you feel and that's it, just a reminder
| that it goes in both sides of the spectrum.
| financltravsty wrote:
| I don't feel anything from the ad, but if you're numb to a
| pointed reminder of the towering tetragrammaton that ushered
| in perhaps the most anti-human technology we have seen
| (phones), then perhaps you need to be a little more open to
| experiencing the rawness of life.
|
| There's no strength in disassociating from the ills of the
| world. Useful in short bursts, but as a default state I would
| say is a problem.
|
| Now that doesn't mean the other side -- the histrionics --
| are "right," but there is a balance to be found here.
| gregd wrote:
| I don't think this is so much about this ONE ad but rather,
| it contributes to the overall feeling that real connections,
| like art, music, and architecture, are being lost daily.
| Music programs are constantly being cut. Architects can't
| find work. Woodworkers can't make a living making custom
| furniture. Sam Ash music stores are shuttering ALL their
| locations.
|
| Everything has been commodified.
|
| And Apple just piled on.
| BEEdwards wrote:
| >Everything has been commodified.
|
| welcome to capitalism...
| UncleMeat wrote:
| If you dig through twitter, you can find somebody saying
| something dramatic about basically everything. It might be
| hyperbole to communicate a feeling. It might be somebody who
| is legitimately unwell and reacts unreasonably strongly to
| people. It might be somebody faking it.
|
| You can be almost certain that people using this language
| don't expect to be aggregated into news articles and then be
| used as evidence that the world is getting too soft.
| Bluestrike2 wrote:
| I can read "the destruction of human experience" two ways.
| One, it's a just a descriptive label of the symbolism the act
| of crushing creative instruments/tools/materials represents,
| even if that symbolism is clearly not something the creators
| ever intended. Two, is the more hyperbolic--or perhaps even
| hysteric-- _you 're literally destroying the human experience
| and it's hurting me emotionally_ take. A lot of the
| commentary on social media is probably closer to the former,
| but it doesn't discount the latter.
|
| It's pretty obvious what marketing intended. You take a bunch
| of creative instruments/tools/materials, squish them inside
| the iPad, and you get to carry them with you with your iPad.
| Heck, I'm almost certain it's been done before as a cartoon
| gag: everything gets sucked into one super tool. There's
| probably an old Looney Tunes episode with something close
| enough--maybe stuffing books inside someone's head to teach
| them the material--to make my point.
|
| In any case, the metaphor's pretty clear; unfortunately, the
| _Crush_ ad completely botches it. There 's no mechanism by
| which the props 'enter' the iPad. Instead, you just see
| wanton destruction, the hydraulic press lifts up, and then
| there's an iPad sitting on a giant chunk of steel. Paint is
| dripping down the side, but the press itself is oddly
| sterile. The mess? The parts? The paint? All gone on the
| press except for what's left on the floor. And if it's
| smashed into itty bitty bits, even if it's now metaphorically
| "inside" the iPad, what's the point? Did the press somehow
| squeeze out some metaphysical meaning from the tools that got
| sucked into the iPad? Now throw in some of the angst about
| the possibility of generative AI replacing some creative
| jobs.
|
| If the idea is that an iPad will 'replace' those tools--or
| more likely, just let the user take them with you wherever
| they go--there's an implicit assumption that the user values
| those tools and would like them so close at hand. So
| literally destroying tools that, for many artists and
| creatives, are objects of affection closely tied to memories
| that are critical parts of their self-conception, is an
| absurd kind of symbolism that would have never made it off
| the drawing board under Jobs. People tend to respect their
| tools, and filming their meaningless destruction is going to
| rub people the wrong way even though it really has no actual
| impact. _Especially_ with an ad that 's simultaneously trying
| to get you to buy the product they were symbolically
| destroyed to revel.
|
| Will _Crush_ turn many people off from buying a new iPad when
| they need one? Almost certainly not. But it does underscore
| that Apple 's changed as as a company. Apple users--myself
| included--might still love the products they buy, but it
| doesn't seem like they're in love with them like it once
| seemed (for way too many of their users).
| buro9 wrote:
| > How do those of you who feel so strongly about this ad get
| through daily life?
|
| Whilst I didn't feel a great deal watching the video, this
| statement is very presumptive.
|
| Reversed: How does one get through daily life _not_ feeling so
| strongly about things?
|
| Should perhaps we, those who didn't feel a great deal here, not
| reflect on whether we might be feeling as much of life as we
| could, empathise more deeply, care about broader things,
| consider life as more than ration or reason?
|
| It didn't bother me one way or another, but I also didn't
| assume anything. I can imagine a life far more rich just by
| feeling more, seeing more colours in the same palette, tasting
| more when eating food, and feeling so much more when just
| experiencing life... perhaps for all the benefit of feeling
| more, there's just the sharper edge that sometimes you feel
| more about something like an Apple advert.
| llm_trw wrote:
| >How does one get through daily life _not_ feeling so
| strongly about things?
|
| I feel strongly about important things, not all things.
| haswell wrote:
| Many people (and I'm one of those people) feel that the
| preservation of craftsmanship and human created art/music
| is extremely important to a healthy society.
| llm_trw wrote:
| Every object in that video was mass produced rubbish so
| craftsmanship survived unharmed.
| haswell wrote:
| Many musical instruments are still made by hand to this
| day. Many of the cameras still in active use were too.
|
| And even if you pick up a crappy starter guitar, learning
| it is a purely human endeavor, propagating the mastery
| that has been passed down through generations.
|
| And I have no idea how to reconcile "it's all mass
| produced rubbish" with "craftsmanship survived unharmed".
| These are in direct conflict.
| latexr wrote:
| > Reversed: How does one get through daily life _not_ feeling
| so strongly about things?
|
| You didn't reverse the question. No one is advocating not
| having strong feelings about _anything_. The correct reverse
| would be "how do those of you who don't feel strongly _about
| this ad_ get through daily life?".
|
| The answer to that is "by not entering a state of frenzied
| stress about every inconsequential thing and being mindful of
| the battles worth fighting". There is a finite amount of
| things you can feel strongly for in your life, and I do think
| this ad is incredibly minor.
|
| No one is going to remember or talk about this in a week,
| regardless of if Apple had apologised or not. If only we
| could've had all this outrage and media attention about
| something which truly matters and is urgent to all humans
| (like, say, climate change) that would've been swell. Now
| _that_ would've been empathetic, shown a care about broader
| things, and be considerate of life.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| There's plenty of outrage over climate change. It's not
| clear it meaningfully contributes to solving the problem.
| bsaul wrote:
| Strong emotional reaction to anything is pretty much the norm
| nowadays.
|
| However, i feel like apple's ad made people visualize a true
| deep concern about the future of art (and humanity) with
| regards to the recent advancements of AI. The fact that the
| number 1 consumer hardware company in the world blatantly
| acknowledge the fact that computers are going to generate every
| piece of content automatically in the future is quite
| troubling. (of course, that's probably not exactly what they
| meant, as someone will have to push that "generate" button on
| the ipad, at some point).
| frereubu wrote:
| I think this is it. Imagine if instead there was a "siphon"
| effect where the instruments get miniaturised / sucked into
| the iPad. I don't think anyone would have been upset by that.
| It's the crushing that's at issue, and it does touch on an
| anxiety around the digital experience crushing the life out
| of the more physical / personal engagement with music.
| foobar_______ wrote:
| You help me feel sane. People, it is a commercial. Nothing
| more. Don't get your panties in a bundle. If you don't like it,
| change the channel, don't buy their product, go outside on a
| hike. The things people get upset about today is fascinating.
| GO OUTSIDE
| alt227 wrote:
| Sounds like you are getting your panties in a bundle about
| other people getting their panties in a bundle. Why do you
| care so much what other random people on the internet think?
|
| Maybe it is you who needs to go outside and stop reading
| these comments which make you feel 'insane'?
| superidiot1932 wrote:
| And why do you care so much about what foobar thinks to the
| point of passively-aggressive asking him?
|
| "Why do you care about X" questions are inane.
| alt227 wrote:
| ....and you have continued the pattern by joining in and
| asking me the question. Well done!
| dwallin wrote:
| Why get so bothered by other people being upset? Apple is
| going to be fine, you don't need to worry on their behalf. No
| need to get your undergarments of choice in a twist. Good
| opportunity to step outside and get some fresh air.
| mindwok wrote:
| It doesn't really 'bother' me and I'm not worrying on their
| behalf. If you're actually interested in why I'm worried,
| it makes me question whether there's less emotional
| resilience in our society, and I value emotional resilience
| because I think we need it when life truly tests us.
| wiseowise wrote:
| People exercise their God given right, why do you care so
| much about it?
| hooverd wrote:
| Getting emotional are we?
| faitswulff wrote:
| Even if you disagree, I would think that the volume or strength
| of the comments would teach you something about the situation.
| Instead, it's the children who are wrong.
| mindwok wrote:
| I explicitly said I'm not saying it's wrong. Im asking if the
| emotional sensitivity to these things impacts them in daily
| life.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| In a sarcastic, dismissive way, that implied superiority.
| It was a pretty crass way to phrase the question. I learned
| far more from that than any answer.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| no kidding. there's a bunch of stuff going on in teh world
| (some of which risk getting me downvoted if I mention them)
| that are way more distressing. its not like they destroyed
| anything truly sacred or one of a kind.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| We are in a age where most interactions are supercharged with
| melodramatic theatrics.
|
| Not to dunk too much on the artistic community, but when it
| comes to these 4 day dramas all the over the top adjectives are
| applied. Very eloquent but the feelings most of the time aren't
| even real. It's a performance.
| deaddodo wrote:
| Not to mention, and this is something I have to explain to my
| European friends all the time when they get all of their
| information on the US from it's media, Americans speak in
| hyperbole _all the time_. It 's _how_ they talk to each other
| ( "omg, you're my _best_ friend ", "I almost _died_ ",
| "That's the biggest tower I've _ever_ seen ", "People are
| _literally_ dying on the streets due to private healthcare ",
| etc), so if you read it without the context you would think
| this ad is the worst thing in the world.
| ornornor wrote:
| Side note: because literally has been so often used to mean
| figuratively, literally is now acceptable to mean
| figuratively. They even updated the definition in the
| dictionary: the word now means literally AND its opposite.
| brabel wrote:
| Yep, the dictionary's job is to tell you how people are
| using language, not to tell people how to use words :).
| And don't people love to make a mess with words'
| meanings?!
| sapeint wrote:
| Literally has been used in that way for literally
| hundreds of years. From Charles Dickens ("He had
| literally feasted his eyes on the culprit.") and
| Charlotte Bronte ("Literally I was the apple of his
| eye"), to Mark Twain (in Adventures of Tom Sawyer) and F.
| Scott Fitzgerald (in The Great Gatsby) -- among others.
|
| This "Literally shouldn't be used figuratively" is a
| rather modern construct that was artificially created.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| No, literally is _not_ acceptable to use to mean
| figuratively. Those people are using the word wrong. The
| dictionaries acting like this is ok should be ashamed of
| themselves.
| squigz wrote:
| > "omg, you're my best friend", "I almost died", "That's
| the biggest tower I've ever seen", "People are literally
| dying on the streets due to private healthcare", etc
|
| One of these things is not like the others~...
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I'm not even sure that this is true. How many people have
| actually interacted with somebody who is overreacting here?
|
| Instead, the overreactions are aggregated via social media
| and news coverage so we can see "wow look at all these people
| using extreme language here."
| justaman wrote:
| Manufactured outrage. Designed to entice clickbait farmers to
| spread the word. Gone are the days of blasting millions into
| a TV ad. No new age ad gets that attention anymore. Instead,
| the idea is to go viral.
| brabel wrote:
| Apple knows exactly what it's doing (or whatever marketing
| company they paid to do this). And they did get viral, so
| mission accomplished?
| shakiXBT wrote:
| It seemed like a fun ad to me and that was it.
|
| People have to go through mental gymnastics to justify being
| angry at it, but do they feel the same way when these objects
| get destroyed in movies?
| waynesonfire wrote:
| no, because the ad is very deliberate about what it's trying
| to represent. The intention is to suggest that physical tools
| that have been used for thousansd of years to create culture,
| art, and technonolgy and that themselves are art, are
| gabrage. the ad suggests an apple computer that is bound by
| limits of it's software and harware, that cannot be further
| refined, cannot be repaired, and severs the human senses from
| experiencing the tools it claims to deprecate, is superior.
| it's a bad message.
|
| they may as well have smashing the statue of david and shown
| that the mac's default background is a picture of it.
|
| and because someone has a negative reaction to an ad doesn't
| imply they got "angry" over it or need tougher skin or are
| somehome so sensitive they can't function in society. it's
| being able to reflect how something is making you feel. and
| it feels like a shitty ad on many levels.
| kapp_in_life wrote:
| To me it says "Look at all this stuff you can do with an
| ipad now, and in a thinner form factor. It used to take a
| room full of stuff to do this. Isn't that awesome?".
|
| You might not be angry but you're using pretty malicious
| language to assign intent to the ad that doesn't seem
| present to me.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > People have to go through mental gymnastics to justify
| being angry at it, but do they feel the same way when these
| objects get destroyed in movies?
|
| Context matters. Here it looks like it's a zero-sum: iPad is
| crushing everything else.
| cjk2 wrote:
| I'm get the feeling some people are pretty bored and boring and
| collective outrage is an emotional release in some way.
| gsich wrote:
| Staged outrage.
| la_oveja wrote:
| i can dislike the ad or even find it repugnant, and the moment
| it ends still be on with my life. last time i checked having
| opinions on things was not frowned upon.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| It's possible to have a negative reaction to something, but
| otherwise be fine. I don't think there's many people sobbing
| uncontrollably on the subway because they saw this ad.
|
| All sorts of media - whether movies or books or games or ads -
| are designed to make some kind of reaction in the audience.
| Dismissing "I don't like this" as a valid reaction is also
| dismissing "I like this", which seems silly.
| mindwok wrote:
| I'm not dismissing it, I'm just curious about it. For me, if
| I was having strong negative reactions to things frequently
| it would impact my wellbeing. I wonder if thats not the case
| for these folks.
| hydroreadsstuff wrote:
| I can tell you that I watched the recording, cringed for a few
| seconds and skipped it, and moved on with my life. After the
| outrage, revisiting my 3 seconds of feelings, I tend to agree
| that destroying nice things isn't a great thing to do in an ad.
| ornornor wrote:
| What bothers me the most is the casual destruction of perfectly
| functional, expensive (for some) items. It's glorifying waste,
| and I'm sure there are individuals or families that would kill
| for the chance to get a piano, a trumpet, or the insanely
| overpriced Macs they can't afford, while Apple is crushing them
| just to sell us more ewaste (seeing how apple in particular is
| at the forefront of anti repair)...
| Tarq0n wrote:
| Now think of how much of these items the budget of any given
| commercial could pay for.
|
| Focusing on just the literal few in view in front of you is
| missing the forest for the trees.
| ornornor wrote:
| Not necessarily, it sells a message and an image on top of
| just wasting the large amount of money that any ad costs.
| uxp100 wrote:
| Nah, you basically can't give pianos away.
| dartos wrote:
| I'd take a free piano. Those things are expensive
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| Open up your local Craigslist and you will probably find
| a bunch of them.
| kzrdude wrote:
| They are expensive to take too. (Need movers and piano
| tuner)
| dwallin wrote:
| The WHOLE point of the ad in the first place was to make people
| feel strong positive emotions toward Apple products. It turns
| out they misjudged and for many people it didn't evoke the type
| of emotions they thought it would. It's not like people are up
| in arms about a spec sheet.
|
| I think you are being extremely irrational in expecting people
| to not feel passionately about random things. Companies spend
| insane amounts of money influencing consumer sentiment for good
| reasons.
| __rito__ wrote:
| Nah, it's not exactly like that.
|
| I get through regular life okay, but this a $1T company with
| hundreds of billions in cash, profit driven, using child labor
| in China indirectly, and engaging in walled-garden policies
| makes it worse.
|
| They make all these gadgets that replaces incomes from many
| manufactures and puts it on a single hand. That's bad enough.
|
| Now, they destroy all these beautiful things- a piano, a
| guitar, a camera, and a lot of valuable things to make a point
| that this single silicon-made, soulless corporate company-
| produced, cheap exploited labor induced thing is going to
| replace them. Those things of aesthetics and soul are destroyed
| to give rise to this thing.
|
| That hits hard for me. Seriously. I thought that I was being a
| real snowflake when this ad made me uncomfortable, but was glad
| to see this backlash in large numbers. Maybe people still have
| souls.
|
| You can give a thousand lessons in "nature of real
| circumstances and geopolitics", and this ad with all its
| backstory will still be wrong to me.
| mindwok wrote:
| Thanks, this for me is the best articulation for why someone
| might feel so strongly.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Except what are pianos, guitars, cameras etc.? Also products
| made by companies that are equally "soulless" (they make
| these things to make money just like Apple). And in terms of
| aesthetics you can think technological products are just as
| beautiful as those other products. I personally get angry
| when I see things like classic Macintoshes turned into fish
| aquariums and the like, as I see it as beautiful technology
| destroyed, but even so not _that_ angry.
| yterdy wrote:
| It's a bit of a stretch to call musical instruments - which
| are often handcrafted and not manufactured because an
| object that produces a particular sound requires tolerance
| that shift with the source material and that are difficult
| to generalize to a machine process - "soulless". On top of
| that handcrafting, they're objects made specifically to tap
| into one of the deepest parts of the human psyche (again,
| by hand, ephemerally). It's hard to think of something less
| soulless.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Do you think hand crafted instruments were used for the
| ad or cheap Chinese shit?
| yterdy wrote:
| https://youtu.be/XL7Wxqr2ZRk
|
| https://youtu.be/0SvfNhMlnBE
|
| Even "cheap Chinese shit" is made by hand.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| I'm not sure how to articulate it but there's a deep
| irony in how people are scoffing at the emotional
| reaction to this ad, when the sentiment in it - that all
| things can be done/subsumed by Computers(tm) - has
| infiltrated the public consciousness as deeply as it has.
|
| There is _so much_ that is still only doable at least in
| part by hand, from making certain musical instruments to
| things like crochet. There are even more that use
| machines but are nowhere near as automated as people
| believe they are (see e.g. practically all tailoring,
| where even mass produced articles still need a skilled
| hand to guide the cutting and sewing machines).
|
| But people love the fiction of some sterile production
| line that spits out all the cheap things they buy, in no
| small part because acknowledging that even "cheap Chinese
| shit" is made by the skilled hands of actual human beings
| would require acknowledging the gross exploitation that
| enables you to buy their work for absurdly low prices.
| ncr100 wrote:
| Seriously, true.
|
| Mother's heartbeat. The woosh of her blood stream.
|
| We get months of this auditory performance.
| digitalsushi wrote:
| The pianos, guitars, cameras were at one point the labors
| of love from fellow engineers, and then adopted as the
| extended arms, fingers, eyes of the the artists those
| engineers trusted their labors with.
|
| And yeah I'm not oblivious. We can replace all the
| engineers and artists with generated output that satisfies
| 97% of everyone. It was great while it lasted but like the
| apple commercial hints at, out with the old ...
| haswell wrote:
| > _...Also products made by companies that are equally
| "soulless" (they make these things to make money just like
| Apple)_
|
| I have to strongly disagree. Pianos, guitars and other
| instruments have a long and rich history that connects the
| past to the present. A long arc of human progress and
| creativity, with some of the most sought after instruments
| today being rooted in a deep history of human
| craftsmanship.
|
| Cameras also have a rich history, but don't belong in the
| same sentence IMO.
|
| While you can find soulless products to buy, those are only
| a subset of what's on offer.
|
| I enjoy using Apple products, and will probably even buy
| this iPad because I need to upgrade. But it sits in an
| entirely different category than my cameras and musical
| instruments.
| nojvek wrote:
| The stress ball emoji getting destroyed with its eyes
| popping up. That was real depressing.
|
| That's how it feels when inflation made basics jump up
| 50% and it feels you're being slowly crushed.
|
| Seeing this is an Ad for one of the world's richest
| Companies, the lesson I got is the rich are slowly
| crushing the median.
|
| Don't buy their crap.
| nojvek wrote:
| He! Thanks for downvote. Someone really loves Apple.
| mc32 wrote:
| Nah, they're probably mad at the economic, interpreted as
| political, message more than anything.
|
| If they're mad at that, then they'd be mad at themselves
| for having a zoomorphic stressball and squeezing it
| themselves --which, who knows, is possible, but unlikely
| to be the case.
| newswasboring wrote:
| Bit of a side note, I was trying to understand why the
| history of craftsmanship feels different for cameras
| compared to say pianos. One variable here is definitely
| the fact that I work in lithography and cameras are a
| sister industry. Familiarity diminishes the mystique of
| something. But I think it's a bit more about time. Each
| advance in piano technology had it's "moment" so to
| speak. New refinement in pianos were slower to develop
| due to many reasons, but the prestige of pianos remains
| the same. But unlike cameras each generation of pianos
| got an entire human lifetime to be explored, sometimes
| even multiple lifetimes. It's cultural impact got time to
| be normalized and then commented upon. None of that has
| happened for cameras. Things changed so fast we didn't
| even get a chance to explore all of the options.
|
| An argument against my amateur analysis is of course
| scale. Pianos were being explored by maybe a million
| people and only a fraction of that fulltime. Cameras are
| basically a part of life for a large portion of humanity.
| Retric wrote:
| Musical instruments have nothing on the deep history of
| consumer electronics.
|
| The entire arch of human history from the first rock
| picked up our ancestors leads up to the most complex
| things ever conceived by humans. Requiring a globally
| distributed intellectual exchange, thousands of years of
| scientific and technological advancement, commerce, etc.
|
| Focusing on just the physical assembly of complex parts
| ignores not just where those parts comes from, but also
| everyone living and dead that contributed to the software
| which makes it more than odd object. And even that
| glosses over the continent spanning electrical systems
| used to power em etc.
|
| A tablet, laptop, etc is the ultimate expression of
| history warts and all. If they seem soulless it's because
| they aren't just a product of a single culture.
| ruined wrote:
| >Musical instruments have nothing on the deep history of
| consumer electronics.
|
| no, man. have you never experienced music in a personal
| way? not a recording, not a concert, but as a living
| cultural joy shared and created together among strangers
| and lovers both in the same moment - it's so beautiful,
| so overwhelming in a way that nothing else is.
|
| and so often it involves a musical instrument, you know.
|
| and it can be a story, a lesson, it is all political.
| people kill and die for this thing every day, and every
| day in history.
|
| instruments may be more electronic these days and i enjoy
| my share of electronic music and computer music. but
| physical, acoustic instruments will always be the icon.
|
| i think a piano or a guitar has already made more history
| than remains to be made by anything.
|
| the first cultural memes were songs
| itishappy wrote:
| Hard disagree. The history of consumer electrics goes
| back maybe a century, but we've been studying and
| progressing the field of music for tens of thousands of
| years.
|
| Pianos guitars and violins were crafted by hand!
| Materials were chosen with care and cultivated over
| decades with the express purpose of providing a certain
| character to an instrument! The complexity of a
| harpsichord or piano was insane in a time before supply
| chains, and they were designed to last centuries and be
| passed down between generations! That's just the fancy
| stuff, stringed instruments can and have been made by
| anyone, and innovation has come from surprising places!
| Almost anybody can change the balance, or experiment with
| covering up holes or adding random metal components to
| see how it affects the sound. All this effort and
| knowledge and time goes into something created FOR FUN.
| You can't eat a piano or use it for any reason other than
| changing the way people feel, yet music has been around
| since language was first invented or possibly even
| earlier.
|
| An iPad is a homogenous blob, it's components broken down
| and reconstituted at a molecular level, none of it's
| original character remains. They are the pinnacle of
| design, but there's not much room for expression left.
| They last a few years at most before becoming museum
| pieces or trash. They're impressive in their own right,
| they showcase human achievement like nothing else. I'd
| argue they have a less colorful history than music,
| however.
| Retric wrote:
| > An iPad is a homogeneous blob
|
| A homogeneous blob wouldn't do anything. You're
| discounting complexity because it's not staring you in
| the face.
|
| > History of consumer electronics goes back maybe a
| century
|
| Ceramics go back 9,000+ years and people where making
| glass 4,000 years ago but that history doesn't count
| because...
|
| Capacitors, batteries, metals, etc each have their own
| long history of development without which you didn't get
| an iPad.
|
| > The complexity of a harpsichord or piano was insane in
| a time before supply chains
|
| They don't use glass, ceramics, etc. It only seems
| complicated because you have some idea of all the steps
| involved. Meanwhile you can't conceive of everything
| involved in making just the machines required for a
| single component.
| itishappy wrote:
| > A homogeneous blob wouldn't do anything. You're
| discounting complexity because it's not staring you in
| the face.
|
| Sorry, my phrasing was poor. As a product line, iPads are
| homogenous. If we both order one, they will be nearly
| indistinguishable. Their component materials have been
| homogenized before manufacturing to remove as much of the
| character of the original sand or rock as possible.
|
| > Capacitors, batteries, metals, etc each have their own
| long history of development without which you didn't get
| an iPad.
|
| These were not developed with consumer electronics in
| mind. Electricity itself was only discovered 300 years
| ago. Electronics absolutely built upon the shoulders of
| giants, but I don't believe they can claim all human
| progress as their own. The iPad air doesn't have 5000
| years of history because that's when we started refining
| metals.
|
| > Meanwhile you can't conceive of everything involved in
| making just the machines required for a single component.
|
| My work makes optics for the chip industry, so I like to
| think I have better idea than most, but I haven't been to
| anywhere like Shenzhen yet, so I may be out of touch...
| Retric wrote:
| > Their component materials have been homogenized before
| manufacturing to remove as much of the character of the
| original ... as possible.
|
| You also just described musical instruments. The goal is
| for them to sound identical to similar instruments and a
| great deal of effort controlling humidity etc falls under
| that umbrella. People in an Orchestra want specific
| sounds not just random character from their instruments.
|
| > These were not developed with consumer electronics in
| mind.
|
| By that token the harpsichord wasn't invented with the
| piano in mind. There's nothing wrong with this view, but
| it drops the 'rich history of musical instruments' to the
| work of a tiny number of innovators.
|
| > Electricity itself was only discovered 300 years ago
|
| Electricity (static shocks, lightning, some evidence for
| primitive battery etc) was known about since antiquity
| though obviously we only recently learned how to exploit
| it.
|
| > The iPad air doesn't have 5000 years of history because
| that's when we started refining metals.
|
| The rich history of glassmaking is directly relevant to
| the iPad and provides some of its most valuable features.
| If we discount that then the history of musical
| instruments again becomes one of a tiny number of lone
| inventors.
|
| Apples to apples comparisons favor electronics here.
| itishappy wrote:
| > You also just described musical instruments.
|
| Some. My experience has been that the diversity of
| instruments dwarfs that of electronics, with the possible
| exception of early Nokia phones. I bet this is largely
| driven by product lifecycle, as my saxophones are each
| over 10 years old and have been refurbished more than
| once. High-end professional instruments are often one-of-
| a-kind.
|
| > The rich history of glassmaking is directly relevant to
| the iPad and provides some of its most valuable features.
|
| I agree, but again I think it's a problem of intent.
| Glassmaking was improved to make decorations, then
| storage vessels, then optics, then cookware and labware,
| then electronics. Meanwhile people have been making bone
| flutes and leather drums for longer than they've been
| able to write about it.
| Retric wrote:
| > I think it's a problem of intent.
|
| The intent to create musical instruments is a tiny
| fraction of the history of woodworking etc. If you're
| looking at things that narrowly there's nothing
| particularly interesting left about em.
|
| With that mindset a hammer has a much longer and richer
| history than a Tuba and musical instruments are just a
| trivial edge case crated as little more than novelty
| items.
|
| On the other hand if you bring in the skills required to
| craft precision objects and the culture required to
| support such endeavors then tablets are clearly more
| wondrous.
| itishappy wrote:
| I'm not claiming all of woodworking as the history of
| musical instrument making, just that which was explicitly
| involved in the creation of musical instruments. We've
| been making musical instruments for a very long time. To
| your point though, I bet the history of hammers is even
| longer!
|
| I think we're probably arguing semantics at this point. I
| totally agree that the amount of raw effort and
| technological progress that goes into tablet making
| dwarfs that which goes into an instrument.
| api wrote:
| In addition to what others have said, I see a budding
| revolt against "millennial modernism" here.
|
| For those who haven't heard this term, it basically
| refers to the Apple aesthetic: sparse, minimal,
| utilitarian, and clean.
|
| Flat UIs and Material design (out of Google) are other
| examples.
|
| This ad is basically a millennial modernist manifesto.
| Down with complexity. Down with variety. Simple, clean,
| minimal.
|
| Contrast this with the noisy cyberpunk aesthetic that was
| pretty common in technology before Apple 2.0 and Jony Ive
| and can still be found in the gaming PC area, or the
| 80s-90s skeuomorphic aesthetic that dominated UIs until
| the later 2000s.
|
| When Millennial modernism came to prominence it was
| itself a revolt against noise, clashing styles, and
| overwhelm. I personally liked it for that aspect. But I
| can definitely see how it can also be soulless. IMHO the
| worst thing I can say about it is that it seems
| associated with authoritarianism. Like Brutalist
| architecture it's kind of an authoritarian aesthetic
| because it comes about by having a dictator who says 'no'
| to almost everything and enforces a very rigid _auteur_
| approach. Once established it also tends to remain
| unchanged because there 's not much you can do with it.
| "Theming" possibilities are pretty much restricted to
| light and dark mode.
|
| I myself have mixed feelings (about millennial modernism
| not the ad, which is awful). The biggest thing I like
| about this style is its association with reduced
| cognitive load. The biggest thing I don't like is the
| association with authoritarianism.
|
| Edit:
|
| Just realized that the Cybertruck is an ode to millennial
| modernism, and might just be kind of a shark jumping
| moment for it. This ad would count as another shark
| jumping moment. Maybe it's on its way out.
| ncr100 wrote:
| I didn't like the advert and I'm not a millennial.
|
| It was repulsive.
|
| The issue for me is not about minimalism, so this
| reframing is not appropriate in my case.
| api wrote:
| Millennial modernism doesn't mean the generation. It's
| the industrial design and UI aesthetic that took hold
| around the turn of the millennium. AFAIK Jony Ive, one of
| its main architects, is a genX-er. Generationally I
| associate it more with genX since it took hold when that
| generation was entering higher levels in the corporate
| world.
|
| I do agree that there is more wrong with the advert than
| this. I was just pointing out something nobody'd brought
| up.
| leetharris wrote:
| I'm sorry but this sounds like internet bubble nonsense.
|
| A budding revolt? Equating an iPad to authoritarianism?
|
| I think I understand and agree with some of your
| concepts. I see a trend back towards analog things and
| low tech devices, but that's a pretty simple and
| understandable trend. I don't think it has anything to do
| with authoritarianism.
| postmodest wrote:
| Fuji Heavy Industries would like a word about pianos,
| guitars, trumpets, and, if we're honest with ourselves,
| everything else on that press.
|
| Though the tone of the ad was still... Orwellian: imagine
| a hydraulic press, stamping on human creativity, forever.
| jrwoodruff wrote:
| For me, it was more about the humanity represented by the
| objects than what company they came from. All of those
| objects are far more human-centered than the iPad. All of
| those objects were crafted and perfected over centuries -
| guitar forms, paint formulas, camera technology, etc. In a
| way it's representative of the much of human culture, and
| this add kinda says, yea, screw all that old crappy stuff.
| Look at our neat piece of glass that replaces all that
| humanity.
|
| I get it, that's exactly their point. The iPad can do all
| of those things. But at a time when many creatives feel
| like AI is going to replace them or make their skills
| irrelevant, it's pretty tone deaf.
|
| And also, it's far more likely that most of those objects
| were made by skilled craftsmen, even if they did work at a
| bigger company.
| veidr wrote:
| > But at a time when many creatives feel like AI is going
| to replace them or make their skills irrelevant, it's
| pretty tone deaf.
|
| This is what I realized, too. At first, I thought the
| outrage was dumb, but I think this is the context I was
| missing.
| silver_silver wrote:
| It's the product which they're describing as soulless.
| Apple likes to sell the idea of creativity but the device's
| purpose is ultimately consumption.
| vundercind wrote:
| This remains one of the most alien takes around, to me.
| I-devices are the most useful computers I have, by a
| county mile, when I want to do something creative or
| constructive in the real world (not write software, say).
| Their greatest strength is that they're computers that
| bridge real-life and computing like a "real" computer
| does not.
|
| Separately, the ad is weird. They're the first thing I
| reach for if I want to e.g. play our actual piano. I tune
| instruments with them, display music with them, record
| myself, play an accompanying track on them--I compliment
| instruments with them, I don't replace them with an iPad
| or iPhone.
| veidr wrote:
| I get why this take is so common, but it's just wrong.
| Not that most use of iPad isn't consumption, but that
| this is different. PCs, too. MacBook Whatevers, too. TVs,
| too (obviously).
|
| The iPads have had a hard time because, yeah, the OS
| was/is in its infancy but nobody (except the dgaf-
| wealthy) buys the $2000+ iPad Pro for "consumption"
| because they sell a $400 and $700 iPad for that.
|
| The things iPad (Pro) can do are indeed far fewer than an
| unencumbered (by draconian lockdown, or simple lack of
| development resources) PC or even Mac laptop. But that's
| different than "none". The more hardware equipment in my
| studio I can shovel onto Apple's magic hydraulic
| obliterator, the better.
|
| (Although it's a lot less than shown in that ad, haha.
| But I liked the ad, as far as ads go.)
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Ok, but nobody thinks that fish aquariums are a threat to
| computing.
|
| I don't personally think that computing is a threat to art,
| but many people do.
| niek_pas wrote:
| > Maybe people still have souls.
|
| What exactly are you trying to achieve with this sentence?
| cranium wrote:
| I would add that the atmosphere really feels dystopian - kind
| of a soul-less machine (crusher in a warehouse) vs symbols of
| human creativity. Despite the music, it's not a light and fun
| representation.
| goatkey wrote:
| It reminded me of Fallout or Bioshock, which is kinda funny
| and likely not at all what they were going for.
| __rito__ wrote:
| Yes, that too.
|
| What man with a soul would destroy a guitar with a crusher
| for _any_ purpose at all?
|
| That's _psychopathically_ problematic to me.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Yeah ok, do you carry a smartphone with you?
|
| Or do you carry a bag with a camera, a dumb phone, a notepad
| w/ pens and markers, books, an mp3 player, a pedometer, a
| measuring tape, ...
|
| No one's forcing you to buy the former, so, why don't you do
| the latter?
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| Ah, the classic "You criticize technology and yet you have
| a smartphone, checkmate".
|
| There are genuine uses for this technology, but
| symbolically showing that pianos, violins, paints, etc are
| out of date by crushing them, replacing them with an iPad
| removes any of the "humanity" from it.
|
| If I swipe a violin string on an iPad, it's going to sound
| the exact same no matter what. But if I play a real violin
| I have control over the vibrato (I guess, I'm not a
| violinist), I can start a note slowly and then quickly cut
| it off for effect, or slowly fade out a note by relieving
| pressure on the strings. The real thing allows for artists
| to put their heart and their soul into the music. An iPad
| can only immitate the note in it's most pristine,
| mathematic, sterile form.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >Ah, the classic "You criticize technology and yet you
| have a smartphone, checkmate".
|
| I never wrote anything remotely similar to that in my
| comment. I'm talking about the convenience of carrying a
| single thing vs. many of them.
|
| >removes any of the "humanity" from it
|
| No, the iPad didn't remove the humanity from those
| activities, _you_ did, right now. Let me tell you
| something, there 's some really good pieces of art out
| there, music, short films, photography, etc... that were
| created using a modern digital device like the iPad. Does
| that make those less human? Less artistically valuable?
| Absolutely not!
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| This conversation isn't about "convenience of carrying a
| single thing vs. many of them". This discussion isn't
| about portability. Musicians don't carry their pianos or
| an orchestra with them to Trader Joes.
|
| On your other point: Correct, there is _INCREDIBLE_ art
| out there that is only possible thanks to technology. EDM
| music, 3D animation, the hyperpop genre (RIP Sophie),
| etc. The insinuation of the ad, however, is that those
| "old" ways to create art are no longer needed, _the iPad
| does it all_!!
|
| Give two jazz artists the same music sheet and an iPad
| and tell them to recreate it and they'll both make music
| that sounds the exact same, because the iPad doesn't
| allow them to insert those little _things_ like I
| mentioned in my previous comment.
|
| Give those same two jazz artists the same music sheet but
| give them a full orchestra and they'll both be unique.
|
| This doesn't make digital art less artistically valuable.
| I'm saying that technologies such as the iPad, which
| inherently remove the _ability_ for human uniqueness to
| be included, insinuating that physical methods of
| artistic expression are outdated is both demeaning to
| artists, and frankly a dangerous method of thinking when
| it comes to art.
| lxgr wrote:
| > Give two jazz artists the same music sheet and an iPad
| and tell them to recreate it and they'll both make music
| that sounds the exact same
|
| That sounds like an extremely dubious claim.
|
| By the same logic, two pro gamers playing the same video
| game should always achieve the exact same score, two
| authors typing a novel in the same computer should end up
| with the same story etc., yet that's clearly not true.
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| > By the same logic, two pro gamers play the same video
| game should always achieve the exact same score.
|
| Both of those comparisons you've made have the human
| element included in them. The gamers don't follow the
| exact same path in a speedrun. The authors don't have the
| exact same instructions on what book to write.
|
| If a musician plucks the iPad violin strings to make an A
| note, it will sound the same across all iPads, across all
| artists, every time without fail. But if that same
| musician plucks an A note on a violin, it will sound
| different every time, across different musicians,
| different violins, different pressures, different
| techniques, etc.
|
| Ask a music lover which they'd prefer. An orchestra
| consisting of pre-recorded music from 80 iPads played
| over loudspeakers or a live symphony orchestra?
| lxgr wrote:
| > If a musician plucks the iPad violin strings to make an
| A note, it will sound the same across all iPads, across
| all artists, every time without fail.
|
| Will it really, though? Touchscreens are pretty high
| resolution these days in both time and space.
|
| I think this is ultimately a quantitative (and a huge
| one, at that, don't get me wrong) difference in the
| ergonomics of input methods, rather than a qualitative
| difference in "humanness".
|
| Again, don't get me wrong, I am not arguing here that an
| iPad will produce "better" musical outcomes than an
| "analog violin", but I'd like to challenge the idea that
| the analog or digital (or maybe mass-produced vs.
| artisanally crafted) nature of an inanimate object is
| what makes or breaks the "human element" of a work of
| art.
|
| Humans add the human element, by using their tools
| creatively.
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| I agree with you on that, it's a different input method
| and (therefore) will always come with it's quirks whether
| it's analog or digital. Digital art, music, animation,
| etc are incredible feats in their own right.
|
| From knowing and being close with a lot of artists, the
| main complaint I hear about this ad is that it comes
| across as a destruction of the analog form to "make way"
| for the digital. Both of them can exist as they cater to
| different forms of artistic expression. This doesn't
| inherently make one better than the other. It comes
| across as a very bad take to artists that digital art is
| better than analog art, and analog art is on it's way to
| being destroyed.
|
| I get it that this may just all be artists and myself
| reading too much into this. But that's art! We read into
| things _waaayyyy_ too much sometimes.
| lxgr wrote:
| I must really be watching another ad than anybody else!
|
| As I see it, all of these great analog (and digital,
| there's a Space Invaders arcade cabinet!) tools are
| getting physically squished into the iPad.
|
| That's coincidentally how I think about my smartphone
| already: It's not necessarily better than most of my
| other devices (digital and analog) it's replaced, but
| it's all of them at once, and that is quite the
| achievement.
|
| That doesn't mean that the squishing didn't cause an
| unfortunate loss in expressiveness or ergonomics in many
| cases, but at least in photography, there's the old
| saying that the best camera is the one you always have
| with you.
| ncr100 wrote:
| I agree. And,
|
| The walled garden of Apple is famous.
|
| Painters cannot paint a room with buckets of paint in an
| iPad.
|
| Children cannot play with a squeeze ball on an iPad.
|
| The ad failed, overstating the iPad functionality, while
| they destroyed precious tangible items.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >This conversation isn't about "convenience of carrying a
| single thing vs. many of them".
|
| I am actually making an argument for that. Why did
| smartphones caught up? Because they're everything in a
| single thing. Apple wants the iPad to be the same in its
| respective market segment.*
| haswell wrote:
| Not OP, but in my daily carry bag I bring: a camera, books,
| notepad with pencils, _and_ my iPhone.
|
| I carry those other things because I value photography and
| the phone can't replace the tactile experience of writing
| on paper or turning the pages of a book.
|
| I own an aging iPad and will probably buy this new one, but
| strongly disliked the ad because it seems to be signaling
| that those things I value are being _replaced_ by the iPad.
| In a sense, they said the quiet part out loud.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Oh, so you're option three, you just got everything, lol.
|
| I actually liked the ad, and I like the underlying
| message of the iPad being a simile for all those things.
| Consider a situation where you have a limited budget,
| let's say you're a teen and you only get _one_ birthday
| present. Me personally, I 'd get an iPad or a similar
| device, as that's the single _thing_ that will maximize
| my fun, out of all other options.
|
| (emphasis on _thing_ , please don't come back at me with
| the "I'd rather have friends" strawman, you can have
| friends _and_ an iPad)
| itishappy wrote:
| Yeah, that makes me sad. You can get a really nice guitar
| and camera for the price of an iPad, and I suspect most
| people learn a lot less about music and photography with
| an iPad than a guitar and a camera.
|
| I get that people want the powerful shiny thing. I do
| too, I work in tech. I think it's done something
| dangerous to my brain though...
| moralestapia wrote:
| There's probably billions of guitars and cameras around
| the world just gathering dust. (With some particular
| exceptions) the gear doesn't make the artist.
| itishappy wrote:
| I'm sure you're right, but I don't think the quality of
| the device matters, I think it's the intent. An iPad is a
| generalist device, it's a portal to the world. A guitar
| is an instrument, it makes music and little else.
|
| As someone proficient with both guitar and digital music
| production, I find that I make better music with physical
| instruments. I spend most of my time making digital music
| watching YouTube videos about production tricks... I'm
| sure some people have more willpower than I who can focus
| their energy productively, but I don't think that's most
| people's natural state.
|
| I guess what I'm saying is that in retrospect, if I could
| give a guitar or an iPad to my 12 year old self, I'd
| choose the guitar again, no contest.
| AlanYx wrote:
| >Or do you carry a bag with a camera, a dumb phone, a
| notepad w/ pens and markers, books, an mp3 player, a
| pedometer, a measuring tape, ...
|
| The thing is, people are starting to do that more and more.
| Even John Gruber, iPhone enthusiast extraordinaire, has
| started carrying a real camera around again. Fujifilm
| hasn't been able to keep their smaller mirrorless cameras
| in stock for the last four years. Notebooks and pens are
| back for a lot of people. Even wristwatches are undergoing
| an enormous renaissance in popularity.
|
| The cultural zeitgeist is shifting. Whether it's a reaction
| to a sense that software is eating the world, or a reaction
| to the ubiquitization of AI generica, or a quest for
| authenticity, I'm not sure. But this ad is badly out of
| step with that cultural trend, and the dystopian lighting,
| framing, and the popping eyes on the stress ball certainly
| don't help either.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Do you have any numbers to better understand that trend?
| (I don't, btw)
|
| I have the impression that the opposite is happening.
| AlanYx wrote:
| The numbers on the vinyl album renaissance are probably a
| good illustration. They're undergoing nonlinear growth,
| and have either surpassed CD sales or are neck-and-neck,
| e.g.: https://www.statista.com/chart/26583/music-album-
| sales-in-th... Though it's also interesting that actual
| CD sales have levelled off too, after dropping for years.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Other analog media like minidisc has also seen a notable
| uptick in popularity, albeit not nearly as much as vinyl.
|
| Also while not analog, iPods modded to be a bit more
| modern (replacing their mechanical HDs with higher
| capacity flash and adding haptics and Bluetooth among
| other things) have also been popular lately.
|
| Offline music is definitely seeing a resurgence.
| pera wrote:
| > Maybe people still have souls
|
| I agree with everything you say except for this part: not
| having an emotional reaction to the destruction of objects
| doesn't imply you don't have a soul (whatever that means to
| you). Not everybody had the opportunity in life to learn to
| play an instrument or make art, and I can see how for people
| like this a music instrument is not more sentimental than,
| say, a hammer.
|
| Maybe you should feel good about feeling bad after watching
| that ad: it means you had the chance to experience the beauty
| of creating art.
| nipponese wrote:
| Actual number is $26B in cash
|
| source: 2023 10k
| sanderjd wrote:
| I mean, they obviously didn't execute it well, since so many
| people had this kind of reaction to it, but the point seemed
| to me to be that all those "things of aesthetics and soul"
| are smushed into this one very thin thing, not that they are
| destroyed.
|
| But sure, I can see why people don't like it.
| dtjb wrote:
| they were gratuitously and violently destroyed, with
| shrapnel and debris flying in all directions.
|
| these hydraulic press videos are popular because they crush
| things. they don't create artful unions, they pulverize.
| sheepscreek wrote:
| I think you got very close to the real issue.
|
| One aspect could bae related the affordability of things.
| Imagine that beautiful grand piano - how many would have
| dreamt of owning one in their homes but can't. Because:
|
| a) they are expensive
|
| b) need a lot of space (so you need to have a big home to
| begin with)
|
| Seeing a lot of new things being destroyed, along with the
| stress all emoji's eyes popping out, was a bit much.
| culopatin wrote:
| Why does Apple destroying things outrage worthy but Hollywood
| destroying many more things (in my head for example many
| classic cars) for a shot, not? Is it because one is
| entertaining and one is not?
| boringg wrote:
| The advertisement statement is destroying all these things
| and replacing them by an iPad. I.E. thats the sales pitch
| -- you don't need any of these things anymore just this
| iPad.
|
| Hollywood does destroy all sorts of things but that's not
| their sales pitch to you. It happens in the background.
| Also it isn't replacing those soulful cars with a new car
| -- it's using them for a shot.
| culopatin wrote:
| So as long as things happen in the background and we
| continue to be numb to the destruction is all good? I
| think that says more about you(as in us, the viewer, not
| you HN user) than about Apple to be honest. And I'm not
| pro Apple here, could be anyone. Could be that Australian
| girl on Instagram that crushes things and dances to their
| shape.
| boringg wrote:
| There's a step function difference between a large
| megacorp making their message about crushing artistic
| merit/individuality and selling their device as a
| replacement to all compared to hollywood using a couple
| cars as a stunt in the background. Apples to oranges.
|
| If you can't see the difference here I think this says
| more about you being able to put together reasonable
| comparables for arguments then anything else.
|
| For example using "Australian girl on Instagram that
| crushes things and dances to their shape" as a comparable
| is so completely different as to be irrelevant except
| that there is similarity in something being crushed. It's
| like comparing a military jet and a mosquito because they
| can both fly.
| culopatin wrote:
| Why does saying "this IPad combines all these things"
| crush artistic merit or individuality? You can still go
| buy a piano and do whatever you want and be your own
| individual independently of Apple crushing ONE
| piano/trumpet/5 emoji balls.
| boringg wrote:
| Like I said - if you can't see why they dropped the ball
| on the advertisement then that falls on your own ability
| to interpret.
|
| To your question - they literally used crush and destroy
| as their message.
|
| Unforced error on Apples part plain and simple.
| phantomathkg wrote:
| I think the comparison is wrong here. For hollywood or
| film making, it is about the story telling. One has to
| create and destroy scene to produce story.
| culopatin wrote:
| From what I had read from some of the upset people was
| that what's wrong with the ad was in the realm of waste =
| bad. But I'm when I bring up the Hollywood example for
| waste, it goes out the window. If this ad was part of a
| longer movie, would it be ok to crush them all? If it was
| say a scene in a dictatorship story where people are not
| allowed to make new music or something, would someone
| talk about the waste of a perfectly good piano for the
| scene?
| trashtester wrote:
| Exactly. Had this put this exact video into some
| dystopian sci fi, it might be a suitable way to portray
| some villain or cynical mega-corporation as nihilistic.
|
| But when a company uses this in an ad, THEY are the ones
| that come off as nihilists, and not in a good way.
|
| If they wanted to express that the ipad CONTAINED all of
| those older things within it, they could have created
| this as something like Dr Strange would have done. Like
| make those items fly into a portal shaped like a giant
| ipad, and then shrink the ipad with all those items still
| inside.
|
| Or at the very least, they could have presented the items
| to be destroyed like they were worn out and broken (and
| no longer in use), and then presented their destruction
| as giving them new life through recycling as an Ipad.
|
| This ad will definitely pop into my head the next time I
| consider buying an Apple device, and not in a good way.
| Raidion wrote:
| Destroying classic cars for a movie creates something. I
| think a few car people would be pretty upset if some really
| bad, made for TV movie destroyed a lot of classic cars.
| This is just that, but upsetting musicians, photographers,
| artists, and basically anyone who cares about the
| environment.
|
| This ad destroys a lot of things people are really really
| fond about: musical instruments, painting supplies,
| photography equipment, and record player. And then says
| that all of those things will be replaced by this "gadget"
| that won't have the years of life of the piano, guitar,
| camera, record player, etc.
|
| So it destroys things people care about AND tells you the
| things you care about don't matter anymore.
| culopatin wrote:
| Movies generate something that's visually interesting. If
| this wasn't an ad, wouldn't you say it was visually
| interesting to see what happens when you crush something
| like that? Things get destroyed all the time for visuals,
| experiments, someone's "fun", etc.
|
| I think the difference is that people are very removed
| from what waste actually is, and when they see what it
| actually happens all day every day to all those items,
| shock. We all generate this every day. In the big
| picture, someone's old trumpet in an attic is going to
| end up in a landfill once they move/die/need space. Once
| it got produced, its final form is landfill.
|
| Even if I don't believe in the product, and I don't think
| of the company very fondly, I lean towards considering
| the ad anti waste. "You no longer need to buy and store
| and move and hoard all these things, you only need an
| iPad". It's not saying "go crush all this items to buy an
| iPad", it's saying "don't generate all this other waste,
| you can do it all here"
|
| Volume wise at least, there is more waste in the "loved"
| items, and no one is recycling emoji squishy balls.
| Damogran6 wrote:
| The classic cars destroyed in movies are, quite often,
| not worth restoring, The Ferrari in Ferris Bueller's Day
| Off was a kit car, vehicles are often insurance write
| offs...there was a time when you could see cars in-frame
| were suddently 10 years older and tell that there was
| some destruction going to happen. I'm sure you can find
| some Italian Supercar destroyed for real in some Fast and
| the Furious type movie, but it's often not what it seems.
|
| Is there also outcry when a Musician destroys a guitar
| on-stage?
|
| My feeling at the ad wasn't particularly emotional, more
| curiosity at how much of it was real and how much wasnt.
| Speakers and art supplies aren't particularly expensive,
| and the Arcade machine wasn't recognizeably a machine
| worth keeping. There are plenty of used up pianos out
| there. The emoji was kinda funny...I don't know what that
| says about me.
| setgree wrote:
| Quentin Tarantino once upset a lot of people when a classic
| guitar got smashed on one of his sets:
| https://www.guitarworld.com/features/the-hateful-eight-
| marti...
| frantathefranta wrote:
| Most of the classic cars destroyed in movies are replicas
| built specifically for the occasion.
| culopatin wrote:
| And why are we assuming the stuff in the ad is all
| collector worthy and not some broken piano that was going
| to the landfill?
| __rito__ wrote:
| There's a fire, and a piano is burned- that's okay as
| telling the story demands it in a movie. (I also believe
| that some among them would burn a fake piano rather than a
| real one. I may be wrong here.)
|
| But stating that all those beautiful things _" deserve"_ to
| be replaced by a thin silicon 3k USD machine by literally
| destroying them in an industrial crusher?
|
| That's different.
|
| The same Apple destroyed the Big Brother some decades ago
| in a commercial. The sense of irony!
|
| (Also, a car is a car. The world doesn't share Americans'
| obsession and weird relationships with cars. A
| photographer's camera, a musician's guitar are more
| important.)
| culopatin wrote:
| The car is an example of something that I think of as art
| in the same way you think of a camera. I'm sure they have
| destroyed many pianos for movies, shows, theatre, etc.
|
| The world doesn't share your own obsession and weird
| relationships with a camera and a guitar.
| bitexploder wrote:
| I feel this is a highly romantic and nostalgic view of
| objects humans make. Calling them "beautiful" vs "this
| thing". I know this is all subjective, but what makes a piano
| more soulful than an iPhone? This is a genuinely curious
| exploration of the emotions involved here.
| amelius wrote:
| The iPhone is a vending machine in our pockets, controlled
| by a large corporation.
|
| I'm not at all surprised people don't feel emotions around
| it.
|
| The moment a piano starts selling tablature in the
| TabStore(tm), I'm sure that people won't mind to see a
| piano being crushed in a hydraulic press.
| 8338550bff96 wrote:
| Snowflakes are normally found en mass
| haswell wrote:
| I strongly disliked the ad. I also get through my days just
| fine. I don't understand the insinuation that people who
| disliked it must be somehow unable to navigate daily life.
|
| Here's why I disliked it: I'm one of those people who finds
| themselves concerned and sometimes sad at the erosion of the
| humanity in art. Social media and AI are changing the nature of
| artistic expression in a way that often feels destructive. I've
| started to intentionally unplug and use devices _less_ in order
| to stay connected to what I see as the good stuff in life.
|
| To me, this ad is the culmination of what I dislike about tech.
|
| If they had played the ad in reverse, I think I'd have really
| liked it. iPad as a tool for expression. Instead, it's
| presented as a tool that supersedes expression. I suspect Apple
| was trying to communicate the former.
|
| _Edit to respond to the edit_ : highly sensitive people who
| have visceral reactions to stuff like this are canaries in the
| coal mine. We need them just as much as we need substantive
| discussion here. Some of the backlash also originated in Japan,
| where culturally this was quite offensive.
| tkgally wrote:
| > I strongly disliked the ad. I also get through my days just
| fine.
|
| Same here. And besides disliking the ad myself, I imagined
| that many other people would dislike it too. I also wondered
| how on earth it could have gotten the go sign within Apple.
| From the outside, at least, Apple looks like the epitome of a
| cautious, deliberate company. I would have thought there
| would have been plenty of stages in the approval process
| where it would have been shot down.
| haswell wrote:
| This is a good point. It does make me question what's
| happening at Apple when something like this gets all the
| way through.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I'm quite cynical about this one. I think that they knew
| that this ad would produce a reaction and would generate a
| ton of free press. How many people only saw this ad or knew
| there was a new ipad generation because of this coverage? I
| was one of those people.
|
| This feels like bait for online arguments. An aggravating
| theme that is obvious to many but also just enough
| deniability to have people complain about the people who
| react negatively to the ad. Boom. Free press.
| silver_silver wrote:
| It's still up on their YouTube channel despite this
| statement, so you're probably spot on.
| gregd wrote:
| This! Music programs throughout the US, are getting cut. AI
| has fundamentally (and not in a good way) changed the
| artistic landscape in ways that we cannot recover from. My
| soon to be high school graduate daughter, was so looking
| forward to pursuing her artistic passions in college, and now
| is taking a gap year to really understand if that is
| something she still thinks she can make a living at.
| tpmoney wrote:
| Not to be glib, but the "starving artist" has been a thing
| for a lot longer than AI (or even Apple) has been around.
| While I hope your daughter can indeed find a way to make a
| living from her passions if that's what she wants, taking
| time to give a good hard think about that (and for that
| matter whether or not trying to make your passion your job
| might ruin the passion) isn't the worst thing she could do.
|
| I think there's also something to be said for the fact that
| while I agree school music programs should not be facing
| the cuts they do - and that's a battle I was fighting when
| I was in school too - digital music technology (and its
| analogs in video and photography arts) have probably been a
| net positive in terms of bringing the capability to create
| art to more people than just school programs on their own.
| When you can make art without consuming resources, without
| needing large studio spaces or especially in the case of
| music an entire band of other people, that can give freedom
| of expression to people that would otherwise have been
| prevented from participating in the arts because of their
| circumstances.
|
| I'd also point out that while AI (like any disruptive tech
| in the arts) may have introduced bad changes, there are
| also cases where it's allowed for artistic expression that
| would have been impossible before. My favorite recent
| example is Billy Joel's new "Turn the Lights Back On" song
| and video. Watch the video and the obvious thing that jumps
| out at you is the de-aging / replacement effects. But if
| you close your eyes and really listen to the music too,
| you'll discover not only did they play with de-aging
| visually, but they also played with de-aging his voice. And
| though the whole song as he ages up in the song, his voice
| is also changing to match each era until it returns to the
| present day. That's a cool, artistic and emotional use of
| AI technology that just wouldn't have been possible before
| the tools we have now.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| I'm with you in that music and art programs should be
| invested in and not cut. They were already being cut when I
| was a teenager in the 90s and it really held back my own
| music practice.
|
| But in terms of your daughter pursuing an art career, was
| she hoping to work in commercial art? Like at an animation
| studio or graphic design house? Because I don't see AI
| taking jobs from artists doing work that ends up in
| galleries and museums. All of my friends that are
| professional visual artists here in NYC work with physical
| materials that go onto physical walls in galleries, and I
| don't think any of the AIs are going to take away from
| making 30-foot textile sculptures or oil paintings or
| immersive performance art transformations of galleries.
| They might even enhance the toolkit some of my friend's get
| to use.
|
| And depending on what she considers making a living, she
| probably won't for a very long time as an artist regardless
| of AI. There's a huge gap between the artists making $100k
| on a painting and the long tail of those just holding on
| making enough to survive. But the one thing all of them
| have in common is that they really couldn't do anything
| else in their life, they're fully committed to it, it just
| would be impossible for them to not be artists. Maybe I'd
| suggest her going through the Artists Way [1] during her
| gap year while she tries to figure out if it's what she
| wants to do! The framing of it can get pretty, I don't
| know, annoying, weird, but the exercises over the 12-weeks
| I found to be helpful.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Artist%27s_Way
| vundercind wrote:
| Recording and mass production made "I want to be a
| musician" similar to "I want to be a pro football player"
| by the middle of last century ("big band" style being
| popular, and live radio, kept the career alive for a while)
|
| It cut the value, monetary and _social_ , of anything but
| great talent and skill down to almost zero, where one
| middling ability had had substantial value. It shifted the
| reward for it almost entirely to the tip-top of the skill
| hierarchy.
|
| I think the level most people engage with music making (a
| hobby, for themselves primarily) will survive just fine.
| Some of the already-tiny set of paying jobs it composition,
| especially, may be in trouble, but that was already a rare
| career.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Such a good point that having things come _out_ of an ipad
| would have been the effective way to portray the same point
| they are trying to make.
| jvolkman wrote:
| Someone "fixed" the ad by reversing it, and the result is
| much better.
|
| https://twitter.com/rezawrecktion/status/1788211832936861950
| boringg wrote:
| And this is an uplifting great advertisement. Unbelievable
| how much of a difference the message makes.
| conartist6 wrote:
| I doubt you'd feel incensed unless you felt like you were also
| in the hydraulic press. Goodness, there's not any technology
| that would make artists as useless as their instruments and
| tools, is there? That would make this ad _really_ relevant.
| fhd2 wrote:
| I don't care about Apple, so I don't care about the ad. It
| lowers my (already pretty low) opinion of them, but that's
| about it.
|
| If this kind of thing was done by a company I'm a huge
| supporter of, sunk a lot of money into, one I personally
| promoted to my friends and family and one that was part of my
| personal and professional identity in some way, it might be
| very upsetting. I might feel betrayed.
|
| Personally I don't get invested in companies or products like
| that. Maybe you don't either. The emotional reaction makes
| sense if there's high emotional investment. Whether the
| emotional investment is rational is an entirely different
| question.
| Const-me wrote:
| I don't have particularly strong emotional reaction, but IMO
| the ad is horrible.
|
| Destroying functional stuff with a hydraulic press is a waste
| of planet's resources.
|
| Destroying musical instruments, sculptures and other cultural
| artifacts is not too far from burning books, it's barbaric.
|
| Finally, I believe the ad is misleading because the ipad not
| gonna survive the press either. It's just a consumer electronic
| device which doesn't even have IP68 water protection.
| dartos wrote:
| > Finally, I believe the ad is misleading because the ipad
|
| The real issue with the ad that nobody is talking about.
|
| False advertising
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Apple's marketing tells us who they are proud to be. As someone
| who attempts to defend the AppStore fees and process as
| valuable, seeing this makes me question if Apple has gotten
| "too cool" to be a good steward.
|
| So, while it may not feel like it to you, from those who have
| invested in the brand this is a betrayal and a real emotion.
|
| Oh, and I get through the day just fine. It just reminds me to
| never relent on my values.
| r0fl wrote:
| A subsection of society has too much free time and few (what
| people in developing countries would call) real problems.
|
| So they get triggered by mundane things and tweet prayer hands
| for every news headline that hits the 24 hour news cycle
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> people had a strong emotional reaction to this does kinda
| worry me.
|
| It is more than the ad. Apple is a cornerstone of many people's
| lives. Their online existence, the bulk of their personhood
| these days, flows through apple systems. Apple is basically a
| quazi-partner. Such people feel they must react defensively,
| which is the root of fanboy culture. Such people therefore get
| very worried when they see unequivocal mistakes. A fanboy will
| then turn quickly, joining the anti crowd in an effort to
| correct the mistake asap. As soon as apple make sufficient
| recompense, they will return to the defensive. (See every
| mistake ever made by a K-pop star.)
| cm2012 wrote:
| A lot of people don't like the idea of destroying physical
| things, it makes them feel ick.
|
| Same reason people tend to hoard too much shit.
| culopatin wrote:
| People are concerned about waste forget that once the item is
| produced, it's already waste. Just because it's in their
| definition of "worth it" doesn't mean it's not going to end
| up in a landfill in the near future.
| mc32 wrote:
| I think the problem is that people are too 'connected'
| emotionally with products or companies (that speaks to their
| effective advertising) so when a company's pubic personae
| diverge from their own view, they become like the abusive
| partner in a relationship that doesn't allow any daylight
| between themselves and this other entity. They feel betrayal.
|
| I think they invest too much emotion into inanimate things.
| boesboes wrote:
| tbf, I've always found apple commercials cringy af. And I can
| understand a bit of a visceral reaction to the message, but I
| don't see such over-the-topness with other crap such as AI
| content spam, music etc.
|
| But the response seems outsized. it just seems like bullshit. I
| think most of these reactions are not genuine, just all aboard
| the rage-train!
|
| Or maybe they are all just jealous because they can't afford
| apple products ;-)
| gregd wrote:
| One more opinion in the mix. I grew up in extreme poverty as a
| child who also happened to have a keen interest in music. I
| could never develop this keen interest because of course, the
| cost of instruments was too much for my mom to handle.
|
| That same kid also got to watch Pete Townsend (and others) get
| superstar status, while breaking instruments during a
| performance. It was heartbreaking to me that he didn't just
| donate those instruments to disadvantaged kids and still
| bothers me today.
|
| So, while I understand the intention of the ad, when you couple
| that, with Apple products being too pricey for a lot of people,
| yeah, it bothered me.
| jajko wrote:
| Well, I gave it a go and saw it, just fyi I get through my life
| just fine and one of those seemingly few folks without
| childhood/mental issues with good life so far and amazing small
| kids. No apple products owner, wife has mini 13 and she is
| _not_ happy with it.
|
| Its not the worst ad by any means, I am used to seeing russians
| blown to pieces in ukraine at this point, but the arrogance
| man, stemming from first frame was a bit over the top even for
| me and left bitter taste of it all when intentions were
| opposite. How this passed all the managerial reviews is beyond
| me. Actually I get it - they all thought its fine, which also
| tells you something.
|
| Not shocking in any way, to me apple is subtly arrogant for
| many years and the main reason for me going to (more expensive
| but way more open) competition. That and consistently fanatical
| uncritical apple crowd, also visible here.
| willcipriano wrote:
| About two generations ago society somehow got the idea that the
| feminine manner of moving about in a society is superior and
| the masculine way is violent and backward.
|
| Emotional exaggeration like this is one indirect aggression
| tool used by women when engaged in intrasexual competition with
| other women. For some reason we now have men trying to use that
| tool on a corporation of all things and your reaction to feel
| like it's fake isn't wrong, even if the subject may not be
| aware of what they are doing themselves.
|
| More reading:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_intrasexual_competiti...
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3826202/
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188692...
| 127 wrote:
| I think their emotions are valid, even if you're dismissive of
| them.
| viraptor wrote:
| I think there's a weird false equivalency being often mentioned
| with this topic. Yes, I'd say this ad was stress inducing for
| me. But that doesn't mean I have issues getting through the
| day. It's not some kind of weakness that makes my life worse
| because I feel things. I can see something and be stressed or
| disgusted about it and then move on and feel happy about things
| that are nice. Feeling things doesn't need to force you to do
| anything. It's fine to just experience them, and maybe act on
| them if needed. But the idea that those feelings somehow have
| to take over your life is misguided.
| asoneth wrote:
| I have strong positive and negative emotional reactions to
| things on a daily basis -- I sometimes tear up reading books to
| my children, have emotional responses to songs, that sort of
| thing.
|
| As I watched the video I found the destruction beautiful and
| heartbreaking. If it had been used as an artistic commentary
| on, oh I don't know, our underappreciation of good tools, the
| undermining of art under fascism, the dumbing-down and
| compression of culture under capitalism, etc that would have
| been interesting.
|
| But the reveal at the end is that the force destroying all
| these artistic tools is none other than one of the world's
| richest companies using the spectacle to hawk their latest
| must-have gewgaw. And the delicious irony of Apple
| unintentionally positioning itself as the unstoppable, soulless
| destroyer of art and culture is just _chef 's kiss_ perfection.
| I'm honestly sad they pulled the ad.
|
| But to your question, I haven't noticed any impact of strong
| emotions on a daily basis except that I get overly excited
| sometimes when talking about things and have to bring a tissue
| to movies. I'm similarly curious what it's like for people who
| don't really have emotional reactions to things. I work with
| folks like this, and I am curious. Do they feel things when
| they look at art, listen to music, read literature, look at
| photos, or is it just sort of background ambiance? When
| evaluating art do they plot perfection on the horizontal of a
| graph and importance on the vertical to yield the measure of
| its greatness?
| allturtles wrote:
| > I have strong positive and negative emotional reactions to
| things on a daily basis -- I sometimes tear up reading books
| to my children, have emotional responses to songs, that sort
| of thing.
|
| I can still get a bit misty-eyed just _thinking_ about
| reading "Love You Forever" or "Guess How Much I Love You",
| and my kids outgrew those books years ago.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| I'd wager these are just snowflakes, but there are so many
| people that snowflakes still amount to a significant amount
| even if they are nonetheless a minority.
|
| The internet also serves to amplify their noise.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| Hyperbolic internet rhetoric has resulted in the need to phrase
| everything as if you're a psych ward patient who cries when it
| rains because the sky is sad. If everything is a pitched battle
| between good and evil, anything less than screaming and beating
| your chest is weakness in the face of existential threats. The
| squeaky wheel gets the grease so everyone is squealing as loud
| as they can. Textual histrionics from people laying on their
| couch or sitting on the toilet staring at a little screen.
|
| It's the same as typing "ROFL LMAO" when you actually just
| lightly exhaled through your nose.
|
| It's infantile and distracts from "meaningful discourse".
| They're allowing themselves to be seriously psychologically
| manipulated (or are playacting along with it), but it just
| happens to be in a negative way this time.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Had to scroll through 30 replies to find the word hyperbole
| :).
| medellin wrote:
| I think this is part of the issue. I really dont want to have
| the discussion because im sick of trying to understand how
| everyone is mad about everything. At a certain point it's
| mentally draining for me just so people can feel morally
| superior because they are more PC than you.
|
| Im done with it and a lot of others are also.
| joelrunyon wrote:
| I got annoyed with it, then went and fixed it in 5 minutes and
| went on with my day -
| https://twitter.com/joelrunyon/status/1788312003670360320
| jrm4 wrote:
| Honestly, y'all, it's _beyond_ hilarious that the top comment
| here on Hacker News is
|
| "These things you people have, these ...feelings...these are
| strange and you seem weak. Boop beep boop."
|
| Sometimes the stereotypes aren't wrong, huh.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| My honest thought when I see this sort of reaction is that you
| know life is good because if it weren't, people wouldn't have
| the emotional energy to waste on something like this.
| Retr0id wrote:
| I'm more concerned for the people who feel nothing. Being
| desensitized isn't a virtue. The marketing strategy of one of
| the largest companies in the world is not a triviality.
|
| If someone's reaction was literally debilitating, sure, that's
| probably pathological, but I don't think there's anything wrong
| with feeling strongly about something like this, especially
| when such advertising is specifically engineered to evoke an
| emotional response.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I don't like any of their stupid ads but I'm not harmed by
| them and I don't need an apology.
| 1-6 wrote:
| I think words may only convey a certain level of thought but
| cannot convey intensity well.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Nailed it. I think it's also concerning that Apple and other
| companies cave and apologize for the most inane minutiae.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Let's not fall into the trap of assuming you can't have a
| feeling if you don't speak it into existence. People stating
| their feelings are actually doing Apple a big favor. The
| alternative is nobody says anything but keeps their feelings
| bottled up and simply walk around with a negative opinion of
| Apple because of the advertisement.
| smokinjoe wrote:
| I think it's this unconscious desire to share strong opinions
| about any large enough bit of news. While I don't necessarily
| think it's a bad thing to have personable opinions about
| anything large or small - I've noticed more and more that
| people just need to satiate this hunger to share it.
|
| And it's typically devoid of any nuance, it's shallow, quick,
| and distilled down into this form that begs people to react.
|
| I see it mostly on reddit on posts that have hundreds to one or
| two thousand comments where 50% of the replies have almost the
| identical opinion. Everyone has this need to share it, even if
| it isn't nearly that original.
|
| There's probably some societal change that someone
| significantly smarter than I can speak to, but this whole
| "digital town square" approach has kinda turned into a
| maelstrom of the most toxic opinions that people probably don't
| hold _that strongly_ if you asked them face-to-face in person.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I'm still having a hard time believing that anybody was
| actually disturbed or offended by this ad and that it's not
| part of a clever guerilla marketing campaign by Apple to trick
| people into watching the ad.
| bkandel wrote:
| I had a strongly negative emotional reaction to the ad.
| Dwelling on crushing musical instruments, kids' toys, books,
| sculptures, and then the paint spurting out at the end into a
| depressing post-industrial warehouse -- something about it
| really affected me. It's not like I'm debilitated for the rest
| of the day, but it definitely makes me feel less positively
| about the ipad advertised.
| gofreddygo wrote:
| Well the Ad is disturbing to me. I can see the intent and it's
| not malicious. But the backlash is good IMO. Because it sets a
| stake in the ground and a point to be brought up in the room
| when the marketing team wants to show a hydraulic press, a
| chain saw, flame thrower, a wrecking ball or a bulldozer
| destroying things for the purpose of grabbing my attention in
| their next ad.
|
| An animation of all those nice items magically squeezing into
| the iPad one at a time, each contributing to an ongoing
| song/theme would sell far far better.
| dougb5 wrote:
| I was stressed and angered by the ad, and I think I get through
| life fine, otherwise -- or at least, I can't think of another
| ad in the past decade that has caused me this reaction. It
| wouldn't be as bad if it were detached from its purpose as an
| Apple ad, or if it played as a short before a Pixar movie. It's
| because it's the biggest (or 2nd biggest?) company in the world
| giving us a wrenching visual depiction of a future in which so
| many beautiful things from the past and the present are
| squashed into a soulless rectangle.
| keepamovin wrote:
| _https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc_
|
| Omg. It's like the Apple X indie-horror-movie crossover.
|
| Hmmm, this is why Steve Jobs is needed. This ad is such Ballmer
| _esque_
|
| -- meaning Tim must be asleep at the wheel, or, more likely, on
| his Vision Pro while his Tesla takes over directions. haha! :)
| DavidPiper wrote:
| This ad feels unnerving for, I think, non-obvious reasons, beyond
| just the raw destruction of artistic tools.
|
| In music and sound effects from horror genres and other "scary"
| things, playing very high pitches with very low pitches makes us
| anxious - our brains are wired to perceive high pitches as safe
| and low pitches as menacing[1]. If they're both happening at the
| same time, our brain gets stuck trying to figure out WTF IS GOING
| ON, which makes us anxious.
|
| A similar thing happens with this ad: cheerful music while
| apparently senseless destruction (the reveal doesn't happen until
| the end) is taking place. IIRC one of the Fallout games did this
| too - post-fallout world but upbeat country music as the theme?
| The gasoline fight scene in Zoolander. Etc, etc.
|
| Anyway, these kinds of juxtapositions are SUPPOSED to make our
| brains feel uncomfortable. I imagine this was interpreted by the
| ad people as "edgy" or "surprising" or "innovative". But it's
| still going to make people who aren't sensitised to it feel
| uncomfortable.
|
| Anyway just my take.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-u9YDDrTFo
| 12_throw_away wrote:
| This is a really good observation, it's uncomfortable to watch
| and listen to even beyond the really obvious but apparently
| unintended symbolism. The music is off, the sound is off, so
| many weird decisions here ... some ad exec using ChatGPT
| instead of doing their job?
| mhink wrote:
| Yeah, I got these vibes too, but especially from the
| cinematography. It was kinda _lingering_ on all the little ways
| each item strained and broke under the weight of the press,
| almost like it was something to savor. It was weirdly
| voyeuristic, in a way.
| tkdev2 wrote:
| I liked the Ad. Bunch of snowflakes who got offended by it.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Is there anything people won't get offended about? It's a
| harmless ad, kinda funny. How do you make it through the day if
| you're this thin-skinned?
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| From upset to upset I suppose. Being perpetually upset has to
| be tiring.
| jgrahamc wrote:
| What Apple should have done is play off of "Honey, I shrunk the
| kids". Get Rick Moranis out of retirement to accidentally shrink
| all those instruments and everything else into an iPad.
| rchaud wrote:
| I've never seen a commercial that could also work as Thomas
| Friedman's "The World is Flat" metaphor. One size fits all,
| indeed.
|
| This dystopian ad is far more emblematic of Apple today than the
| bland Disneyfied ads they normally make.
|
| All these arcade cabinets, vinyl records and expensive
| instruments are things Apple has tried to flatten into a
| skeumorphic touchscreen simulacrum for years.
| geoffbp wrote:
| All publicity is good publicity? Maybe not?
| tejohnso wrote:
| It's en vogue to elevate your personal negative experiences above
| all else, and to make them known as publicly as possible. It's
| not always honest. You can go online and rage about how offended
| you are about something, and then ten seconds later be laughing
| about whatever nonsense tiktok decided to show you. It's
| disingenuous theatre for social media points.
| matei88 wrote:
| There is no such thing as bad publicity. If the purpose of an ad
| is to get people talking about your product, than i say that
| Apple hit its mark.
| skc wrote:
| I still think Apple should be pretty damn proud of the fact that
| so many generations later they still have a brand so powerful
| that this misstep can cause such a furor.
|
| Any other company would have been able to put out this ad and
| nobody would care.
| fragmede wrote:
| By playing it backwards the things come into being instead of
| being destroyed.
|
| https://www.threads.net/@fragmede/post/C6yYhCHRlM9
| rglover wrote:
| That was a genius ad...what's all the fuss about?
| can16358p wrote:
| People need to be offended by something. They chose a random
| innocent Apple ad this time.
| todd8 wrote:
| It's an advertisement. Get over it. If you don't like waste, wash
| your plastic yogurt cups and reuse them as cereal bowls.
|
| I personally didn't like Apple's "Crush" ad, and I was much more
| interested in the rest of the announcement. It's interesting how
| power efficient iPad's have become, and my guess is that these
| positive developments in efficiency far exceed the waste produced
| by obviously staged crushing of some tools used by artists.
|
| How should we assess the value or cost to society of an
| advertisement? To start out with how much did the ad cost to
| produce and execute and what was its world wide impact? Was it
| really that wasteful? Apple's net annual income is around 100
| Billion dollars per year. No matter how Apple produces an ad
| campaign it costs money that could have been used for kinder,
| gentler, more impactful endeavors, say more animal rescue
| shelters. But Apple wants to sell its products, and ads are
| important for that. Clearly, Apple's products bring great value
| to humans across the globe--they've voted so with their wallets.
| Does the crushed piano (likely involving special effects) really
| impact the world in any significant way or is it just the visuals
| that are so disturbing?
|
| If it's actually just the seeing of a musical instrument being
| crushed that is so upsetting, then what are we to think of the
| countless instruments thrown in the trash after our elementary
| school kids give up on being guitarists, drummers, trombone
| players, or violinists. Why do we even let a 7 year old touch a
| violin if only 1 out of 100 ever play a level that isn't torture
| to listen to.
|
| The reaction to this ad reflects a pernicious societal descent
| into relying on emotion instead of reason and accepting
| innumeracy instead of analysis.
| bambax wrote:
| You missed the point completely.
|
| The problem with the ad is not that it produces waste. If it
| was 100% CGI it would make absolutely no difference.
|
| The problem is the message. Craftspeople, including artists,
| value, respect and love their tools. This ads tell them that
| those tools are valueless, obsolete, objects of ridicule, and
| that a big tech company can decide to replace them with yet
| another lifeless slab of aluminium and plastic.
|
| Imagine an ad for condoms that would crush babies. (Why not!
| Thinness is an important attribute of condoms too.) Critics
| would not accuse the company producing it of killing babies,
| because everyone would assume there were some special effects
| involved. Yet it would be absolutely revolting.
|
| This is the same.
| amgcbus wrote:
| I was flowing you until the analogy of crushing babies.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| Same. Replace condoms with abortion clinic and the analogy
| might a little more accurate - but only because I suspect
| some will see it as story about murdering souls and some
| will see it as beneficial and necessary. But even then it's
| still quite a stretch.
| bambax wrote:
| I chose the analogy to try to reach people who don't find
| absolutely revolting the sight of musical instruments or
| photo lenses being destroyed.
|
| I have spent most of my childhood dreaming that someday,
| maybe, I would own a prime photo lens and a trumpet.
|
| To see a big company make a mockery of those artefacts of
| human creativity almost makes me cry (it actually hurts a
| little).
| chefkd wrote:
| yooo i totally missed that for me it was the one angry bird
| being crushed that triggered me :)
| heeton wrote:
| There's a real element of media literacy (or lack thereof)
| that we have to consider in this issue.
|
| What was the intent of the media?
|
| This is obviously open to interpretation, but to me I see the
| intent being that all these tools for creative expression are
| being combined/squashed/pressed into this thing which is very
| thin. That's why they chose the press. They also chose the
| press because it looks visually interesting, they are trying
| to make a fun ad.
|
| I really can't imagine that _anyone_ in that ad was trying to
| imply that the iPad destroys those objects, or that those
| objects should be destroyed, or are now valueless. They are
| saying that this device contains the functionality of all
| these big items squashed into one crazy tiny thing. Amazement
| at what it can do, NOT a desire to destroy or make obsolete
| real pianos.
|
| From that viewpoint, it's clear they VERY clumsily applied a
| metaphor (combining + crushing into the iPad) with a visually
| fun thing (the explosions), resulting in people thinking they
| want to destroy pianos.
|
| But importantly (if one takes the above as true, which you
| may not), you can't then say that the ad is trying to "tell
| that those tools are valueless, obsolete, objects of
| ridicule", that's not the intent of the author.
| speff wrote:
| The intent of the author shouldn't matter when it comes to
| advertising - it's not the viewer's responsibility to
| figure out a deeper/alternative meaning. The ad company is
| injecting themselves between the viewer and the media they
| actually want to watch. The onus is on the advertiser to
| make the message as clear as possible to the viewer who
| doesn't care - and if it misses the mark, it's the
| advertiser which failed. Not the viewer's lack of effort on
| understanding it.
| heeton wrote:
| I agree, and I don't think this is a good ad for all
| those reasons.
|
| But if you want to infer values of the company from an
| ad, and say things like "Apple wants to destroy pianos",
| then considering the intent of the author is absolutely
| relevant.
| mwigdahl wrote:
| The whole point was the destruction -- they spent basically
| all the time in the ad on slow, loving shots of all these
| artifacts being mangled and crushed. They weren't being
| combined, subsumed, or absorbed -- they were being flat out
| destroyed. And not quickly -- slowly and remorselessly.
|
| The problem with the ad is in the semiotics -- the visual
| language of the ad was all about succession _through
| destruction_. The message was "all these things, that
| represent _good_ memories and experiences you've had, are
| now destroyed." And at the very end they show you a brief
| shot of the new iPad.
|
| Where the hell were the focus groups on this one?
| bambax wrote:
| But there are many ways to show that the iPad incorporates
| all of those things. Make a mini character enter the iPad
| and visit a succession of caves, each one full of artists
| doing art with traditional tools. Or put mini instruments
| in a drawer, one after the other, and when the drawer is
| opened again it only contains an iPad.
|
| But no! They thought it was more fun to destroy everything.
| They wanted to make porn. They wanted to make their own
| little snuff movie.
|
| And nobody in what one imagines to be a long chain of
| command, felt physically sick watching it.
| adamsilkey wrote:
| > There's a real element of media literacy (or lack
| thereof) that we have to consider in this issue. What was
| the intent of the media?
|
| You cannot ignore the impact of artistic decisions and
| processes when considering a piece of work, and calling
| that a "lack of media literacy" is grossly oversimplifying
| artistic analysis. Intent is important, but so is the
| impact on the audience. Art is a conversation between
| artist and audience, and as pointed out by the article and
| the other comments here in the thread, the message missed
| for a significant percentage of the audience.
| chrisjj wrote:
| > I really can't imagine that anyone in that ad was trying
| to imply that the iPad destroys those objects
|
| Did you miss the many colours of "blood" dripping from the
| crusher's jaws?
| bingbingbing777 wrote:
| > The reaction to this ad reflects a pernicious societal
| descent into relying on emotion
|
| Spoiler alert: humans have emotions. Apple will gladly spit in
| your face about emissions all while giving you less product
| (taking chargers out of iPhones) so they can save the
| environment (more like, their profits). Not everyone wants to
| see the message of hundreds of years of art history being
| destroyed all so you can purchase new product to make some
| soulless AI generated garbage.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| Descent? We're all trying to ascend into a life with more
| substance and soul. I think your line of thinking is upside
| down and seems absolutely miserable to me.
| squigglydonut wrote:
| You're wrong. Ads are feelings.
| anon7725 wrote:
| > If it's actually just the seeing of a musical instrument
| being crushed that is so upsetting, then what are we to think
| of the countless instruments thrown in the trash after our
| elementary school kids give up on being guitarists, drummers,
| trombone players, or violinists. Why do we even let a 7 year
| old touch a violin if only 1 out of 100 ever play a level that
| isn't torture to listen to.
|
| This reminded me of an interesting documentary from the LA
| Times on the LA Unified School District's musical instrument
| repair shop.
|
| https://www.latimes.com/shortdocs/la-short-docs-the-last-rep...
| mouse_ wrote:
| > If you don't like waste, wash your plastic yogurt cups and
| reuse them as cereal bowls.
|
| Disingenuous prick.
| logrot wrote:
| Saying "this is just an ad" is like saying "have you stopped
| beating your wife?" is just a question.
| jacurtis wrote:
| I tend to agree. Most people have no idea that every commercial
| or film, ends up dumping or destroying almost all the stuff in
| the video.
|
| I remember there was a Scene in one of the more recent mission
| impossible movies where the director was interviewed as joking
| about how they budgeted to destroy 3 lamborgini's for a action
| sequence but ended up needing to destroy 4 of them. These were
| brand new, straight off the lot lambos that just got shot at,
| crashed, and blown up for the movie. No one cries about that,
| instead they marvel at the "practical effects" of the movie.
|
| This isn't even a unique example. A lot or props that DON'T get
| destroyed and are just used for one quick scene, like a chello
| in the background, often go straight to the dump after the
| scene is filmed, because they just bring in a dump crew to get
| rid of everything.
|
| I guess the difference is ignorance is bliss. People don't see
| the amount of absurd waste that happens in commercials and
| movies, so they can enjoy it. Strangly, even seeing it on
| screen (like a car blowing up) doesn't bother them. But a slow
| crushing of an instrument for 20 seconds does trigger them.
|
| The amount of waste that this produced is inconsequential, not
| even a rounding error for the amount of waste that a warehouse
| up the street from anyone reading this is performing as you
| read this comment. And yes, there are so many of these
| companies creating unfathomable amounts of waste that no matter
| where you live, you have one probably within a few miles of
| your home that you never knew about.
|
| I would tend to side with those that are triggered if these
| instruments were antiques that couldn't be replaced. However,
| these appeared to be common instruments. I actually play guitar
| and the guitar actually looks like a pretty cheap guitar. These
| get bought at Costco and returned and dumped everyday. They are
| commodities, they are pumped out of factories en masse in
| Vietnam and contain a hundred bucks of parts, wood, etc. Most
| of these guitars end up in the dump anyway. The upright piano
| is a little different because they tend to be several thousands
| of dollars, but again this looks like a modern, generic piano.
|
| I am happy to have discussions about the vast amount of waste
| humans have, because it is truly unfathomable. Most people have
| no idea how bad the problem is. But watching some paints, a
| metronome, a single guitar and piano get destroyed is not even
| the beginning of the real problem. So if we want to have a
| discussion about waste, let's have it. It's a serious problem,
| but this feels like a joke that a handful of items that doesn't
| even equate to what an average American probably dumps when
| they move houses, seems like a stupid hill to die on.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > The reaction to this ad reflects a pernicious societal
| descent into relying on emotion instead of reason and accepting
| innumeracy instead of analysis.
|
| Being a snob about things isn't as cool as you think it is.
| pard68 wrote:
| Great ad. The part where the little stress ball rolls out and
| gets crushed was a good laugh. I wonder if this was CGI or if
| they really crushed that stuff.
| dunekid wrote:
| Looks like someone watched too much of those hydraulic press vs
| things videos. Of all the ways to send the message that iPad is a
| creative device, which can become the instrument of choice, they
| went with this.
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| The 3D Printed world made Flat and sold as a UI improvement.
| righthand wrote:
| Actually what's great about it is that the tone is the exact
| opposite of the famous commercial where the individualist
| shatters the mind control movie. However they both share this
| soulless concrete aesthetic. Apple is now the soulless corporate
| machine. Love to see Apple fail and not realize it's own failure,
| that is modern Apple.
| unobatbayar wrote:
| Personally, I liked everything about the ad.
| ClarityJones wrote:
| I surprised Apple approved the add, because it depicts the brand
| as a soul-crushing industrial force. The machine is a beast of
| steel and hydraulic pressure, which constantly bears down against
| a variety of fun and inspiring things. I don't really care about
| the particular items that were destroyed, but the theme is
| clearly one of destruction. We don't see the iPad being made. We
| see what is literally depicted as a remanent. That's not how
| Apple should want their brand or their products viewed.
|
| Edit: What's concerning is that Apple is smart. People watched
| this ad and I have to assume they thought what I thought. So...
| what's the psychology of deciding to convey this message? Is it a
| threat? Is it narrative-forming? Is it subversive admission
| (canary) from within the company? I mean... it's very reminiscent
| of the 1984 ad, except with Apple being the machine. Of course,
| it's also possible that they just made a mistake of judgment and
| missed the mark, as they say. IDK
| mrcwinn wrote:
| It's a metaphor for squeezing all the great things into a thin
| device. It's unreal, the reaction to this.
| donatj wrote:
| I enjoyed the ad for the same reason I and millions of others
| enjoy The Hydraulic Press Channel [1], its just fun to watch
| stuff get squished. I imagine that's "what they were thinking",
| for the cadre that keep asking "what were they thinking?"
|
| I genuinely have trouble seeing how in good faith the ad could
| have been interpreted as anything other than "This is all the
| stuff that's being put into your iPad"
|
| - https://youtube.com/@hydraulicpresschannel
| nojvek wrote:
| Take the Apple Ad in Contrast to the Microsoft Ad that aired
| during Super Bowl.
|
| The whole time I thought it was an Apple Ad and then it was
| Microsoft Copilot ad. The made me dream, made me feel I could do
| more. The ad was about the viewer.
|
| https://youtu.be/SaCVSUbYpVc
|
| See the Apple Siri Ad - it's about how the device enhances the
| viewer to do more.
|
| https://youtu.be/8HaEmu-qkD4
|
| Apple has now turned into what they despised.
|
| I absolutely loved the Epic ad that was a take of the original
| Apple ad which was based on 1984.
|
| Apple - https://youtu.be/VtvjbmoDx-I
|
| Epic - https://youtu.be/euiSHuaw6Q4
|
| It's fair to say if Steve Jobs was still calling shots, this Ad
| would have never aired.
|
| The Ad shows everything wrong with Apple. They've become a
| soulless corporation.
| zameermfm wrote:
| Ad was distasteful and horrible. Biggest problem I see is that,
| Nobody in the apple decision making body thought this 'missed the
| mark', it took a global reaction for them to get it. Wonder how
| deep they are in their lair with a pigeonholed view of the life.
| sneak wrote:
| Good art is art that makes you feel something. The ending of
| Requiem For A Dream is good art, as is this ad.
|
| It may be unfit for purpose as an ad, given how many people
| reacted with negative emotions, but I don't think they did
| anything wrong that warrants an apology (except perhaps to their
| shareholders for running what may turn out to be an ineffective
| ad).
|
| Then again, all publicity is good publicity.
|
| I liked that the ad had a hollywood destruction-for-destruction's
| sake spectacle to it. I wondered how much was CG and how much
| wasn't, and how much stuff was actually destroyed. Some of the
| closeup shots must have been practical, or CG these days is way
| better than I realized.
|
| It ultimately doesn't matter, though. Destruction on this scale
| is irrelevant.
| nico wrote:
| This has been at the front of HN for 10+ hours and has almost 300
| points
|
| Seems like there really is no bad publicity
| userbinator wrote:
| But will this publicity help Apple sell more iPads?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Probably.
|
| People forget that it's something like 5% of people who
| participate in online discussions, and it tends to be the
| most vocal outrage prone people.
|
| I would guess the average person will see the headline, watch
| the ad, and think "Meh, it was kinda neat....anyway let me
| check out what the new iPad offers."
| millzlane wrote:
| The message they were trying to convey was clear. All that shit
| you can replace with an iPad. I think they hit the mark.
|
| You can make a basket of puppies sound like the end of the world
| with the right words. There is nothing wrong with that ad.
| hn92726819 wrote:
| I'm curious if they CGI'd your basket of puppies in there
| (after all, you can take puppy pictures on your iPad!), would
| you not be bothered by it at least a little bit?
| kristofferR wrote:
| Why not crush the basket of puppies? You can watch videos of
| puppies on an iPad.
| maxrobeyns wrote:
| My initial reaction to the ad, upon watching it in the launch
| event was "huh, that's a fun reference to the Hydraulic Press
| Channel". The slapstick elements (trumpet noise, squishy balls)
| made it come across as light-hearted, rather than an ominous
| display of force by a large company crushing artists' tools.
|
| This idea of 'squashing all these tools down to a thin slab of
| glass' made sense given their somewhat unusual focus on the
| thinness of the device. It was a bit of a throwback to the early
| 2010s smartphone innovation, where the size of the devices was
| the yardstick by which manufacturers would outdo each other. I
| would charitably interpret it as an uninspired marketing team
| trying to spin some version of Jobs' classic "the iPhone is
| simultaneously an iPod, phone and internet device" - however the
| party trick is old, and nobody's impressed anymore.
|
| Perhaps the blowback is a sign of a wider weariness that people
| have accumulated towards big tech companies over the past few
| years, mixed with a nebulous malaise about 'AI' and what it means
| for the status quo and people's livelihoods.
| matwood wrote:
| > It was a bit of a throwback to the early 2010s smartphone
| innovation
|
| It was also a throwback to the original iPhone announcement
| bringing all these separate functions into one.
| JohnFen wrote:
| The clear meaning I got from the ad was: we want to destroy
| everything and make you buy our product instead.
|
| I know that wasn't what they were going for (I'm pretty sure,
| anyway), but it's very hard for me to interpret it differently.
|
| I never connected it to the hydraulic press channel at all for
| some reason.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| You either get the symbolism of "let's crush all remaining
| vestiges of creative culture" or you don't.
|
| If you don't, that's fine. Policing the extent of people's
| reactions doesn't make for constructive conversation, and,
| ironically, is merely a different form of "over-reaction."
| timr wrote:
| > You either get the symbolism of "let's crush all
| remaining vestiges of creative culture" or you don't.
|
| Correction: you either choose to believe that's the
| symbolism, or you don't.
|
| I "get" it, intellectually, but I don't think that was the
| intent of the advertiser, nor do I think it's the obvious
| interpretation of the ad. The obvious interpretation, to
| me, was _" hey, we can piggyback on this hydraulic press
| channel meme and sell iPads!"_
|
| Tellingly, few people care that the hydraulic press channel
| exists, despite actually crushing all sorts of stuff [1].
| See also: the viral "does it blend?" ads [2], and any
| number of music videos or performances where instruments
| are destroyed [3] (practically a meme unto itself), etc.
|
| [1] including instruments (listen to the guitar 'scream'
| under the press!):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsQOKKE7UbM
|
| [2] they blended a skeleton! oh, the symbolism!
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsTZm7QtY84
|
| [3] boom go the guitars (this, apparently, was not the one
| moment that mattered):
| https://youtu.be/QvW61K2s0tA?feature=shared&t=175
| labcomputer wrote:
| I think the ad is a bit a Rorschach test. Most people see
| a butterfly. Others see man violently stabbing a bicycle,
| and that says more about them than the creators of the
| ad.
| timr wrote:
| basically agreed, except I think that the latter group is
| 90% comprised of people who see an opportunity for
| performative angst and/or attacking Apple.
| dxdm wrote:
| Or, you know, _only_ seeing the butterfly and then being
| dismissive about other interpretations, maybe people who
| do that also have things revealed about them. ;)
| manux wrote:
| The intent behind media matters but isn't all that
| matters. How people might interpret something is
| important (albeit often unpredictable).
|
| I think the symbolism of "let's crush all remaining
| vestiges of creative culture" is a pretty obvious
| _potential_ interpretation from a _non-trivial amount_ of
| people. In that sense it is an interpretation that
| matters for our present discourse, even if it isn't the
| interpretation that the creator of the ad intended.
| timr wrote:
| > How people might interpret something is important
| (albeit often unpredictable).
|
| It's a big world out there. There are literally billions
| of possible ways that people can interpret whatever you
| put out in the ether, and many of them
| are...precious...to the extreme. Worry too much what any
| one of them is going to think, and you won't do anything.
|
| The obvious conclusion, to quote every influencer on the
| internet, is: _" Haters gonna hate"_, but admittedly, I
| don't work in Apple PR.
| darkerside wrote:
| I don't think the ad intend this messaging. I do think it
| unfortunately parallels what many advocates of AI do
| believe, strongly. And that's what people are reacting
| to.
| itishappy wrote:
| I find it incredibly hard to believe they had no idea
| what message they could be sending. Everything reacts to
| its destruction. They choreographed the final moments of
| each prop to show pain.
|
| The hydraulic press channel does not do that. Their
| videos convey enthusiasm and sheer glee.
| atmosx wrote:
| The fact, the add went through a considerable amount of
| people and no one raised a red flag tells you all you need to
| know about the industry.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Yes, that was what the ad depicted but obviously that was not
| the meaning of the ad. The ad was a metaphor.
| dnissley wrote:
| Maybe you can go into that more. Where's that intuition
| coming from that tells you "Apple wants to destroy
| everything"?
| thomasahle wrote:
| If you are already weary of too many screens; and you find
| a world with more physical objects less bleak.
|
| It's not so much that Apple "wants to destroy everything".
| It's just that they care more about the digital world than
| the real world. This is the same intuition that makes
| people weary of virtual reality.
|
| See also this image of Steve Jobs' office vs Tim Cook's:
| https://www.instagram.com/starworldlab/p/C5TRLqAujPJ/
| steve1977 wrote:
| At least I know now what HP channel means, I was wondering
| how Hewlett Packard was involved in all of this... I'm
| getting old...
| racl101 wrote:
| > Perhaps the blowback is a sign of a wider weariness that
| people have accumulated towards big tech companies over the
| past few years, mixed with a nebulous malaise about 'AI' and
| what it means for the status quo and people's livelihoods.
|
| I think you hit it on the head. It's not so much anger about
| seeing a piano or a trumpet get crushed but more about the
| symbolism of it. Which, I think is definitely tone deaf on
| Apple's part.
|
| The fact is, artists, developers and many people from all walks
| of life are terrified of what AI will mean for their jobs and
| their livelihood, and also, afraid that it cheapens everything
| they've spent all their life learning and mastering.
|
| There's definitely a lot of pent up fear and/or hatred for it
| bubbling at the surface for many people and this commercial
| just kind triggers those feelings.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| It's also from Apple's long-time core audience. I'm not sure
| how people don't understand this, other than maybe they've
| forgotten the roots of Apple's comeback.
| verdverm wrote:
| I think everyone is overly negative around the world for a
| variety of reasons
|
| COVID hangover, war, elections, food prices
|
| That news & social media is significantly negative and
| designed to induce and promote rage, that's the crux of this
| issue
| some_random wrote:
| I think the big thing here is that if you don't have an
| attachment to any of the items being crushed you probably don't
| feel as strongly. If you're a trumpet player, seeing a trumpet
| being crushed is going to be a bit distressing. If you're a
| photographer, you're putting a monetary value on those lenses
| being destroyed. If you're into old arcade machines, you're
| thinking about how many of those cabinets are left in that good
| of a condition.
| Alupis wrote:
| > If you're a trumpet player, seeing a trumpet being crushed
| is going to be a bit distressing
|
| Really? I play the trumpet and felt nothing watching this ad.
| My trumpet wasn't being crushed, so who cares? It wasn't a
| rare Stradivarius, nor even a high-end Schilke or anything...
| Even if it was - why care? They can make more trumpets after
| all...
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| The arcade one particularly distressing given that arcades
| and their unique arcade hardware are rapidly vanishing across
| the world without replacement.
| mulmen wrote:
| Contemporary arcade cabinets featured similar hardware to
| the original Macs.
| jowsie wrote:
| Nearly all modern arcade cabinets just have regular PCs
| in them.
| mulmen wrote:
| Right. That has essentially always been the case.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| And the arcades that DO exist are often 90% shitty ticket
| games that cost $1, have about 15 seconds of gameplay, and
| then maybe after blowing through $50 you'll have enough
| tickets to buy $2 worth of Tootsie Rolls and maybe a balsa
| wood glider. If you got really lucky, maybe a plushie.
|
| Though there are some "barcades" popping up these days that
| focus on classic arcade games to appeal to older the older
| crowd.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| I happened across a nice one when I was in Denver,
| recently. It's called Akihabara. Tons of imported
| Japanese cabinets (including Taiko no Tatsujin and Typing
| of the Dead), and a bar with imported beers, sake and
| house cocktails. I wish I'd had a smartcard for saving
| progress, but it was only something I found out about
| during the trip.
|
| I'm definitely more into the 90s and early 2000s era of
| arcade games than 80s stuff (and the seat-friendly JP
| cabinets are nice) so I enjoyed the opportunity to play
| games that are hard to find here, and bring back memories
| of wandering (relatively lackluster) bowling alley
| arcades with a pocket of quarters.
| touisteur wrote:
| Typing of the dead! Ask me how I learned touch typing in
| anger. Such a beautiful piece of hijacked game.
|
| Much, much love to anyone who worked on this gem, or work
| to preserve it.
| asix66 wrote:
| If ever out in the Denver area again, check out The 1UP
| Arcade[0]. They have all manner of games, including '80s
| cabs. Very fun.
|
| [0] https://the1uparcadebar.com/
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| There's a chain of arcades called Round1 that also
| specializes in Japanese games, mostly music games.
| They're all over the USA, including Denver.
| rchaud wrote:
| Why would you need that when for the low price of 25
| quarters a month, you could have Apple Arcade(TM)? /s
| bnralt wrote:
| The console says "Space Imploder," which isn't a real
| arcade console, from what I can tell. There's more
| discussion here[1], but it seems likely that a lot of the
| things weren't real (or if they were real, they weren't
| were junk that was broken beyond repair).
|
| This seems to be a major point that's missing from the
| discussion. If a lot of this is stuff that was fake or
| already headed for the dump, it completely undermines the
| argument that perfectly good equipment was destroyed.
|
| [1] https://vi-control.net/community/threads/apple-
| destroys-vint...
| groby_b wrote:
| The point isn't how it was produced, but what the message
| is. And the message is destruction of creative
| instruments is good, akshually, because shiny & thin.
|
| No amount of "but we only rendered it" is going to fix
| it. It speaks about values the company holds.
| codelobe wrote:
| [x] Strongly Agree.
|
| Also, the focus on how these devices are increasingly
| consumer only instead of me being able to use my device
| to create
|
| Disclaimer: one of my goals is to build apps for my
| machine on the machine itself. I had this working on the
| now defunct Firefox phone OS (Its apps were deployed as
| Zipped HTML/JS and related resources -- I cobbled
| together a dev environ out of a few browser based tools).
|
| TL;DR: I'm a tool-using creator-type species, The modern
| "CONSUME ONLY" device craze makes my eye twitch; Ads that
| reinforce destruction of tools make me want to join fight
| club.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| Art creation is creation. Muic, images, video -- they all
| benefit from good screens, fast processors, quality
| stylus integration, first party apps, and full-stack
| attention to latency. The iPad _is_ about creation, just
| not your type of creation.
| doctorwho42 wrote:
| Man, you touched on something that has been a sore point
| for me my entire smart phone owning part of my life. The
| inability to make a simple program without huge hurdles,
| just for my phone and no one else.
|
| Having a locked down tool that is so dumbed down is
| annoying. For example, I'd love to make a custom unit
| converter so that I can quickly and unobtrusively convert
| between metric and imperial without being online/etc.
| that also displays the answer with closest drill size
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Not to mention a bit rich considering their stance on
| emulators and game stores.
| immibis wrote:
| If tech companies didn't have double standards, they'd
| have none.
| firebat45 wrote:
| I understand that there is an entire culture surrounding
| these machines and that people enjoy collecting and
| restoring them. Hell, I would even like to build a cabinet
| myself one day.
|
| But there's a reason they are disappearing. They're old and
| obsolete. While they may have value to a niche group, they
| are overall viewed as mostly worthless.
|
| Secondly, there's a very simple solution to disliking what
| someone else does with their own property. Purchase it
| before they do whatever you dislike. Either from them or by
| beating them to the punch and buying it from the previous
| owner before they do.
| bogantech wrote:
| > They're old and obsolete. While they may have value to
| a niche group, they are overall viewed as mostly
| worthless.
|
| Old and obsolete doesn't mean worthless, if people are
| collecting them and spending a lot of money on them then
| they're not worthless.
| derefr wrote:
| Most of the reason that collectors have to spend a lot of
| money on arcade cabinets, though, is not that they have
| high market resale value; but rather that the machines
| they can manage to acquire are usually in terrible
| condition, requiring large amounts of conservation work
| to get working and presentable again. And they're so
| broken down, _because_ everyone but these few collectors
| have valued -- and continue to value -- these machines so
| little that they've allowed them to rot in warehouses for
| decades. Many arcade cabinets are recovered from e-waste
| recycling centers, or even landfill.
|
| If they truly had market value, then people other than
| the collectors themselves would be making a business out
| of finding and restoring these cabinets, in order to sell
| them to the collectors. But no such business exists --
| because there just isn't the demand to sustain it.
|
| I'm reminded of a recent YouTube video about MadCatz
| gaming peripherals. The video's author had to spend
| thousands of dollars buying the few remaining controllers
| on the used market to use as examples. Why so much? Not
| because of high demand. Because of limited supply -- they
| were so valueless (mainly due to just being awful
| products even when new) that every owner of one had long
| thrown in away; no gaming store wanted to buy any used
| (being seen selling such brands was a mark against the
| quality of a store!); and even thrift stores had long
| dumped them for lack of interest. These gamepads and
| flight-sticks had value to this one guy making this one
| video -- but literally nobody else.
|
| A one-time purchase, does not a market-clearing price
| make. The market is still just as illiquid after such a
| purchase as before it.
| magicalist wrote:
| > _Why so much? Not because of high demand. Because of
| limited supply_
|
| Eh, "high demand" is meaningless on its own in this case.
| There's high demand relative to the supply.
|
| And not everyone recognizes value in an old cabinet and
| throw theirs out (further reducing supply), but that just
| means the market isn't efficient, but that's true of the
| market for most things.
| caconym_ wrote:
| Your "solution" is so unrealistic for all but the very
| wealthiest people that it's on the verge of seeming
| disingenuous. My bank account would have to be quite a
| few orders of magnitude larger for me to be able to
| purchase even a fraction of all the things in the world I
| would like to preserve.
| ionwake wrote:
| I was so angered by your opinion on relics being
| worthless that I checked your comments and you seem
| alright in other respects. I do like HN for this reason.
| So yeah I disagree with you this time but I'm not going
| to be rude
| grumpyprole wrote:
| > They're old and obsolete
|
| Just like that iPad will be in a couple of years.
| magicalist wrote:
| > _Secondly, there 's a very simple solution to disliking
| what someone else does with their own property. Purchase
| it before they do whatever you dislike. Either from them
| or by beating them to the punch and buying it from the
| previous owner before they do_
|
| I think this kind of sums up why it was a bad ad.
|
| "Don't be mad, you could have just outbid me" isn't a
| great thing to have to be saying at the same time you're
| asking the same person to get hyped about a new product.
| recursive wrote:
| The Gutenberg bible is also old and obsolete. The
| pyramids at Giza are old and obsolete. Stonehenge is old
| and obsolete. Ancient cave paintings are old and
| obsolete. The Wright brothers' flyer is old and obsolete.
| pc86 wrote:
| Nobody went out and bought a vintage arcade game with
| "unique arcade hardware." It's almost certainly plywood and
| an old monitor.
| Tool_of_Society wrote:
| People didn't even notice that it was "space imploders"
| lol. They were too busy being outraged.
| Tool_of_Society wrote:
| It was a mini arcade box which are sold by a variety of
| companies with any number of real arcade games using modern
| hardware in them for under $300.
|
| I can't find any existence for the game "Space Imploders"
| though.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| I don't think it is healthy if you are emotionally distressed
| seeing a trumpet being crushed.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Agreed. I don't understand the reaction at all. Your
| favorite trumpet getting crushed in front of you? Yeah sure
| that might be distressing.
|
| But a generic virtual facsimile on a video? That's silly
| groggo wrote:
| Wait are you sure the whole thing was an animation? It's
| hard to tell but at least some of it looks real... Is
| that mentioned in the article?
| labcomputer wrote:
| I would guess that _if it is a real trumpet_ the props
| department went down to the local used instrument store
| and picked up the cheapest Yamaha in the discount bin.
| But, the way the trumpet crumples doesn 't quite look
| realistic to me.
| groggo wrote:
| I know it's actually hard to tell. There's definitely
| some CGI in there. But a lot of it looks pretty real too.
| But the issue with it was the destruction of all of the
| creative tools. So it's in some ways not quite as bad if
| it's not real.
| quesera wrote:
| > _animation_
|
| I'm betting mostly CGI actually.
|
| Some bits are obviously physically impossible, so
| definitely CGI.
|
| I can be persuaded that some shots are real+CGI, and
| squished into the larger CGI view. They might have
| crushed a few "things" to see how they would fail, and
| then CGI'ed up a final version.
|
| The wide shots do not look real. The lighting is not
| believable. The failure modes of many individual items
| are not believable. The whole pancaking effect of the big
| crush is not believable.
|
| I understand the discomfort at seeing wanton destruction.
| It bothers me to see great old houses or cars get wrecked
| for movies, for example.
|
| Nowadays, most of that is fake.
|
| And I think almost all of this ad is fake as well.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| It's just the shear waste of it all that strikes me. Like
| so many of those things cost so much money to the people
| that could use or want them. So many high-paid tech
| workers are already out-of-touch with what most people
| consider affordable that I'm not surprised their
| marketing team thought this was ok.
|
| But most artists are starving, and we live in a world
| where waste like this isn't really morally acceptable.
| darkerside wrote:
| It's like a dog whistle. People who care about this are
| not unhealthy, they are having a visceral reaction to
| something that you don't understand the significance of.
| Try curiosity instead of dismissiveness.
| itishappy wrote:
| A virtual facsimile of destruction can still elicit an
| emotional response. Ever heard of "Happy Tree Friends"?
| chillingeffect wrote:
| It depends on the context. On an entertainment yt channel,
| one single real trumpet, so what. But the context apple
| produced is the implication that the very concept of a
| trumpet is being destroyed and replaced with a thin,
| temporary simulacrum.
|
| The difference is subtle. In the first case, a single real
| trumpet. Only worth a few hundred bucks. In the
| advertisement, the crushed trumpet is a symbol representing
| everything around trumpets: lessons, spit valves,
| centuries/milennia of history, inherited instruments,
| afternoons afterschool marching around on a football field
| with childhood friends.
|
| Ce n'est pas une pipe.
| mulmen wrote:
| If not to invoke an emotional response what was the point
| of the ad?
| renewiltord wrote:
| "We squeezed all this functionality into this one
| device"? That doesn't sound that hard to understand.
|
| No wonder everyone on this site complains about
| loneliness and therapy and this and that. Most humans
| aren't 'distressed' by this stuff. I always did wonder
| about the oddly neurotic opinions expressed here. Now it
| makes sense: people have little to no emotional
| resilience here. Everything is the end of the world.
| noduerme wrote:
| I'd say that's a first world thing for the generation
| that grew up on SSRIs and the pathologization and medical
| treatment of every negative emotion from grief to mild
| discomfort. Not specifically a HN problem.
| leptons wrote:
| But they didn't actually squeeze all that functionality
| into a cold piece of glass, plastic, and silicon. They're
| only suggesting that you see it that way and to give them
| your money instead of buying and learning to play an
| instrument.
|
| I mean, I guess just having an iPad can get you laid
| somehow these days in the very stupid world we live in,
| but the guys in the band with actual musical skills are
| probably getting way more action.
| atmosx wrote:
| > I don't think it is healthy if you are emotionally
| distressed seeing a trumpet being crushed.
|
| My first thought was the exact opposite: watching the
| specific ad without being distressed, shows an emotionally
| damaged human being. Especially the last part where the toy
| gets crashed screaming is really messed up.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I don't think it's healthy to have so little perception or
| understanding and think think everything is that simple.
|
| No one is traumatized. It's just unappealing and tone-deaf
| that's all. Showing a harmless little toy head and face
| getting squished and then popped, and presenting that as
| cool and fun and good, just makes you wonder about the
| person who produced that imagery and thought it could
| possibly have those associations, that's all.
|
| Showing a bunch of mixed colors of paint oozing down the
| side of something is not "emotionally distressing", it's
| just unappealing, _especially_ to Apple product customers,
| who buy Apple products precicely because they are sleek and
| minimalist and clean. Steve 's & Ive's entire universe was
| clean & sterile.
|
| It's remarkable because Apple are supposed to be the KINGS
| of exactly those sorts of intangible things like impression
| & subconscious reaction, where things like a 0.1mm or
| 0.1degree difference in a shape actually matters.
| troupo wrote:
| > Showing a bunch of mixed colors of paint oozing down
| the side of something is not "emotionally distressing",
| it's just unappealing, especially to Apple product
| customers, who buy Apple products precicely because they
| are sleek and minimalist and clean. Steve's & Ive's
| entire universe was clean & sterile.
|
| For me it was a different reaction: They literally
| replaced a bunch of colors with grayness. In a gray
| factory. Under a gray slab.
|
| This is very different from what Apple _used_ to mean and
| advertise.
| leptons wrote:
| Apple has become the bad guys in the 1984 ad that they
| railed against back then. It's really a 180 degree
| difference.
|
| In stead of "think different", this ad seems to suggest "
| _think the same_ - get rid of your individuality and
| skills and just get an iPad instead ".
| barfbagginus wrote:
| Then hopefully you won't feel emotionally distressed when
| queer automated communism comes and crushes capitalism, uwu
|
| Hopefully you'll help!
| Hamuko wrote:
| You mean the arcade cabinet that conveniently switches to a
| GAME OVER screen while it has sparks flying and smoke pouring
| out of it when it gets hit by the crusher? Somehow I doubt
| you lost an actual cabinet. I'll be surprised if it's even
| made out of wood and not polygons.
| supportengineer wrote:
| Was the entire ad CGI? I cannot tell anymore. I find it
| unlikely they built a gigantic hydraulic crusher just for
| the ad.
| Hamuko wrote:
| It's possible that some of the close-ups are practical,
| but the wide shots, such as when the cabinet is being
| crushed, look fake and plastic as hell. And quite a lot
| of the destruction is super dramatic, whereas real
| objects under real hydraulic presses are way less so.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJrE4nxDsSw
|
| Quite a lot less sparkles, smoke and explosions than the
| ad.
| commakozzi wrote:
| I'm a trumpet player, professionally. I don't give a rats *ss
| about it. Everyone just wants to get upset about something,
| is how i see it.
| bsder wrote:
| Agreed. Wondering how many of those things were real and got
| crushed was distressing.
|
| The worst part was that you can have a super effective ad
| simply by _reversing the video_.
|
| Everything now springs out of the iPad and nobody is thinking
| about whether anything got crushed.
| fl0ki wrote:
| So if you own a house or car then it's distressing to see one
| destroyed in a movie? Both of those cost much more than a
| trumpet, and for many people are more personal and unique,
| but somehow most people manage to keep their eyes on the
| screen.
| koof wrote:
| Depending on the context, probably? During my suspension of
| disbelief of the narrative, it might make me say "I don't
| like this destruction!" and to root for whatever might be
| mitigating the destruction
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Honestly, outside the context of a movie or education, I
| find it pretty off-putting altogether. The videos of
| brand new cell phones being destroyed, TV's kind of less
| so but still, cars being crushed or vandalized, etc. If I
| put my psychoanalysis hat on (always dangerous when your
| subject is yourself, but anyway) I feel two big things:
|
| 1. A part of me just does not like waste. I'm keenly
| aware of our rampant consumerist culture's slow and
| continuing march towards collapsing our biosphere, and
| one of the ways those thoughts manifest themselves is
| being really upset with people buying products simply to
| turn right around and destroy them, while barely using
| them, usually for profit in the attention economy but
| sometimes seemingly just because they're wealthy and
| bored.
|
| 2. And another part: growing up poor, I'm keenly aware of
| how valuable things can be for people like me, who didn't
| grow up with much. Maybe that old computer that works
| fine that you're going to run tannerite through for a
| YouTube video means nothing to you, but I vividly recall
| many points in my life I could've really used it, and I
| know I'm the absolute opposite of alone in that fact.
|
| The "artistic" angle that a lot of the outrage this is
| drawing didn't really hit me as hard as these things did,
| but that's just my subjective experience. I respect
| people who love these beautiful things and don't want to
| see (probably) completely functional, or even repairable,
| useful things destroyed so a multi-billion dollar company
| can sell more products. (And let's be honest, given the
| nature of video production, the ones we actually saw
| destroyed were likely a fraction of the ones _actually_
| destroyed.)
|
| The artistic angle I do understand though is if it's done
| for something like a movie, it doesn't hit the same for
| me. When it's done to make other kinds of art, even
| schlocky hollywood crap art, at least that has... a
| result, I guess? It's destruction to _create_ something.
| This was destruction for... another fucking ad. That will
| be forgotten in probably 2 weeks.
|
| Edit: The more I've thought about it, the more gross it
| feels, and I find myself really sympathizing. Times are
| pretty tough right now and artists have it rough during
| _good_ times. How would you feel if you, as a piano
| player, who hadn 't gotten to play in years (or maybe
| even ever!) on a piano like that, how would you feel
| seeing Apple buy one that at least looks to be in
| perfectly good working order, and smash it, in the
| service of selling you a stupid iPad? I really think this
| is impossible to comprehend without taking into account
| that everyone is hurting right now: inflation,
| Bidenomics, whatever it is you want to call it: people
| are broke, our expenses are going up, and our salaries
| remain the same. Yeah, I totally understand why this ad
| in this cultural moment hit a nerve: a whole ton of
| people, especially creatives, are struggling right now
| and here's Apple, buying up a ton of awesome things, and
| smashing em to bits and being like "here, you don't need
| a piano, you need an iPad!" Yeah, no shit people are
| upset.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > usually for profit in the attention economy
|
| I remember Obama's "Cash for Clunkers" program where
| people were paid to pour sand in engines and run them to
| destruction.
|
| This was all supposedly in the service of replacing them
| with more fuel efficient cars. The trouble was the
| numbers weren't run. To equal the emissions from
| manufacturing a car, a car would have to be driven 20,000
| miles. One can easily see that the increase in fuel
| economy didn't add up.
|
| Then there was the "create new jobs" fallacious
| reasoning, akin to the broken window fallacy.
| rchaud wrote:
| That's because the blown up car is not advertising
| anything.
|
| Instead, imagine an ad extolling the virtues of public
| transport by blowing up cars in a parking lot. It sends the
| complete opposite message than what was probably intended.
| dvlsg wrote:
| Yeah, it feels like the replacement is the issue, not
| necessarily the destruction.
|
| I don't want to just program a song on an iPad. I would
| like to perform it on a piano, which means I can't crush
| my piano and replace it with an iPad.
| noduerme wrote:
| Yeah, I do a lot of live recording from my piano to Mac
| and I was thinking the same thing.
|
| But maybe the ad is saying - you're no longer programming
| a MIDI track, the AI piano player in Garage Band or
| whatever is just going to _be_ indistinguishable from a
| real piano.
|
| I wasn't initially bothered by it, but I think the people
| who are have a fair point especially about the generative
| AI implications of replacing real creative tools.
| 20after4 wrote:
| Yeah I don't care how good the AI is, it's not the same
| as the experience of playing a real instrument. It's
| taking away someone's creative experience and replacing
| it with a synthetic version. Even if the result is higher
| quality artistic output it eliminates the process of
| producing it which should not be discounted.
| zeteo wrote:
| If I saw a house, that looked like the one where I grew up,
| being cheerfully destroyed to build a Walmart parking lot,
| yes I might get a little distressed. It would certainly not
| improve my opinion of Walmart.
| kragen wrote:
| if a car is like a tool that you tolerate in order to get
| to work, then no, you might even enjoy the recording of the
| enactment of a revenge fantasy you can't afford
|
| if you spend your weekends polishing your car, buying
| aftermarket addons for it, modifying it, and/or considering
| which car to save up for next, then yeah, it's gonna
| fucking hurt if you watch a movie and see them blow up a
| car like the one you long for, especially if you think they
| did it for real instead of using cgi. and that's true
| whether that car is a lamborghini countach or a low rider
| lolinder wrote:
| This comparison falls wildly short and completely misses
| OP's point.
|
| Many people own cars, but only a small number of people are
| _deeply_ into cars, and for one of those people I can
| definitely see a vintage car getting destroyed on screen
| causing a negative emotional reaction.
|
| Many people own homes, but it's their own home that they
| get really attached to, not the abstract concept of a home.
|
| My wife is a lifelong, fervent string musician and I have
| been with her in a film where she shouted out in pain when
| a string instrument was brutally destroyed. OP is talking
| about having that kind of attachment to an artform, not
| about causal ownership of objects.
| numpad0 wrote:
| https://www.military.com/off-duty/why-us-troops-blew-uday-
| hu...
| marssaxman wrote:
| I remember once watching some heist movie while recovering
| from a motorcycle crash, and the sight of all the faceless
| mooks crashing their bikes during its car chase scene was
| so viscerally uncomfortable that it took all the fun out of
| the spectacle. This had never been a problem before.
| darkerside wrote:
| If you own a 1965 Bugatti because you absolutely love it,
| and that's what's getting crushed? Yeah, probably.
| saghm wrote:
| > So if you own a house or car then it's distressing to see
| one destroyed in a movie?
|
| I think there's a difference between showing items getting
| damaged as a depiction of some sort of chaos or violence
| versus lauding it as being obsoleted by technical progress.
| recursive wrote:
| Not a movie. If it was an ad trying to sell me something
| that was going to replace my house, that would be closer.
| s3p wrote:
| Option 1: destroy something for a 30 second ad that near
| nobody will look at in 10 years
|
| Option 2: destroy something for a movie that gets regarded
| as a classic and people watch for decades
| WalterBright wrote:
| I don't like "Dukes of Hazzard" because they destroyed and
| crushed at least one '69 Dodge Charger per episode.
| monksy wrote:
| It's not your personal trumpet that is getting smashed.
| caconym_ wrote:
| AFAICT people are not so much upset about objects of value
| being destroyed as they are about the symbolism of creative
| tools being crushed flat and turned into an iPad. For artists
| and similar creatives, it evokes the way AI companies have
| already stolen their intellectual property, and their promise
| to make them all but obsolete in the future.
| haswell wrote:
| For me, it's a mix of both. I'm a musician _and_ a
| photographer. I felt a visceral negative reaction because
| those objects are sitting here in my apartment, and I've
| invested thousands of dollars and thousands of hours into
| them.
|
| I also found the symbolism a bit distressing, because it
| takes the general worry I've felt about AI's impact on art
| and music and animates those worries very literally.
|
| Most AI/tech proponents are quick to point out that the
| original forms of expression aren't going anywhere. But
| this felt uncomfortably close to "where we're going, you
| won't need these things anymore".
|
| And the thing is, I'm a big fan of the iPad and it's
| incredibly useful as a _companion_ to these artistic
| endeavors. But I'm not a fan of the idea that it supersedes
| them.
| dheera wrote:
| Yeah this 100%. Creatives have strong emotional
| attachments to their tools, especially musicians (whose
| tools never become obsolete).
|
| Watching a musical instrument get crushed is like
| watching a pet getting tortured, and it's probably not
| something non-creatives would understand.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Did you seriously just compare watching a video of a
| trumpet getting flattened to watching your own pet
| getting tortured?
| dheera wrote:
| Now you know why it rubs musicians the wrong way
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Congratulations: you can read and comprehend! The next
| step is to try to understand and empathize. There's a
| reasonably good chance you're human, so I believe you can
| do it.
| s3p wrote:
| For me I can't see the symbolism part, but I have serious
| concerns about destroying that many things and making such
| a big mess just for one ad. That's just me though.
| Tool_of_Society wrote:
| "Space Imploder" is not a real arcade game. That looked like
| one of those cheap mini arcade boxes you can buy brand new
| from a variety of sources.
|
| I see a bunch of cheap knock offs being crushed but I cannot
| say all of the items were.
| leptons wrote:
| The entire ad is a symbol for Apple's iPad replacing
| everything being crushed. It's not "Space Imploder", it's
| every single arcade game every made. It's a representative
| for arcade games in general. Nobody should take "Space
| Imploder" literally. They can't use "Space Invaders" likely
| because of copyright, but I'm sure that they would have in
| this ad if they could have just so that someone wouldn't
| end up missing the point and suggesting "but, Space
| Imploder doesn't even exist".
| caseyy wrote:
| The blowback is honestly just a sign of the times. The ad was
| too insensitive for people who like to overthink and judge
| things, and are very vocal in their echo chambers.
|
| Backlash for a short ad crushing a few colorful items in an
| interesting way is simply neurotic. See the definition of
| neurotic for more clarification.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > Backlash for a short ad crushing a few colorful items in an
| interesting way is simply neurotic. See the definition of
| neurotic for more clarification.
|
| > a few colorful items
| baxuz wrote:
| It reminded me of the old Game Boy Pocket commercials:
|
| https://youtu.be/qzAo9HzOgtQ
|
| https://youtu.be/CWh_6jutU7M
| verdverm wrote:
| That first one is pretty on point and hilarious in comparison
| hot_gril wrote:
| It's simply uncomfortable to see a lot of valuable creative
| tools being slowly destroyed for no reason, especially a piano.
| I'm not even thinking about the symbolism.
| hn8305823 wrote:
| Wait until you see what goes on at the county landfill.
| hot_gril wrote:
| It happens, and maybe the ad was just CGI, but it doesn't
| mean I enjoy watching it. Like, the Burger King ads don't
| show a cow being butchered.
| wnc3141 wrote:
| I picked up on the context of all the human experiences
| we perceive as wrapped up in those items - as sorts of
| resiviors for human emotion and symbols of self
| actualization. I think a more apt analogy would be: you
| wouldn't host an estate sale at the site of that person's
| funeral.
| odyssey7 wrote:
| Given Apple's standards, it's impossible to imagine them
| crushing a piano in real-life and having it come apart on
| film in just the way they wanted.
| hot_gril wrote:
| The camera zooms in a lot on certain objects coming
| apart, so maybe they animated or even re-shot select
| parts of it, but the overall thing was real?
| steve1977 wrote:
| And then the burger being thrown away.
| hot_gril wrote:
| With "old Macdonald" playing in the background, and
| disclaimer at the end that the cow was CGI
| itishappy wrote:
| I feel like I would appreciate an ad where they crushed
| landfill waste into an iPad.
| Nition wrote:
| I thought it was obvious that the entire ad is CGI. Nothing
| really breaks how it would. When the top of the piano breaks,
| all the dampers magically fall off.
| thomasahle wrote:
| Making that ad with CGI would be way more expensive than
| buying the real objects.
| javajosh wrote:
| I saw the ad as trying to draw an equivalence between the iPad
| and all of those creative tools, as if owning an iPad is
| equivalent, or even better, than owning those objects. This is
| a lie, a deception, and apart from lamenting the loss of so
| many wonderful objects the lie of it is what really sticks in
| my craw.
| spandrew wrote:
| Yeah -- I liked it in general. But can completely see why
| artists would hate the concept of a giant weight crushing the
| artistic object that has fueled their life-long obsessions.
| kenjackson wrote:
| This outrage feels so manufactured. I'm a huge basketball fan,
| coach, ex-player. If they included a basketball in the ad my
| thought would've been "yeah, you can play NBA2k on it". I'm not
| mad about the destruction of a single basketball. I don't feel
| like its disrespect to the game. It's showing that this single
| device has captured elements of basketball into a small form
| factor.
|
| As you note this may hint at a larger weariness with big tech
| -- and I tend to agree. I feel like if it was a public library
| crushing a bunch of things, and then ends with it lifting up
| and showing a library card there wouldn't be the same concerns.
| pc86 wrote:
| Look at the replies to the original tweet, it's all as you
| say completely manufactured outrage. Perpetually-online
| wannabe influencers with 70 followers talking about how it's
| "problematic." Maybe it has to do with Big Tech, I don't know
| but that sounds like it could be it.
|
| Regardless, it's absolutely ridiculous.
| theonething wrote:
| Agree. All this hubbub over nothing. People today are too
| fragile, enjoy outrage or both.
| surye wrote:
| Outrage is profitable, it drives engagement, and
| encouraged by these platforms algorithms. And when
| everyone sees so much outrage all the time, it normalizes
| it on the platform so even if you're not seeking income
| from it, that's the default stance.
| humanrebar wrote:
| People love outrage. Many are not aware of it though.
|
| If you're engaging with it, it's for you.
| jwoq9118 wrote:
| I am personally refreshed reading through the comments here
| and seeing a nuanced, rational response to the ad rather
| than the manufactured outrage you mentioned.
| troupo wrote:
| I wasn't outraged, I was disappointed. No manufacturing
| needed.
|
| "Let's take dozens of objects people enjoy, put them in to
| a gray featureless factory under a gray featureless
| industrial press, destroy them in a splash of color, and
| replace them with a bland featureless grey slab no one
| really asked for"
|
| And that was my reaction as a loooong-time Apple user.
|
| I understand the intent. The execution is abysmal.
| segasaturn wrote:
| Lazy journalism is to blame here, as always. Newsrooms have
| been purged of any talent over the last decade and the only
| people left are the same "perpetually-online wannabe
| influencers" you talk about, trawling Twitter for easy
| stories and rage-clicks. Nobody would have heard or cared
| about this ad if formerly esteemed publications like NYT
| weren't running lazy stories about it.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Apple is 100% engagement farming
|
| but I don't think it was planned they are just capitalizing
| on the free algorithm marketing by catering to the loud
| voices on tiktok, x and threads
| because_789 wrote:
| Interestingly, basketballs are designed to be as standardized
| and replaceable as possible (so there's no question about
| whether they affected the game.) Whereas musicians do not
| think of instruments that way. Nor photographers and their
| cameras, etc. The reaction might be specific to artists.
| They're represented on HN, but not as much as non-artists, I
| bet.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| True but another article I read mentioned Hollywood types
| being "upset". In what way did the advert hurt them?
|
| Might someone somewhere been rubbed the wrong way? Perhaps.
| With 8B+ ppl on the planet, anything is possible. But I
| agree with the post you commented on. That is, the
| "outrage" felt manufactured. It's been a slow tech news
| week and perhaps the media was bored and needed some web
| traffic?
|
| Note: I recently read Kara Swisher's "Burn Book". In a way,
| entertaining. But when you realize that she - openly and
| shamelessly subjective to a fault - considers herself a
| journalist you quickly realize what a cluster fuck that
| profession has become. Editorial is not journalism. Op-ed
| is op-ed. We outside The Media shouldn't have to explain
| the difference to those on the inside.
| basil-rash wrote:
| Musicians might not think of their personal instruments in
| that way, but surely any musician will acknowledge that
| there exist cheaply made imitations of their instruments
| that can be treated as more or less disposable. I can get a
| trumpet on ebay for $60 shipped to my door, and I expect to
| be able to do whatever I damn please with it, screw what
| anyone else says.
| dheera wrote:
| Musicians become emotionally attached to instruments that
| have been with them for a long time. To musicians,
| instruments feel like they have souls and personalities
| of their own.
|
| You can do whatever you want with your trumpet but it's
| not something I'd want to watch.
|
| It has nothing to do with the money.
| zeteo wrote:
| Did the ad suggest to you that the iPad was a replacement
| for cheap, low quality physical objects? That would not
| be very good copy for Apple. On the contrary, all the
| instruments etc. seemed rather nice to me. The piano
| alone was probably worth thousands of dollars.
| haswell wrote:
| As a musician, the availability of cheap instruments
| doesn't reduce the impact of the symbolism in this ad
| from my perspective.
|
| It's not just a question of monetary value or quality,
| and is more about the implications of the imagery and the
| resulting questions it raises about the goals of a multi
| trillion dollar company.
|
| You're welcome to do whatever you want with your $60
| trumpet, and that's not going to bother me. I see that as
| orthogonal to the issues with a company of Apple's size
| and reach symbolically destroying an entire room full of
| creative objects while selling to people who are deeply
| invested in those objects in their own lives.
| zeteo wrote:
| Yes, a closer analogy would be "look, this guy had a
| basketball signed by Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant in
| 1996, and now it's being blown to smithereens and replaced
| by a 3D model on his iPad".
| haswell wrote:
| I really have to disagree.
|
| I have to acknowledge that there's probably a pile-on effect
| from people who enjoy outrage, but a lot of the negative
| sentiment is coming from level headed musicians and artists;
| a group that I identify with.
|
| And I wouldn't say my reaction is rage. It's closer to a
| combination of deep disappointment, strong dislike, and a
| growing feeling that the nebulous worries I've felt about
| tech and its impact on art/music are being made very real.
|
| I don't find it analogous to a library. Such an ad would
| imply (to me) some kind of digitization, which frankly is a
| huge problem at a time when libraries and access to physical
| books are increasingly under threat.
|
| And I find it different than a basketball, because no one is
| worried that NBA2K is an actual threat to the game, and
| basketballs are inexpensive standardized objects.
|
| What they crushed was symbolic of thousands of years of human
| artistic creativity and output at a time when there's a lot
| of anxiety about AI more or less crushing those fields for
| real.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| You can read the Bible on there too. They could have crushed
| a crucifix.
|
| That's barely hyperbole. The arts are sacred, and big tech is
| destroying and defiling them.
|
| Maybe I'm even overreacting. But I had tears in my eyes
| watching it and I assure you my outrage is not manufactured
| right now.
| itishappy wrote:
| > If they included a basketball in the ad my thought would've
| been "yeah, you can play NBA2k on it".
|
| Basketballs are replaceable. They specifically picked objects
| with nostalgic connections.
|
| Would you feel different if they burned an old high-school
| jersey, or maybe the one Michael Jordan wore?
| jp_nc wrote:
| I think it's the disappointment that Apple is supposed to be
| on the side of creators and humanity in an era where the arts
| have been under attack in schools. Apple makes great tools
| that should complement an artist and their work. It enables a
| kid who can't afford an expensive studio to produce their own
| music. It's not that it was an outrage machine - it was a
| population of creatives saying "hey, this feels a little
| weird"
| quartesixte wrote:
| My initial reaction was the opposite -- "wow they are kind of
| late to the hydraulic press channel hype. That's odd."
|
| For a company that has always prided itself on having strong
| marketing chops, this felt out of character. And perhaps a sign
| of the general change in culture and standards at Apple.
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| >...general change in culture and standards at Apple Thinking
| it is a bad thing...
| pokstad wrote:
| If my metronome app stops complying with iOS developer
| guidelines, it will stop working or Apple will pull it. This
| doesn't happen to a real dedicated metronome. The App Store is
| a problem for iPad. Developers need the freedom to develop
| solutions for iPad without Apple constantly breaking their APIs
| or introducing new standards. Otherwise nothing on iPad is
| timeless.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| I am not a musician or photographer, but I see the emotional
| value of those extremely well crafted and often beloved
| objects.
|
| I create software, mostly, but I practice woodworking as a
| hobby, and I can tell how difficult it is to build a piano or
| any kind of musical instrument.
|
| I found the ad extremely distasteful, enough to trigger mild
| nausea.
|
| I see the point they were trying to make, but it is both dumb
| and old, and frankly nobody asked for a thinner iPad.
|
| The most annoying part is that _they_ did not feel what
| countless people saw and felt, they are too disconnected from
| their audience.
|
| The outrage is not made up, some of us felt it in our bones, I
| understand that we don't all share the same sensitivity, but
| you can't simply brush it off as if this was somewhat
| orchestrated or theatre.
| grumpyprole wrote:
| Spot on. An iPad won't last long enough to become some omes
| beloved object.
| creer wrote:
| How much of a blowback was that really anyway? I mean a social
| media headline that a few others pile on... is rather limited
| as a blowback.
|
| If anything both ad idea and implementation are mediocre - and
| perhaps should have been rejected on that account. This is
| indeed Youtube shorts stuff. And someone pointed out the exact
| same ad idea from LG 15 years ago
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo with even more
| musical instruments.
| rconti wrote:
| It made me cringe, but only because I saw it _after_ hearing
| about the controversy. It made me wonder whether I 'd have had
| the same reaction if I just saw it "fresh".
| squigglydonut wrote:
| This is why I am embarrassed to tell people I work in tech.
| Clubber wrote:
| >This is why I am embarrassed to tell people I work in tech.
|
| Because of the ad, or because all the people complaining about
| the ad?
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| One of the reason this ad was so badly received is that Apple
| reputation has been degrading for a while now. And we're seeing
| the tipping point, they are in their villain arc, not sure if
| they can repair that.
|
| Reputation is built by the drop, and consumed by the bucket.
| hobbescotch wrote:
| Their Apple vision ad was very dystopian feeling and to me
| looks like the same team did this one. They seem really out of
| touch. Very negative vibes in these recent ads.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Ultimately, this is Tim Cook. The guy is a control freak,
| pretty much like Jobs was, but with different views and
| taste.
|
| I find Tim Cook presence extremely chilling, highly
| sociopathic vibes.
| Smithalicious wrote:
| It's a great ad. 620 comments on hacker news, got me to watch it
| voluntarily even though I never see ads. Even got me to share it
| with someone else.
|
| Ads don't exist to make you feel good, they exist to make you
| notice them.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Except that it makes some of the most relevant Apple customers
| see them as an enemy that is out to crush their dreams... and
| are sharing it so their friends get the memo and feel the same
| way.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I watched it and then resolved to never buy an iPad again. I'm
| sharing it with people who will make the same resolution.
| romille wrote:
| Pretty sure this backlash is orchestrated as part of the campaign
| itself to boost the visibility of the ad.
|
| The proof is: here we are talking about it.
| breadwinner wrote:
| Here's a better implementation of a similar concept. Instead of
| crushing musical instruments and other nice things in your life,
| those nice things merge into... a Blackberry.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iQ9oepKScE
| yousif_123123 wrote:
| I didn't like the ad. I think the people creating it wanted to
| imply that it's as if they took all these things and put it in an
| iPad, where you can still achieve all the creativity while
| carrying a thin device.
|
| I don't think it's impossible to convey that message without
| destroying instruments and creative tools that are precious to so
| many. Maybe if they had made the animation very fast it would've
| appeared as a joke and not something intended to be taken
| literally.
|
| Also could've had some artist exit a studio, take the iPad, do a
| whole bunch of stuff, then go back to the studio and kind of test
| out/use the tools while reading from the iPad or something like
| that.
|
| I know some people are saying the reaction is too strong, but
| trust me if you practice on a piano daily you will not feel good
| watching it get crushed.
|
| I don't even work in marketing or own any Apple devices.
| mateus1 wrote:
| It is also a false equivalence.
|
| An iPad will never replicate the beauty of a human playing a
| piano or a violin.
|
| It's dumb consumerism trying to make us believe that life comes
| down to buying rather than living.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| > An iPad will never replicate the beauty of a human playing
| a piano or a violin.
|
| I mean, one of its primary uses is to replicate the beauty of
| a human playing piano or violin via videos and recordings.
|
| Aside from that, isn't this just an appeal to tradition? An
| iPad is a tool just like a piano or the violin, people make
| beautiful music with them all the time.
|
| I am sure there were curmudgeons saying that the piano and
| violin would never replicate the beauty of the human voice
| when they were the top technology of the day.
| eweise wrote:
| They might make beautiful music but not beautiful piano
| music. The piano must exist in order to be recorded into
| the ipad, and recording isn't unique to ipads. You could
| play the piano samples via midi from the ipad but hundreds
| of other devices can also do that and that still wouldn't
| replicate from the player's perspective, actually playing a
| piano or and audiences experience of actually hearing a
| piano.
| graypegg wrote:
| I don't personally play an instrument, but I can also
| understand that the physicality of keys, strings and pedals
| is innately different from tapping on a glass screen. A
| digital piano aims to replicate the sound a _specific_
| piano, and provide a piano-inspired interface for playing
| it.
|
| A real piano is a big single use device, in theory yeah,
| but I imagine for the people playing it the direct control
| over the things making the sound that is irreplaceable.
| There's things that will always be impossible on a VST
| instrument because it's construction (Prepared Piano [0]),
| and vice versa [1]. They seem like two different avenues of
| artistic expression to me.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepared_piano [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesizer
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| > They seem like two different avenues of artistic
| expression to me
|
| I agree completely, this is the point I was trying to
| make.
|
| People are treating the iPad and the piano as
| fundamentally different despite both being tools that are
| equally as capable of making beautiful music in the hands
| of a talented musician in my eyes.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| It's for this reason I have a minstrel that follows me
| everywhere. There's really no substitute for the original
| analog sound - it's warmness and the subtle imperfections
| of the original - can't be substituted with a consumer
| device manufactured by a soulless megacorp. It does become
| problematic on flights as the imperialist cryptofascist
| lackies of capitalism require my minstrel buy a full ticket
| and doesn't let her play my tunes on the flight. People at
| work get pretty irritated and complain about flow and focus
| and whatnot and keep insisting I submit to the consumerist
| mediocrity of a sound cancelling headphone - and I've tried
| in honesty to build a portable sound proof booth with an
| ear trumpet attached but it's kind of bulky and I'm not
| really that handy with tools to begin with. It was also
| really hard to get a badge for the minstrel but eventually
| HR just gave me a neurodiversity exemption and classified
| her as a support animal, which in my opinion is kind of
| sexist but there's only so many things one can get outraged
| about. The real issue is that a single instrument is kind
| of insufficient to fully capture a wider range of sound and
| experience so I've been trying to figure out how to pull
| off a quartet - really some of the best music is done by a
| four piece band anyway - but the above problems just seem
| to get worse but I'm sure I'll figure out how to scale this
| solution.
| teddyh wrote:
| Minstrels are also useful in the event you travel through
| the frozen land of Nador.
| mncharity wrote:
| Minstrel "music" is perhaps problematic itself. On the
| one hand, you have music as an emergent property of the
| gathered individuals' culture and skills. That blurs when
| a tavern sings to a traveling minstrel rather than a
| neighbor. But professionals can enhance rather than
| displace. Consider European acting troupes traveling a US
| West steeped in discussion of Shakespeare. Or printed
| "poems" to be spread and read in support of real _spoken_
| poetry. And minstrels do collaborate with local
| players... but they can also displace. Something is lost
| to a community when the local kid or elder can no longer
| make a bit of money piping in the harvest. Or neighbors
| play the gather fiddles. When music becomes for a
| community a spectator sport, rather than something
| embedded. A train car singing together, versus an
| occasional platform busker. Like trust-fund kids who see
| strength of knowledge and skills as something to buy not
| build in themselves. Or a merchant who doesn 't value
| strength of body for farming. And then there's the my-
| tower-is-taller-than-yours of court "professional music".
| With richly textured diversity, complexity, nuance, and
| surprise consequences, these can be hard to think and
| discuss clearly. Like struggling now to appreciate the
| impoverished isolation of people's un- _music_ al
| experience of tunes before AR's ambient-rendezvous-and-
| collaborate jamming apps.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| And really it's turtles all the way down. That's why I'm
| considering joining a hunter gatherer tribe that's never
| had contact with the modern world. As I worked through
| the profession of institutional oppression of the natural
| state of man I realized there's no other option. I just
| hope I don't wipe them out with my imperialist diseases -
| the least of which is the social cultural ones of modern
| consumerist capitalism!
|
| (In all seriousness I do agree btw, there's value and
| worth in all the art and forms of art we've created ...
| but I'm reacting a bit to the "one step backward in
| historical progression is the pinnacle of achievement"
| ... plus I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the
| visual and cinematic quality of the Apple ad itself and
| find the contextual outrage a bit weird - comparing it to
| the Ridley Scott ad is wild too - not every creation has
| to be an iconic achievement of a master, but is untrue
| this particular ad wasn't interesting and well executed
| and I feel bad for the creative crew that developed and
| produced it)
| sobellian wrote:
| Excuse me, but _real_ musicians use butterflies. They
| open their hands and let the delicate wings flap once.
| The disturbance ripples outward, eventually producing a
| freak weather event which sounds out an awesome cacophony
| carefully honed to activate homo sapiens ' most dormant
| primal instincts for rage, love, mourning, and triumph.
|
| Anything less is a crude shortcut afforded us by our
| decadent culture of consumption.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Aside from that, isn't this just an appeal to
| tradition?_
|
| No. It's an appeal to something that is eternally true.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > I mean, one of its primary uses is to replicate the
| beauty of a human playing piano or violin via videos and
| recordings.
|
| Videos and recordings don't actually replicate those
| things. They approximate them. Recordings leave out tons of
| really important expression.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I am quite confident that a skilled musician with an iPad
| (or, even more obviously, an electric keyboard with a MIDI
| cable to the iPad) can create music that is indistinguishable
| from a human playing a piano. The synthesizer will be able to
| replicate the sound of the best concert grand in the best
| auditorium, direct to your studio headphones.
|
| I'm also quite sure even unskilled musicians will prefer the
| feel of practicing and playing on a slightly out-of-tune old
| upright to a cheap electric synth-action keyboard or (ugh) a
| glass touchscreen.
|
| It's just a tool.
| jaywcarman wrote:
| > I am quite confident that a skilled musician with an iPad
| (or, even more obviously, an electric keyboard with a MIDI
| cable to the iPad) can create music that is
| indistinguishable from a human playing a piano. The
| synthesizer will be able to replicate the sound of the best
| concert grand in the best auditorium, direct to your studio
| headphones.
|
| Perhaps this is true, but it is entirely limited to
| replicating a _recording_ of the instrument. An iPad cannot
| replicate (or even come close to) the sound of a human
| playing a piano that you hear in person.
| yungporko wrote:
| are there actually any good piano sample libraries on ipad?
| the ios music ecosystem is pretty dire
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| Best would be pianoteq, but let's be serious, nothing
| will come close to an acoustic piano. After for YouTube
| consumption and for the mass, yeah, it will be good
| enough, afterall most people don't realize that Rousseau
| is/was not only a team but rearranging midi for their
| output and still are playing poorly.
| danjoredd wrote:
| Have you ever listened to the difference between a piano
| and a digital keyboard? The difference is night and day.
| Digital tech can only imitate the sound of a string piano,
| but it can never truly be the real thing.
|
| its like smelling fresh apple pie vs smelling an apple pie
| car freshener. The idea gets across, but it can never be
| the same.
| LtWorf wrote:
| I'm a hobby musician and let me tell you that I can hear
| digital instruments and to me they sound like "they cheaped
| out on hiring some guy to actually play this"
| suyash wrote:
| That can be said for most of all tech companies who are just
| trying to sell you shiny app that will supposedly fix all
| your problems.
| chillingeffect wrote:
| Also all of the artistic stuff they crush will still work
| in 5, 10, 50, or more years.
|
| Especially without subscriptions.
|
| Apple's destruction of the real and of tradition is also a
| bid against longevity and ownership.
|
| And now through this global marketing effort, everyone who
| proudly displays apple gear is complicit in their desire to
| crush tangible media.
| chrisjj wrote:
| I think we're supposed to believe the human plays the tablet
| as beautifully as s/he plays a violin.
|
| Might boost sales to everyone who has never heard a violin...
| hot_gril wrote:
| I'm actually surprised how fake the fake violins still
| sound.
| toyg wrote:
| The original idea is sound: "we are _squeezing_ all tools into
| the iPad ".
|
| The problem is that you can't _squeeze_ an object without
| resorting to animation. So instead they went for _crushing_ ,
| which carries destructive undertones. A lot of people have
| strong emotional attachments to objects like pianos and vinyl
| players; destroying them is a powerful trigger.
|
| If this had been done with animation, with some djinn magically
| squeezing everything into an iPad, it would have been just
| fine.
|
| This said, _there is no such thing as bad publicity_ - here we
| are, talking about the umpteenth version of a product we would
| otherwise take for granted. The ad might have been distasteful
| but it did the job.
| Uehreka wrote:
| There definitely is such a thing as bad publicity, I wish
| people would stop using that phrase to make dumb things sound
| smart. Of all the companies out there, Apple definitely
| doesn't want to trade on negative sentiment, it clashes with
| their overall brand strategy. In particular this iPad Pro
| launch is riskier than normal, given that it has brand new
| screen tech and is the thinnest device they've ever made, and
| it's possible they pulled this commercial to avoid creating
| associations between this iPad and the act of "crushing"
| things.
|
| Furthermore I doubt that anyone on HN (except like 2 people
| who will definitely reply to this comment) who didn't know
| about the new iPad Pro before this commericial learned about
| it from this post.
| emasirik wrote:
| Allow me to be the first of the two to announce themselves.
|
| I agree, though. Although I only learned of the product
| because of the outrage over the ad, it certainly hasn't
| moved me toward wanting to purchase one. And I'll actually
| be in the market for a tablet in a few months.
| john-radio wrote:
| #2 checking in. I pay almost zero attention to what Apple
| does. I'll pay attention if they start allowing Mozilla
| to ship add-ons with Firefox so I can run adblock on
| mobile like on Firefox!
| doublepg23 wrote:
| You can run ad-blockers on iOS Safari (they're called
| "Content Blockers", I use Firefox Focus's) granted you're
| still stuck with Safari/WebKit for the time being.
| emaro wrote:
| And although it's not Firefox, the Orion browser from
| Kagi supports Chrome _and_ Firefox add-ons on iOS.
| not2b wrote:
| #3 of a vast number: I don't pay attention to what Apple
| does, choose not to own any Apple products even though I
| do respect their technology, particularly Apple Silicon;
| would not have been aware of a launch of a new iPad if it
| weren't for this controversy.
| sqeaky wrote:
| Yep, I had considered getting an iPad. I probably
| wouldn't have, this doesn't prevent me bur it is a point
| in another directiom. Things like the Minis Forum V3 give
| me more options and the company knows "how to read the
| room".
| zooq_ai wrote:
| More people know about iPad released a thinner version now
| than before the controversy.
|
| Mission accomplished.
|
| There is really no such thing as bad publicity.
|
| Number of people who will stop buying Apple products due to
| this Ad : ZERO
|
| Number of people who are aware of iPad Thin due to
| controversy : > ZERO
|
| A small number of people shit on Apple/Google/Meta/Amazon
| all the time for every little thing
|
| Edit : HN crowd downvoting a marketing concept. I must be
| right!
| alt227 wrote:
| I disagree. I own zero apple products but pretty soon I
| will be purchasing a tablet for the kids.
|
| I was looking at ipads, but this ad and the comments have
| reminded me why I dont like putting money in Apples
| pockets. So I shall definitely be buying android when I
| buy one.
| Uehreka wrote:
| I have a lot of Apple products, but my recent work
| projects on Android have brought me around a bit on the
| Pixel line; if I had to switch to Pixel I wouldn't be mad
| (though I don't intend on doing that any time soon). With
| that being said, I don't know of any Android tablets that
| match the iPad in terms of quality or performance, and
| I've been watching the market closely for years (I would
| love a tablet I can do real programming work on). What
| Android tablet are you looking at?
| freedomben wrote:
| Have you tried the Pixel Tablet? I'm on the fence mainly
| because I have very few tablet needs and my Samsung S6
| Lite has been wonderful, but I _love_ the idea of docked
| mode where it becomes a Google Home. It makes it
| incredibly useful as both a desk companion (love getting
| meeting notifications and such on a screen liek that), an
| alarm clock, a digital photo frame, a music player, a
| quick way to see my doorbell camera, etc.
| alt227 wrote:
| I like the look of Lenovo Tab P11 or P12 etc
| ethbr1 wrote:
| "No such thing as bad publicity" directly implies that
| brand goodwill doesn't have a tangible dollar value.
|
| This is false, not least because this is something
| companies declare on financial reports.
| Uehreka wrote:
| Since my argument is "there is such a thing as bad
| publicity and I will die on this hill", I'm going to
| shift from this sloppy ad rollout to an example that I
| think proves my case (that bad publicity is a thing that
| exists) pretty definitively.
|
| Although it no doubt produced tons of brand awareness
| among people who had never heard of them, I doubt that
| the folks at Humane AI would argue that the recent flood
| of bad reviews or even the backlash against the bad
| reviews were helpful to them in the long term. Like sure,
| tons of people know about them now, perhaps they even
| sold a pin or two to the folks who heard about them
| through the controversy. But there's a good chance they
| may not be able to stay solvent as a company long enough
| to actually capitalize on their increased brand
| recognition.
| balls187 wrote:
| "Is there such a thing as Bad Publicity" would make for a
| good freakanomics podcast episode.
|
| My 2c: when that addage was first coined, public outrage
| was much harder to mobilize.
|
| Social media and globalization work hand in hand to make it
| easier for people to have an outsized impact.
|
| Two recent instances I can think of: Budweiser and US
| campus protests regarding the war in Gaza.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| The budweiser thing should dispel the phrase once and for
| all. They lost over a billion in sales apparently
| Uehreka wrote:
| I feel like it's pretty easy to disprove. I mentioned
| Humane AI in another comment, so here I'll use a
| different and more flamboyant example: the 2019 movie
| Cats.
|
| After putting $85-110M into the production of the movie,
| Universal released a trailer that went super viral and
| had every person on the internet talking about how
| terrible it looked. When the movie actually came out
| there was a second viral wave of gawking. Did this drive
| tons of people to the theater so they revel in the
| movie's epic badness for themselves? No, the movie (which
| had over a dozen stars and was based on a hit musical
| that is popular around the world) failed to make back its
| budget at the box office. For reference (in case someone
| tries to pull the "maybe it would've made less money
| without the negative publicity" card) Tom Hooper's
| previous movie musical Les Miserables earned $442M on a
| $61M budget.
|
| Sources:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_(2019_film)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Mis%C3%A9rables_(2012_f
| ilm...
| 7ewis wrote:
| I expect the majority of people really aren't bothered
| about this though - just a vocal minority, so although
| maybe a bad ad for some, I expect the benefits of the
| publicity of this ad far outweight the downsides.
|
| I wouldn't have paid any attention to a new iPad launch or
| known that it was the thinnest one yet, without this 'bad'
| press.
|
| If anything, I'd say I'd be more likely to purchase a new
| iPad as a result
| naravara wrote:
| A vocal minority of artists and creatives who are
| precious about the tactile and aesthetic experiences of
| using the tools of their trades could also be called
| "Apple's target market for the iPad Pro." So Apple would
| definitely need to care about the sentiments their ads
| engender.
| zachthewf wrote:
| The publicity might be a short term win but there is a
| dangerous narrative for Apple that it feeds: that they
| are no longer a design-obsessed company that prizes art
| and creativity and channels that obsession to build the
| best products.
| eastbound wrote:
| Also: Products version 15 are boring and the only way it
| generated awareness was through bad press, not features.
| mvkel wrote:
| Totally agree. The people saying "but now we're talking
| about the iPad, mission accomplished!" isn't even marketing
| 101 grade.
|
| Like saying that using the color red makes people think of
| a stop sign, so they won't buy your product.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _There definitely is such a thing as bad publicity, I
| wish people would stop using that phrase_
|
| the phrase "there's no such thing as bad PR" is meant to
| make you realize that there's more to PR than you...
| realize. It's in the style of something like a Buddhist
| koan. it's not meant to be taken literally or to an
| extreme. It's not a proof but it does describe a real
| phenomenon. You can't reject the phrase without rejecting
| its wisdom.
|
| I hope, on that hill, you don't die as you plan to. Because
| you are very literal, aren't you.
| freedomben wrote:
| Exactly. This saying is much like Confucius famous
| sayings in that you have to think it through, trying it
| both literally and symbolically, and move several steps
| forward logically to try and understand the wisdom it is
| conveying.
|
| It's not saying _literally_ that no publicity can ever be
| bad. That 's obviously not true and is easily disproven
| nearly every single day by current events. It's a broader
| conveyance of truth regarding the difficulty of getting
| noticed in a world crowded with content. Even if it's
| "bad publicity" there are still benefits of becoming more
| well known, for example. Apple is one of the few
| companies where that probably won't help, but it doesn't
| "disprove" the saying and mean we should reject it.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I don't understand what you are responding to. The GP
| comment never said anything about "dying on a hill" or
| being overly literal. They weren't making some grand
| pronouncement that there's no wisdom behind the "there's
| no such thing as bad PR" saying. They just pointed out
| that in _this specific case_ that the bad PR is most
| definitely undesired and not a net benefit, and that the
| "no such thing as bad PR" phrase is often overused in
| places where it's not warranted as a sort of lazy "sure,
| this is fine!" explanation.
| fsckboy wrote:
| one of his other comments did say it was a hill he was
| going to die on, which is "a saying", as "there's no such
| thing as bad PR" is a saying.
| Uehreka wrote:
| My issue is that people take the idea that "bad PR" can
| actually be good for a company (which is common knowledge
| these days) and just stop there. They don't go a step
| further and contemplate where the phrase applies, where
| it doesn't, and what makes those situations different.
| They just bend over backwards and try to figure out the
| way it applies in every situation (even if in reality, it
| doesn't). It's that line of thinking that I find
| annoying.
|
| I think the phrase has outlived its usefulness. Nowadays
| when I see it used it's often in exactly the kind of
| extreme or overly literal way you yourself criticize.
| enaaem wrote:
| Bad PR works on controversial things, for example if
| someone wants to sell courses to become "Alpha Male".
| People who are into that become suddenly aware of it.
|
| Apple ad isn't controversial because people react
| indifferent at best and very negative at worst. Everyone
| already knows what an ipad is.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Let's be honest here: people are going to watch the video
| on their iPhone, fleetingly think "well that's a weird ad,
| really did not like that..." and then move onto something
| else on their iPhone. Apple has been untouchable for many
| years now. Basically Trump "I can shoot a man on 5th Avenue
| and people will still vote for me" level
| dougb5 wrote:
| There is absolutely bad publicity when you already have the
| world's most valuable brand
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_valuable_brands)
| hnlmorg wrote:
| > If this had been done with animation, with some djinn
| magically squeezing everything into an iPad, it would have
| been just fine.
|
| It already was an animation. So they could have taken your
| approach instead.
| nytesky wrote:
| Have you confirmed there are no practical effects in this
| -- definitely it seemed like a lot had to be animated from
| the timing of events, to cutesy thinks like the smile ball
| squeeze.
|
| Like if this was hand drawn animation, would anyone care? I
| think people think real instruments (even ones that were
| junk, ie old pianos are worthless) were destroyed.
| LtWorf wrote:
| Do you have a source that it was animated or are you just
| making it up to sound smarter?
| nytesky wrote:
| I was replying to the previous posters who said it was
| already animation. There certainly is some animation at
| play but was wondering of the mix of practical effects
| and CGI.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if there was some practical
| effects at play but it honestly looked too simplified to
| be real. Crushing a lot of stuff like that would be messy
| and ugly. Also unsafe with things like broken metal and
| shattered glass. It's feels more like CGI. And personally
| I think that would be the better way to do it. As someone
| who's watched a weirdly high number of YouTube videos of
| things getting crushed by presses, it's not pretty like
| that video was.
|
| If, and if think that's a big _if_ that was mainly
| practical effects, then those props would almost
| certainly be fake instruments made from different
| materials that crush in more visually appealing ways.
| shombaboor wrote:
| The creative tools just had to be sucked in like a wormhole.
| It's just surprising it got this far without someone
| intervening. Shows that someone high up couldn't be backed
| down.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Exactly. Part of the reason this is news is that this in an
| incredibly obvious and rare own goal on Apple marketing's
| part.
|
| To the extent that someone high up who greenlit it should
| be fired.
|
| How do you know... - Creatives are a
| target customer - Creatives are concerned about AI
| - Everyone is concerned about AI
|
| ... and possibly approve a _literal machine_ crushing (in
| slow motion detail!) instruments of human creativity?!
|
| That'd be like making a tobacco ad that features a pair of
| lungs aging...
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| When your Brand is as valuable as Apple or Boeing, bad
| publicity is a thing.
|
| They don't need to be known, but they need to maintain the
| positive values associated with their brand.
|
| The Apple brand is their most valuable asset, they probably
| destroyed billions in brand value with the shitstorm around
| this horribly distasteful ad.
| chuckadams wrote:
| > they probably destroyed billions in brand value
|
| So go short AAPL, Jim Cramer. My bold prediction is this ad
| does diddly to their bottom line. You really think people
| are going to boycott Apple over it?
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| I am not talking about stock, here.
|
| Stock is short-sighted, and I don't expect any boycott.
|
| The consequences of the slow degradation of a brand are
| measured in decades.
|
| If you take a look at the Vision Pro, they didn't expect
| selling them like hot cakes, given the price, but from
| what I've heard they still missed their projections, by a
| long shot.
|
| This pattern will repeat, one failed or tepid product
| launch at a time, eroding confidence, and ultimately,
| yes, the stock will plunge.
| chuckadams wrote:
| You're reading tea leaves now. Meanwhile Apple has
| actually measurable problems like plummeting iPhone sales
| in China, and I guarantee that's not because of a stupid
| ad.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| To be clear, I don't think the ad itself is the issue, I
| think this is pretty benign given their scale.
|
| But I think they have a leadership problem. Tim Cook is a
| glorified bean counter, not a creator, not a visionary,
| and it shows.
|
| I know that most people are looking at the stock and will
| say that everything is fine. Sure. I am looking at the
| products, and except for M series of SoC, this is all
| boring.
| chuckadams wrote:
| Apple's valuation is up over 1000% since Tim Cook became
| CEO. His greatest failing is that he isn't Steve Jobs,
| but most corporations would literally kill to have a bean
| counter like Tim Cook. Yes, he's in the hot seat, and
| Wall Street is very "What have you done for me today?",
| but I don't see shareholders calling for his head.
|
| All empires fall, but today is not that day for Apple.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _Apple 's valuation is up over 1000% since Tim Cook
| became CEO_
|
| GE's valuation was up ~4500% during Jack Welch's tenure
| as CEO.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| You two are talking about separate things.
|
| Parent is talking about brand goodwill.
|
| You're talking about revenue.
|
| The two are different, but not unrelated. One reason
| Apple can run the margins and move the product that it
| does is because it's Apple. If it were "random company"
| and didn't benefit from its RDF, those numbers wouldn't
| be sustainable.
|
| Which, in a nutshell, is the Tim Cook problem -- you can
| make all the sales numbers go in the right direction, but
| that's not the product magic that Apple has historically
| benefited from (and been valued at).
| maxwell wrote:
| Executive dysfunction seems the root issue. Tim, Phil,
| and Craig have been running on Steve and Jony's fumes for
| years, and now have no ideas beyond incrementing numbers
| and buying back stock. It's like ol' Gil all over again.
|
| Apple is the default choice for grandparents again, but
| they don't even have the schools anymore (Google
| conquered edu with Chromebooks).
| chasil wrote:
| I am not getting such horrible vibes from the ad.
|
| Maybe the strongest sense is that the iPad comes from the
| island of broken toys?
|
| Slightly less emphatic but more sinister is that an iPad
| cannot help but involve itself in the destruction of the
| arts.
|
| I do agree that the ad does not have any observable moral
| upside, and it was a mistake to run it.
|
| But then again, if Apple did have a YouTube collection of
| ads that they chose not to run and discussion of why, it
| might be easier to trust them. They are so opaque at the
| moment that trust is a very big ask.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _Stock is short-sighted_
|
| stock is not short sighted. It does react quickly to
| information (which means it was too late to short a while
| ago) but to think that you can make money by not buying
| stock now, but waiting to buy it at another time is
| really terrible advice, and it's been refuted.
|
| To believe that stock is short-sighted is to believe that
| investers as a group are dumber than you are because
| they've put their money into the market but you know
| better.
| hiatus wrote:
| > To believe that stock is short-sighted is to believe
| that investers as a group are dumber than you are because
| they've put their money into the market but you know
| better.
|
| There is a saying you may not be familiar with, "Markets
| can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
| fsckboy wrote:
| what's your definition of irrational?...
|
| the market doesn't know the future, it just incorporates
| current knowledge and opinion. Is AI a bubble right now?
| the vast riches afforded those who make the right call
| when AI is ready is justification enough for current
| enthusiasm, no irrationality needs to be _hypothesized_.
| And like people who lost their bet on the 49ers to win
| the Superbowl, there 's no reason to posit irrationality
| if a bet doesn't pay.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| The stock market, or any kind of market really, is
| nothing else than a huge distributed pricing machine.
|
| It is incredibly good at doing that. But it is short
| sighted. It is able to integrate risks to some extent, on
| a short time scale, but it is very bad at processing
| second or third order effects, and can't do strategy.
|
| In other words, the famous invisible hand is completely
| unable to predict the future.
|
| Humans are also notoriously bad at that, but still
| better. This is why we have states and CEOs.
| fsckboy wrote:
| at the beginning of every day, the market has a greater
| probability of going up than down, and a risk adjusted
| positive expected value (which is a different thing)
|
| Therefore, your money should always be "in the market",
| not out of the market. Therefore, it's very difficult to
| make the case that the market is short sighted. I think
| what you are trying to say is that immediate risks are
| better understood than longer term, so the more distant
| future has higher volatility.
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| I would not bet against any company on the basis of
| people whinging on the internet unless it's about their
| actual product or service being bad at it's job. (e.g.
| Humane and Rabbit are probably doomed)
|
| Consider that when talking about something measured in
| decades the examples that come to mind are things people
| said in the last few weeks. But what were people talking
| about a decade ago? Which of those things actually
| reflected the long term trajectory of the company?
| maxwell wrote:
| My Gen A son enjoys his Meta Quest and jokes about the
| Vision Pro.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I love the name play with "If it's Boeing, I'm not going".
|
| Waiting for something like that for Apple. Let me get my
| popcorn...
| kirubakaran wrote:
| How about "causing walled garden headaches since Eden"
| dirtyhippiefree wrote:
| Doesn't really ring, no rhyming bling...
| kirubakaran wrote:
| It does in native Ayapaneco
| araes wrote:
| Maybe "crapple" ...
| dylan604 wrote:
| "If it's Apple, it's crapple" was my first stab as well.
| Just didn't have the same je ne sais quoi to me about it
| though.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| The app'll work best with genuine apple handcuffs.
| awad wrote:
| What's tragic is that it was originally coined "If it
| ain't boing, I ain't going" back when their brand stood
| for quality.
| joelfried wrote:
| But that's the history that makes the flipping of the
| script so stark. Anybody embedded deeply enough in the
| company should be aware of that exact loss of reputation.
|
| And if the company fails to know its own history well
| enough that even they are missing the point that speaks
| volumes about how they value institutional knowledge.
| inerte wrote:
| Bit the Apple, have sins to grapple
|
| No idea if it sounds good, not a native speaker :)
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| No need to destroy. They could have definitely merged the
| items like a rainbow melting all into the iPad. Those visuals
| are pretty common.
|
| That would have have looked nice, but it wouldn't have
| touched people.
|
| This is very graphic and elicits a much stronger emotion. I
| think that's why it was chosen.
|
| The irony is that it know kind of feels like more honest then
| it's supposed to be, digital tools crushing tradition
| artistry.
| nytesky wrote:
| That "unintended" honesty may be too close to home, and
| been a catalyst to the outrage.
|
| I mentioned in another thread, if they showed AI "crushing"
| the artist (ie replacing) that would have been the powder
| keg.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > The original idea is sound: "we are squeezing all tools
| into the iPad".
|
| Hard disagree. Yes, I do agree that a big part of the
| emotional reaction to the ad were seeing all these beloved
| tools of craftsmanship being destroyed.
|
| But another underlying current is people reaching the
| conclusion that they _do not want_ all of their individual,
| sometimes quirky tools being subsumed under a single flat
| silicon panel. I 'll just speak for myself, but I often find
| myself craving more real, physical interaction and not just
| something that exists on a screen.
|
| Some of us actually crave a little more of the chaotic,
| interesting world of WALL-E over the sleek perfection of EVE
| (which was, somewhat unsurprisingly, reviewed and blessed by
| Jonathan Ive).
| chrisjj wrote:
| > The original idea is sound: "we are squeezing
|
| Really? I wonder how it got titled Crush! then.
|
| > The problem is that you can't squeeze an object without
| resorting to animation.
|
| Not a problem. The ad isn't short of animation.
|
| > there is no such thing as bad publicity
|
| I's say the apology shows Apple disagrees.
| wvh wrote:
| There is a growing backlash against technology and its
| harmful effects though. People are rightfully getting
| suspicious about that handful of tech companies and their
| intentions. Few are willing to give up on technology, nor
| should they as it's futile to fight progress, but the debate
| and guard rails are being shaped, and the tone deafness of
| some of these big technology companies is not helping their
| cause.
|
| The astronomical user base of companies like Google and Apple
| should not be an indicator about the actual goodwill of
| people towards these brands. Getting away with something does
| not mean your behaviour isn't causing increasing animosity
| and feeding general discontentment.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| The video is cool, but yeah, watching all these great items
| being crushed, is wow.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| There is no such thing as bad publicity when you are not yet
| established. When you are already a recognized and popular
| brand, such as Apple or AB InBev, it can hurt revenue, such
| as how AB InBev suffered from lower revenue following their
| own advertisement backlash.
| paulpan wrote:
| This exactly. There are many other ways to express "squeezing
| into one" but both bizarrely and shockingly Apple (or
| whichever ad agency) went for "crushing with hydraulic press"
| instead. How did everyone miss on the negative undertone
| before this ad was released?
|
| Could be extrapolating this incident too much but it feels it
| encapsulates the transformation of Apple from this quirky,
| unconventional upstart into a monopolistic leviathan the past
| 2 decades. There's also a sense of hubris at suggesting your
| single electronic device can replace all those creative
| tools.
| softfalcon wrote:
| A djinni with Tim Apple's face would be funny. Comes out of a
| home pod and magics the whole recording studio into an iPad.
| Probably too whimsical for an Apple's taste though.
| citizen_friend wrote:
| If you think of yourself as skeptical, agnostic, materialist. I
| don't understand how you can be upset about cheap in-animate
| objects get destroyed for an entertaining video.
| skywhopper wrote:
| No one is actually upset about any specific objects that were
| destroyed in the making of this ad. This sort of advertising
| is all about eliciting emotions and shaping a message--a vibe
| --about a particular product. This ad triggered visceral
| feelings related to the emotional connection a lot of people
| --even skeptical agnostic materialists!--have with the tools,
| instruments, and products of creativity and art. And based on
| the reaction, the ad clearly elicited a lot of negative
| emotions and a negative vibe in what is presumably the iPad
| Pro's target audience. Thus, I'd say that even from your
| ultra-rationalist point of view, it's a bad ad.
| citizen_friend wrote:
| I mostly agree. My point is I don't think the audience here
| would give the same empathy to flag burning, Christian
| trolling etc. just want to be clear if these are the gods
| we worship here
| mulmen wrote:
| As a recovering christian I don't "worship" anything,
| especially a god.
| real0mar wrote:
| no one asked
| mulmen wrote:
| > just want to be clear if these are the gods we worship
| here
|
| "We" don't worship anything here.
| citizen_friend wrote:
| The root of this thread is arguing that the musical
| instruments are sacred and deserving of symbolic respect.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Another person on social media noted that no Apple ad has
| ever depicted older generation iPads or MacBook Pros being
| crushed by a hydraulic press to signify them being made
| thinner - I suspect Apple wouldn't even greenlight that ad
| pitch.
| eddd-ddde wrote:
| It's not matter of spiritualism.
|
| If I put my skill and effort crafting something and it is
| destroyed, I'll feel sad.
|
| Feeling that way even for things other made is called
| empathy.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Try a car analogy on for size: a new Corvette might be
| superior to a classic Porsche in all the ways that matter,
| but nobody at GM would greenlight an ad depicting a C8
| emerging from a crusher that had just destroyed a '63 911.
| They would understand how disrespectful it would seem.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Disrespectful? What? That sounds like a cool ad.
|
| People are being babies about this.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| That's an indication that you're not a good fit for the
| sports-car advertising business, just as whoever approved
| this ad isn't a good fit for the creative business.
|
| If it has to be explained to you, you won't get it.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > People having different tastes than me are babies
| stale2002 wrote:
| You are free to think that the ad was boring and that you
| didn't like it.
|
| But yes, if you are losing your mind over it and crying
| about it, with an extreme emotional reaction, yes that
| makes you a baby.
|
| I have no problem with someone who merely didn't like the
| ad. What I do have a problem with is this extreme
| freakout response.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I don't think anyone's losing their mind and crying. It's
| just interesting to see something like this from a
| company that has historically prided themselves on mutual
| respect (if not outright symbiosis) with artists,
| musicians, and other creative people.
|
| Somewhere within Apple there was a failure of taste, and
| that was always the proverbial "sin unto death" from
| Steve Jobs's perspective. Doesn't happen every day. You
| hate to see it, but you can't help but watch.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > I don't think anyone's losing their mind and crying.
|
| Then I guess you didn't see the social media response.
| There were absolutely a lot of people who were extremely
| upset.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > But yes, if you are losing your mind over it and crying
| about it, with an extreme emotional reaction, yes that
| makes you a baby.
|
| Define "losing your mind" and "crying about it with
| extreme emotional reaction".
| danjoredd wrote:
| Im not a skeptical agnostic materialist, but those objects
| were far from being cheap. Those instruments cost thousands
| of dollars each. The arcade cabinet as well(there aren't
| exactly a lot of those left).
|
| The entire point of the ad is that the entire human creative
| experience is consolidated into the ipad, which is a pretty
| dystopian way of looking at things. Even if you ignore the
| cost and rarity of these items, the symbolism is pretty
| horrible.
| hinkley wrote:
| You know there are reproductions of those arcade cabinets
| right? And used instruments cost hundreds, not thousands. A
| guitar with a broken neck or stripped screws could be
| propped up long enough for a scene such as this and be
| useless to actually play. And busted pianos are easy enough
| to find.
| danjoredd wrote:
| >And used instruments cost hundreds, not thousands.
|
| A guitar, sure. I tried getting an used string piano and
| couldn't find one...used...for less than five grand. Used
| violins and other instruments are also usually very
| highly priced.
| hinkley wrote:
| You are trying to get a working piano. This ad only
| required a non working piano.
|
| Someone bought me a broken piano once thinking I would be
| able to repair it. We ended up letting someone else have
| it for free. It wasn't expensive to begin with because it
| didn't work.
| andrewla wrote:
| Try craigslist or a local piano mover. Local piano movers
| are often asked to haul off abandoned pianos and will
| resell them [1]. This company's stock at the moment is a
| bit pricey compared to what I usually see, but it's not
| unusual to be able to get even a baby grand for ~$1,000.
| The catch is you've got to pay to move them, which is a
| bit of an ordeal.
|
| [1] e.g. https://www.actionpianomoving.com/used-pianos if
| you're in the greater NYC area
| quesera wrote:
| I won't speculate on how hard the ad agency worked to
| source a low-cost piano.
|
| But used pianos go unsold for under a hundred dollars
| _all the time_ within an hour 's drive of major US
| cities.
| hinkley wrote:
| I feel like people have bought into the PR.
|
| Everything in that press was a representation of a real
| and useful thing, and the people who hate this commercial
| the most seem to have substituted a real and useful thing
| for the simulation of one. Whereas the moment the cans on
| the piano were crushed, I thought, "wow that old
| (busted?) piano is holding up well."
|
| Practical effects are not only full of fakery, they're
| also the origin of a lot of the tricks known to the
| world.
| mark242 wrote:
| If you had ever put the time and effort (and blood!) into
| learning how to play the guitar, you too would have a
| visceral reaction to seeing a guitar getting destroyed for
| nothing. It's not the objects themselves that are the
| problem, it is our connection to those objects, and our
| innate feelings about those objects, that Apple has smashed
| in that video. That's a marketing 101 mistake and how this ad
| ever got greenlit is beyond me.
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| Literal rock stars destroy their instruments on set just
| for fun.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| If it weren't offensive to someone, somewhere, they
| wouldn't do it.
|
| Apple, on the other hand, will never be punk. They left
| that path when they realized it was more profitable to
| become the guy on the screen in their earlier ad.
|
| A better comparison might be to Spike Jonze's famous Ikea
| ad ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBqhIVyfsRg ), which
| was also sort of disturbing to watch.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Or if they're asked to vacate the stage.
|
| https://youtu.be/g9zogQOmQVM
|
| At least Billie Joe Armstrong showed that Gibsons are
| very durable and you really have to put your back into
| destroying it.
| mark242 wrote:
| I'll bet you didn't know that many times, those are
| getting repaired.
|
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8838159/amp/The-
| Who...
|
| Because of the connection that the players have with the
| instruments.
|
| Could you do that with an iPad?
| wiseowise wrote:
| Do they destroy them and continue playing on an iPad?
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| Why not show all of these objects being put into a magicians
| top-hat and then pulling out the iPad at the end?
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| Because that would have been too 2001 and the ad company paid
| for this couldn't have justified it's budget like that.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Or have a giant scale, show people loading all this stuff
| into one side of the scale, and then placing the iPad on the
| other side, and the iPad side sinks. There's a million ways
| to do this idea
| withinrafael wrote:
| Agreed. I was thinking along the same lines. Some Wonka-like
| contraption where all this on-going creativity in a room was
| captured, fed into a whimsical pipes leading to an assembly
| line, with an iPad reveal at the end.
| caycep wrote:
| Some filmmaker just ran the video backwards and it worked so
| much better
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Backwards: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XYB6JJoDSuk
|
| That is, hilariously, an _excellent_ ad.
|
| It's gotta sting when someone says "No, actually just
| reversing your terrible thing makes a wonderful thing. Didn't
| you think of that?"
| Almondsetat wrote:
| The funny thing is that reversing the ad doesn't change the
| fact that all those things were destroyed. If people like
| the reversed version it means they actually never cared
| about the destruction in the first place
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Obviously no one cared about the literal destruction but
| the message it was sending. Pianos are destroyed all the
| time
| Almondsetat wrote:
| >obviously no one
|
| reading just this HN submission's replies begs ti differ
| JohnFen wrote:
| > they actually never cared about the destruction in the
| first place
|
| For the most part, they don't. I think what people are
| reacting to is the perceived symbolism of the whole
| thing. Reversing the video in this case is kind of
| reversing the symbolism to something more like what I
| assume Apple was going for in the first place.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Jesus, of course nobody cares about that specific piano.
| Are you one of those "kids in Africa could've rate that
| destroyed piano" type of people?
|
| It's a metaphor.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| Maybe instead if being arrogant and condescending read
| the very comment section you are partecipating in to see
| plenty of people saying just that
| jeremiahbuckley wrote:
| It is really amazing the difference in emotional impact.
| Nicely done in super hi def! Thanks for this.
| pohl wrote:
| It seems odd to complain about one old upright piano being
| crushed for the video when thousands upon thousands of them are
| out on the streets, living under bridges, because no one wants
| to move the piano anymore, or wanted the convenience of an
| electronic keyboard.
|
| I implore you all: adopt a piano today! You may find yourself
| saying "I didn't rescue it, it rescued me."
| killjoywashere wrote:
| We adopted a piano while we were overseas and moved it to San
| Francisco. We ended up giving it to a church after my son
| decided he couldn't abide the high notes that could never
| quite get into tune. Still have fond memories of it though.
| rfw300 wrote:
| I think this misses the mark. The ad is inherently symbolic--
| it's not this particular piano, but the fact that they're
| destroying all of these beloved instruments of creativity in
| such a gratuitous and evocative manner. That's what
| upsetting, not the literal fact that one piano was destroyed
| in the making of the ad.
| hinkley wrote:
| See also Jimi Hendrix, the Clash, The Who, Nine Inch Nails,
| Nirvana...
| prattatx wrote:
| I would have preferred the reverse of crushing our tools into
| something. I would have preferred pulling them out of the iPad
| to create. As a d&d fan, I could imagine a bard with a black
| hole pulling instruments and creative tools out in order to
| render magic.
|
| I felt like I was watching the end of Terminator 1 when
| watching that iPad commercial.
| Avamander wrote:
| I saw a tweet that did exactly that, reversed the ad. The
| subtext was really different.
| ethagknight wrote:
| "Honey, I shrunk the iPad. And the composer. And the
| orchestra." would have been a better angle
| hinkley wrote:
| I just watched this ad for the first time. It's odd but I don't
| have a reaction to it.
|
| What I am having a reaction to is all the reactions about
| destroying instruments. Which in turn reminded me of the song
| by Cake.
|
| Rock n' Roll Lifestyle:
|
| ...
|
| How much did you pay
|
| For the chunk of his guitar
|
| The one he ruthlessly smashed at the end of the show?
|
| And how much will he pay
|
| For a brand-new guitar
|
| One which he'll ruthlessly smash at the end of another show?
|
| And how long will the workers
|
| Keep building him new ones?
|
| As long as their soda cans are red, white, and blue ones
|
| ...
| EGreg wrote:
| Anyone remember the original awesome Google Chromebook ad where
| they meticulousoy showed destruction of several laptops? I know
| it's not the same thing but it reminded me of it and I can't
| find it anywhere in YouTube! Anyone got a link who knows what
| I'm talking about?
| whiteboardr wrote:
| It was painful to watch and i won't have a second look.
|
| It would have been as simple as adding a short "Professional
| CGI Artists. No actual instrument and tools were harmed." to
| set a lighter tone and take the pain away.
|
| Given the raging discussion and thus reach, this won't hurt
| sales in the slightest - pretty much the opposite and i guess
| we're left with giving kudos to marketing well played.
| ericmcer wrote:
| They probably figured it would be really strong imagery to see
| the items being physically crushed in a giant press. It
| definitely invokes feelings, but not good ones.
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| > I don't think it's impossible to convey that message without
| destroying instruments and creative tools that are precious to
| so many.
|
| This is how I felt seeing rock musicians destroying perfectly
| good instruments and amps. Growing up my parents didn't have
| the money to buy me a guitar (or didn't want to buy me one), so
| I would see these performances and would just think, can't they
| just donate that guitar to some poor kid or a school instead of
| destroying them? It really annoyed me, but it didn't stop me
| from loving the band and their music. I'm a late Gen-Xer and
| watching Nirvana destroy the stage after a performance just
| made me go "aw, those were good instruments someone else could
| have used". I don't know if it's "cool" to do that anymore, but
| I never see any other artists calling that out like they are
| for this ad, and it's been going on since the 70s.
| bnralt wrote:
| Interesting point. The Clash even celebrated the destruction
| of instruments on the cover of London Calling (the cover
| being a photo of their bassist smashing his bass). And though
| the Apple ad seems like it's trying to convey they idea that
| all these devices are within the iPad, the smashing of
| instruments and equipment by rockers seems to just be
| about...reveling in the destruction of instruments and
| equipment.
|
| You see this in other art as well. For example, the Dadaists
| took a lot of functional tools, messed them up, and displayed
| them as art. Moving beyond art, destruction that accompanies
| political unrest is often dismissed.
|
| It's interesting that the Apple ad is what touched off this
| discussion, because it's actually fairly tame with regards to
| a lot of intentional destruction of equipment.
| lotu wrote:
| I'm not sure but I think this ad was fully animated and nothing
| was actually destroyed. A hydraulic press of this size, if any
| even exist, is going to look a lot bulkier and not like a
| cartoon stomper coming down from the ceiling. We don't see the
| side bracing which would needed if you didn't want your
| hydraulic press to rip a hole in your ceiling.
|
| Especially with all the angles they have it would have been
| incredibly difficult and dangerous to get all the shots, and
| every shot came out perfectly.
| boringg wrote:
| It was a depressing advertisement. I don't know why you would
| want that to be your message as a company.
|
| I know that wasn't their intention but thats what the message
| came across as. Some arm of the company doesn't allow people to
| speak up if they have reservations about something -> thats how
| that one made it through the quality filter. AKA there were
| people on the inside definitely knew that there would be a
| backlash on this but probably weren't allowed to speak up.
| baby wrote:
| Overreaction of the century
| sircastor wrote:
| For folks questioning or arguing why someone might have a strong
| emotional reaction to this, and still carry a phone in their
| pocket, or still use Apple products daily, or even just like
| Apple...
|
| Humans are complex. We do things that aren't in our best
| interest, we make bad calls, change our minds, have split
| opinions about things. We're hypocrites.
|
| And that's okay. We live in a complex world where the
| consequences of any decision have vast positive and negative
| effects, setting off further complex consequences. It can be
| overwhelming and while we probably want to live by a single,
| dependable, rational, reasonable code-of-ethics, often we're just
| trying to make it through the day.
| dghughes wrote:
| That was real stuff not CG? Ohh. Yeah that seems unnecessary
| these days of ultra-real computer graphics.
| karaterobot wrote:
| This feels like another example of people getting mad at a
| depiction of a thing rather than at the actual thing. Like
| getting mad at violence in movies, or at books with racism in
| them. Yeah, big tech is actively trying to take away your
| livelihoods, and you can interpret this commercial as
| accidentally symbolizing that. But the problem is that it's
| actually happening, not that they filmed a skit about it. The
| commercial doesn't make it worse, and you don't get anything in
| return for all the effort required to get pissed off about it.
| Even if posting an angry rant on Twitter doesn't burn a lot of
| calories, you'd still be better off doing almost anything else.
| fullshark wrote:
| How do you attack the actual thing? Some are trying with
| copyright lawsuits and potential gov't policy proposals I guess
| but it's much easier to attack a single company and get an army
| of outraged allies over something easily digestible (an
| advertisement).
| karaterobot wrote:
| I agree that there's two things: doing something about it,
| which is hard, and complaining about it, which is easy. What
| I'm saying is, if you're going to complain about something,
| might as well complain about the real problem rather than a
| harmless symbolic representation of the problem.
| knbrlo wrote:
| Even if it didn't have the intended effect of making everyone
| feel good, at least everyone is talking about it so in a sense it
| worked in Apple's favor.
| jamesbfb wrote:
| The comments on the wider internet reminds me of the 90s and
| 2000s when bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Silverchair were
| being ridiculed for smashing up their instruments on stage. We've
| come full circle.
| jononomo wrote:
| I thought the ad was arrogant and dystopian.
| surfingdino wrote:
| It's about Apple not reading the room. The creative community see
| that AI vendors assume that they have the right to ingest IP
| without compensation, train their models on it, resell derivative
| works based on it, and there is nothing that can be done about
| it. Then Apple releases this stupid ad suggesting that all tools
| of the creative profession will be destroyed after they get
| packaged into a tablet that can do nothing by itself unless it is
| loaded with samples and algorithms based on the creative works of
| others. In short, artists are being told that while AI is
| stealing value from them and their creations, Apple will steal
| their tools and creations and put them behind the iPad paywall.
| It's one more middle finger to the creatives from the company
| that used to say "Think Different". Stupid and unnecessary.
| soci wrote:
| What's most surprising is how the ad went live without nobody
| pressing the "Retry" button to build a new ad idea, neither in
| the chain of command at Apple nor at the creative agency, if any.
| It's like everybody everybody, one after the other in the chain
| of decisions, eluded their responsability. Why?
| smm11 wrote:
| Next up they'll show a giant press destroy the world, other than
| one guy's house, then the guy puts on V2 Vision Pro and is in
| "the world" again.
| vlark wrote:
| It's tone deaf, for sure, but it's really a bad ad because Apple
| isn't showing any originality but simply ripping off an old LG
| ad: https://9to5mac.com/2024/05/09/controversial-ipad-pro-
| crush-...
| bongoman42 wrote:
| Personally, given how much people have shared the ad, I would say
| it was a successful ad. I pretty much try to avoid all ads, and
| rarely remember any, but this one came in my twitter feed at
| least 50 times if not more and all of these were organic reshares
| by folks I follow. Given how Apple purchases work I think it
| would only positively impact their bottom line. Overall, I didn't
| like the ad at all but it is memorable at a visceral level.
| dogman144 wrote:
| This ad said the quiet part out loud about what the average
| technologist thinks of the average liberal arts pursuit. It just
| had to manifest as an ad from an insulated marketing dept for it
| to finally happen "in the open." No surprises, and it was nice to
| see it out stated clearly.
| vessenes wrote:
| I, like a lot of people, just hated the ad, although I liked it
| in reverse.
|
| If there's a single product company that hires technologists
| who also love the arts, it's Apple -- this campaign was just
| mismanaged by someone who missed the point, and didn't
| understand Apple's history very well.
|
| Also, apparently, the ipad is _really_ thin, so maybe they got
| overexcited :)
| chankstein38 wrote:
| Agreed, I definitely think the reverse is better. It gets the
| same point across while implying the new ipad is bursting at
| the seams with all of these cultural tools. I wasn't offended
| by the destruction or anything just straight up kind of a
| dumb commercial.
| dogman144 wrote:
| A technology company that loves the arts and shows it by
| paternalistically crushing all of its implements and saying
| "trust us this iPad is better than your heirloom piano or
| silly books."
|
| Right on trend. They might love it, but they don't understand
| it, and per the last 20 years love unemploying it.
| duped wrote:
| It's hard to remove this ad from the context of the current
| market for artistic services, which have always been
| undervalued by non-artists (eg: "give me this for free so you
| get exposure!"), which is under assault from AI startups that
| think they're making the world better by killing the most human
| parts of our economy.
|
| Artists are really being stung by AI right now. And Apple,
| ostensibly the darling tech company for artists, puts out an ad
| literally crushing artistic tools and telling you to buy an
| iPad to replace them. By the way, it has the most powerful
| neural engine ever.
|
| It's not just tone deaf, it's insulting.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Not sure (well I am sure given the audience) why you're
| getting downvotes... other than it's a bitter pill for
| engineers to swallow that the creative arts industry which
| eng culture tries to simultaneously love/emulate/crush
| economically hates engineers and tech culture in return for
| this multi-decade attitude. Even in the face of "hey but I
| use XYZ tech for art, that's not true!" that tend to pop up.
|
| You are spot on, and the ad, and it's humorous "wait they
| hate us?" counter-reaction/confusion in reaction to feedback
| about encapsulates it all well.
| robertoandred wrote:
| Technology (especially comp sci) falls under liberal arts.
| 542458 wrote:
| To be more explicit, liberal arts refers to _art_ as in
| _skill_ , not as in _fine arts_. Liberal arts education is
| the dominant educational paradigm in the western world. Any
| education that emphasizes being well-rounded any knowing
| something about many subjects is typically a liberal arts
| education (compared to a technical or professional education
| where you just learn a lot about a single subject).
| xyzwave wrote:
| Maybe the average technologist, but for anyone who understands
| Apple's culture and history, your claim is not just inaccurate,
| but opposite of the truth.
|
| Steve Jobs addressed this exact point during a 2011 keynote
| [0]:
|
| > It is in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough--
| it's technology married with liberal arts, married with the
| humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart
| sing.
|
| 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlI1MR-qNt8
| malcolmgreaves wrote:
| That company is long gone now.
| darkhorse222 wrote:
| The AirPods show a thoughtful commitment to the human
| experience. The Vision Pro also demonstrates a focus on the
| human and social experience.
|
| Where they have lost their vision is in the iPhone and Mac
| lines which are simply so profitable that there is no
| reason to mess with a good thing.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Blocking out the sound and sights of real life with
| something digital is not what I call a thoughtful
| commitment to the human experience.
|
| Hardly anyone seems to remember how the iPhone used to be
| small enough to fit in one hand or in any pocket. As
| people became increasingly addicted to phones to the
| point of having them outside the pocket more often than
| not, bigger phones made more desirable, but Steve Jobs
| insisted on keeping it small. He said nobody wanted a big
| phone, but since it was obvious users did want it, I'm
| wondering if there was another reason. He died, then a
| few years afterwards, Apple released the larger iPhone 6.
| wiseowise wrote:
| As if Apple then is the same as Apple now.
| uses wrote:
| That's a huge marketing fail if that's what it made you feel
| because it would be completely contrary to their messaging
| during the rest of the iPad event. The 30 minute show was
| almost entirely about using the iPad in creative pursuits.
| Illustration, film making, photography, music, etc.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| Considering the NYT tells us every single day what the average
| liberal arts pursuit thinks about the average technologist, I
| won't worry too much about that.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Worry about what? I'm pointing out that it's nice for tech to
| finally be honest about the view and get a deserving reaction
| in return after decades of self-congratulation.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| Engineers did not make this advertisement. Marketing and
| creative departments are dominated by business / liberal
| arts majors. You are really spouting all over the place.
| abvdasker wrote:
| What an unbelievably childish response. What does the New
| York Times have to do with this ad? What makes you think the
| New York Times is representative of the "average liberal arts
| pursuit"? Is the New York Times especially antagonistic
| towards the tech industry? Do you seriously believe there
| exists some us-versus-them division between "liberal arts"
| and "technologists"?
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| Wow. So the parent comment made exactly the same stupid
| generalization in the opposite direction, and it was all
| ok, but show a mirror to it and suddenly you get upset?
|
| > Is the New York Times especially antagonistic towards the
| tech industry?
|
| Yes
|
| > Do you seriously believe there exists some us-versus-them
| division between "liberal arts" and "technologists"?
|
| Not in real life among friends, but it's definitely a
| culture war flame that was started and is stoked by media.
| dogman144 wrote:
| There's nothing generalized about decades long economic
| destruction of the creative arts and similar industries
| in exchange for streaming platforms, instagram, "news"via
| social media and now AI. But hey RSUs in tech are great,
| get over it NYT readers!
| hot_gril wrote:
| > Do you seriously believe there exists some us-versus-them
| division between "liberal arts" and "technologists"?
|
| Yes. It was obvious in college that the non-STEM majors
| didn't like the STEM majors or vice versa, but it was more
| strongly in one direction.
| abvdasker wrote:
| As someone who double majored in English and Computer
| Science this is one of the silliest grievances I've ever
| heard. For grown adults to still be embittered because of
| a real or imagined college rivalry seems very petty to
| me, and frankly unrelated to the issue of whether this
| Apple ad was distasteful.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I'm not bitter about it, it's just that college was the
| last time I was interacting a lot with people not in STEM
| fields. All my friends went into technical fields for
| some reason, even if they started off somewhere else.
| Nowadays I occasionally get "Where do you work? Oh that
| company? I hate that company."
| the_overseer wrote:
| What a sad existence to only be among STEM people... Ever
| wondered if you might be the problem?
| hot_gril wrote:
| Part of the reason I moved out of the Bay Area was I
| didn't want to be around so many ultra techie people, or
| for my kids to grow up that way. We'd be happier and even
| do our jobs better if there were more of a "human touch,"
| and I wish our company had SQLite's code of ethics.
|
| But I'm a computer programmer, so even if I'm in a more
| balanced environment now, all I meant is I simply don't
| work with artists etc daily.
| dogman144 wrote:
| I think they're embittered bc of having lib arts
| livelihoods shredded by technology and being told it's a
| good thing and progress by engineers reinventing the
| wheel and causing more negative externalities on top of
| that, and then the cycle begins again. STEM keeps
| winning, everyone else loses, and STEM gets
| congratulated, empowered and funded for it.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| It's true that they got disrupted, but tech also led to
| more democratization of the news / arts, which obviously
| entrenched players are not too fond of.
|
| Also, the same embittered liberal arts majors had no
| problem telling rust belt coal miners that it was a good
| thing their livelihoods were being shredded.
|
| If you fail to see that there's a massive culture war
| element to this, I have nothing more to say.
| INTPenis wrote:
| They made a cheetah run along a Jeep. Who cares?
|
| This is only outrage because people want to be outraged at Apple.
| And I don't own a single Apple product telling you this.
| hk__2 wrote:
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40314035
| INTPenis wrote:
| No, you see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40322371
|
| It was all just stolen from an LG ad in 2009. And nobody got
| upset at that.
|
| So clearly this is about Apple as a brand evoking emotions
| and fake outrage.
| robbyiq999 wrote:
| Waiting the for future disclaimer; "No Bric A Brac was harmed in
| the making of this ad"
| bittercynic wrote:
| Very few ads feel like art to me, but this one did.
|
| The message to me is anti-tech, though.
|
| All these wonderful things are taken away from us, and instead we
| just get an iPad.
|
| I mean, I have an iPad, and it's a cool gadget, but it's
| obviously no replacement for any one of the instruments getting
| crushed.
| password54321 wrote:
| Wasn't the exploding emoji an obvious giveaway that this wasn't
| supposed to be taken that seriously and was partly in jest? I
| think we may just have a lot of pent-up anger.
| largbae wrote:
| They got more attention with this apology than they would have
| gotten with any ad, at least from this crew.
| can16358p wrote:
| Some people just like to get offended by literally everything,
| even an ad with objects crushing. Sigh.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I liked it. It was fun to watch stuff get smashed and paint
| explode all over the place. All that stuff gets squished into the
| iPad. Get it? I got it.
| can16358p wrote:
| Yup I loved it too, yet the Internet People need to attack
| something, so they picked this ad today.
| readingnews wrote:
| Does the Verge even proofread? In a linked article
| (https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/9/24152987/apple-crush-ad-pi...)
| they claim:
|
| >> Watching a piano, which if maintained can last for something
| like 50 years
|
| Something like 50? I know people who own pianos which are
| "something like" 150 years old, and I do not know many people
| with a piano.
|
| Some are _centuries_ old.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortepiano
| brentm wrote:
| We're a very fortunate generation of people to be so concerned
| over this ad.
| jesprenj wrote:
| I think the ad is very cool and I like it.
| trollied wrote:
| LG did the same ad 15 years ago & nobody got worked up about it.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo
| yungporko wrote:
| i didn't think it was a great ad but they certainly don't owe
| anybody an apology. besides, i guarantee that there's no overlap
| at all in the venn diagram of people complaining about it vs
| potential ipad pro buyers.
| behnamoh wrote:
| If you think Apple didn't owe anybody an apology then you don't
| know how corporate world works in competitive free markets.
| yungporko wrote:
| if you think the few people who were miffed about a lame
| advertisement could have any perceptible effect on apples
| bottom line whatsoever then i'd say it seems you know less
| about the market than i do.
| havblue wrote:
| I'm trying to put a pin in exactly why this is offensive. Yes,
| you do lose fidelity in digitizing an analog signal, but I don't
| think that's exactly the problem.
|
| I think it's related to the fact that an ipad isn't just a tool.
| It's a branded consumer product that has a (relatively) short
| lifespan. When Apple Corp decides that the device will no longer
| be supported, it will crease it function. So buying a tablet
| isn't buying all those art supplies and instruments crammed into
| one device. You're buying a window into the Appleverse. And yeah
| I do think that's dystopian.
| hbosch wrote:
| >I'm trying to put a pin in exactly why this is offensive.
|
| While the corporate read of this would be "look, we've crammed
| all this cool stuff into an impossibly thin device!", which was
| probably the marketing pitch... the subtext of an ad like to
| most regular people is "we are here to destroy and replace
| everything that you already love".
| chefkd wrote:
| That's what is confusing a little bit I wonder if people said
| that about horses when they were replaced by cars isn't the
| one thing that's constant in this world change? A whole
| ecosystem that relied on horses being the main mode of
| transportation died
| chrisjj wrote:
| I missed the advert depicting horses crushed to make cars.
|
| Thankfully.
| colechristensen wrote:
| It's offensive because the message is "we want to destroy all
| of these real things and replace them with a simulation that we
| sell you". Apple is trying to kill the competition and the
| competition are now the people who make paintbrushes, violins,
| etc etc.
|
| With more and more things being mass produced, simulated, and
| faked, people increasingly value things that feel "real". Apple
| with this add is explicitly claiming to destroy the real and
| trying to sell that.
| chefkd wrote:
| But isn't it up to the free market to decide? If people like
| the convenience of an iPad and are willing to trade fidelity
| for it right?
|
| An anecdotal example :- family used to work in translation
| when they were alive (ironically they were killed by
| traditionalist forces in my country) while Google offered
| Google Translate. People paid for my family for translation
| services because Google wasn't up to human level for certain
| languages does this mean I'm supposed to be outraged when
| Google LLMs outperform humans?
| Tokkemon wrote:
| Bets on how some executive saw their kid really into the
| hydraulic press channels and said, "We gotta get in on this!
| Here's piles of money."
| graypegg wrote:
| Just on the meta-discussion of "who cares about dissecting some
| ad":
|
| It's alright to consider implied meaning in media IMO. Just
| because it's misinterpreted by the standards of what the ad team
| wanted to accomplish, doesn't mean it WASN'T interpreted by
| people.
|
| Maybe "outrage" is a bit useless if it's only there for screaming
| at people online, but talking about how crushing things that
| people love sends the wrong message, is a good thing for people
| to do. It's not exaggerating at all to me. A lot of people will
| see this ad spot, and each one is going to form some idea about
| what it means. That's a lot of power to give Apple.
| beefnugs wrote:
| As easy as it is to interpret it as "fuck your cherished
| things! get indoctrinated by tech" It is just because tech's
| true colors have really exposed themselves as of late to be
| money grubbing criminals to the extreme. It is inevitable that
| any corporation of sufficient size (only acheivable by evil)
| will stop being able to be "cute" advertising anymore
| graypegg wrote:
| I could imagine some other ways of making this spot that I
| think would've changed the mood but still be cute. At a
| certain level of evil though, you have to poke at yourself.
|
| Imagine some big team of apple engineers running around music
| halls and art galleries with notepads (or iPads with an apple
| pencil), taking notes on everything they see.
|
| Cut back to factory, everyone is working on some comically
| Apple version of an artistic instrument. I'd absolutely get a
| laugh out of a big metal and glass piano or a solid aluminium
| canvas. These are obviously... framed as not ideal. Followed
| up by one of them frustratedly scrolling around on their
| iPhone in the break room, realizing lots of posts say "made
| on procreate on my iPad" or "garageband on iPad". Running
| back to the factory setting, hurriedly throwing everything in
| the crusher. Smush. New thin iPad.
| havblue wrote:
| I wonder if it's just about the ad or how we feel about the
| company. My uncontroversial opinion of apple is that they want
| us to spend as much of our lives in their hyperreal walled
| garden as possible. People might not have noticed if the ad was
| from, say, LG.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Does anybody actually watch ads? I think it's been decades since
| I paid attention to an ad.
| racl101 wrote:
| I think Apple needs to go back to Mac guy and PC guy and have Mac
| guy give a play by play of their intent. It's not very clear.
| shwaj wrote:
| I like to think that there are subversives working in ad agencies
| and that such gaffes are intentional.
|
| (I know it's probably not true, it just makes the dystopia a bit
| more entertaining)
|
| In this case the subtext would be something like: AI is coming
| and will provide all of the content for the rubes to consume on
| their shiny iPads, and damn the creatives who used to make a
| meaningful living creating it. But at least we can raise a middle
| finger via this ad, and mock the execs who okayed it!
| elzbardico wrote:
| That people think this is a real press, that this bunch of
| objects in a real press would behave exactly like that, shows how
| our society is increasingly disconnected from the real, physical
| world and have no fucking idea of how a factory looks like.
| mdhb wrote:
| You are ironically doing the exact thing you are accusing
| others of but instead of being mad that people don't know how a
| factory looks it's you not understanding why people are upset
| at this and have very conveniently ended up at a position
| where:
|
| - everyone who doesn't like it is dumb
|
| - you are a self proclaimed factory expert trying to pretend
| this is a physics argument which nobody claimed but you.
| elzbardico wrote:
| I don't care about the argument. I find it funny that a lot
| of people believe that a giant hydraulic press looks like
| that and is installed in an environment that looks like the
| engine room of a spaceship in a SciFi movie.
|
| It is a tangent observation.
| brandonmenc wrote:
| You are a hopeless, overreacting child if this ad bothers you.
|
| I'm honestly shocked at the response I'm seeing here.
| can16358p wrote:
| Ssssh don't wake them up. They are just in the middle of their
| get-offended-by-literally-everything episode.
|
| Amazing how people here on HN can be so... anyway I don't want
| a ban.
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| The irony is that it know kind of feels like more honest then
| it's supposed to be, digital tools, with Apple leading the
| charge, crushing traditional artistry & creativity.
| logrot wrote:
| You know when you see someone getting hurt, like slipping on ice
| and smacking their head?
|
| You can almost feel that pain reverb in your body, in a weird
| way.
|
| I felt the same when I saw the ad. It's awful.
| rybosworld wrote:
| Did the ad miss the mark or did it perfectly encapsulate Apple's
| vision of the future?
| b1-88er wrote:
| Amazing how many people have strong feelings about an Ad about
| the iPad.
| causality0 wrote:
| Ads for multi-function products have featured the single-use
| products they're intended to replace being crushed, shoved into
| them, destroyed, thrown away, etc for decades. Artists are just
| extremely salty right now about being replaced by AI so they're
| sensitive.
|
| https://suno.com/song/eceb91f0-7d9b-4029-ba19-24b6520dcf19
| winddude wrote:
| Nothing like a commercial that say's we're going to make you a
| slave to our device and take away every human passion and pursuit
| of excellence. Brilliant strategy, wait nope... you're not
| supposed to let them know where the dark patterns lead.
| greentxt wrote:
| It should have been going into the iPad, and then inside the iPad
| an expansive wonderland filled with all these great things.
| Opening, increasing, expanding.
|
| They did the exact opposite lol. They smooshed into a smaller
| thing; decreasing, narrowing, reducing.
|
| I think that may be their target demographic though. People who
| love apple want minimal, simple, less. So maybe it was genius
| after all. And they get free publicity because it's
| controversial. Apple buyers will still buy the product. They want
| smooshed technology, or they'd be on Linux or Winblows.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| The ad was strangely on brand for the process-centric parts of
| Apple that Steve Jobs oft lamented.
|
| If the biggest feature is the form-factor, than your team now has
| two problems.
| ted_bunny wrote:
| The controversy is on purpose. The apology was planned. You're
| all giving them extra bang for the advertising buck.
| melenaboija wrote:
| For my taste, the artistic part of the ad works, the marketing
| part awful.
|
| The music, photography, ... definitely triggers something in me,
| but is creepy AF. The irony though, is that the creepy feeling is
| the reality to me, digital tools seem to be crushing the analog
| ones. And I don't mean it as something bad as I am old, but it is
| how I feel about it.
| brushfoot wrote:
| Apple won here. There will be no mass exodus, just engagement.
| That's what they aimed for, and that's what they got.
| twodave wrote:
| Well I guess I'm just one of the ones who likes to watch the
| world burn. As a trumpet and guitar player, I watched that clip
| with great interest.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| This seems like apples version of planned controversy for
| marketing traction.
| TaurenHunter wrote:
| I feel like Apple said the quiet part out loud: they intend to
| replace creativity and all that surrounds it with a consumer-
| ready wafer-like device, sort of a Soylent Green replacement for
| human ingenuity.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| The digital world is flattening our real experiences and selling
| the result back to you.
|
| The entire ad is performance art. The artists made an
| illustration of cruelty, then got the company and CEO to not only
| approve it but post it on their twitter. It's incredible. Banks
| himself couldn't pull off such a thing.
|
| I think a truly clever artist sold this under the radar to Apple
| and I applaud them.
| dzink wrote:
| The ad did its job perfectly. It created controversy and that
| spread iPad news way further than paid ads do. It pays to be
| controversial, not good or on message these days.
| Log_out_ wrote:
| Should have reversed the add..
| m3kw9 wrote:
| The fact there is a huge backlash on something like this shows
| how much free time people have
| ta1243 wrote:
| Ironic there's an angry bird there. I'm sure I had angry birds on
| my phone years ago, and I assume I paid for it, but it no longer
| seems to exist.
|
| It's not the only thing on my phone that has vanished. I had the
| recent monkey island, but that no longer exists
|
| I don't do apps any more, I'm happy to buy things, but it seems
| people aren't willing to sell them any more.
| outlore wrote:
| There are some videos going around on Twitter that show the Apple
| ad in reverse. It's kind of cool how that simple change also
| reverses the impression of destruction into one of creation and
| appreciation for the arts
| ada1981 wrote:
| I thought it was cool. A bunch of stuff that would end up in a
| land fill anyway. People love to be offended these days.. and
| then apologizing for an ad?
|
| Apple went from 1984 to this...
| perfmode wrote:
| Perhaps it would have been palatable if the items had been
| compressed in a way that didn't seem destructive.
|
| There may be a collective resistance to playful depictions of
| destruction, possibly as an energetic response to the pervasive
| images of destruction from conflicts in Ukraine, Israel, and
| Gaza. This may not be the appropriate time for such depictions.
| 1024core wrote:
| Everybody loves to get outraged over every little thing nowadays.
| can16358p wrote:
| I literally can't understand the mindset of people who get
| offended by an ad that crushes objects. Not animals, not
| humans, just objects to give a message, yet people get offended
| by this.
| sombragris wrote:
| The ad is interesting because it is not exactly symbolic, but
| it's close to factual.
|
| There is a sort of hydraulic press on Cupertino. It has crushed,
| among other things:
|
| - 3.5mm headphone jack in cell phones - Physical keyboards in
| cell phones - Upgradeable RAM in laptops - User-replaceable
| batteries - Repairability
|
| and other things, I'm sure.
| tonymet wrote:
| I appreciate that consumers finally vocalized their concern over
| cynicism & nihilism in advertising. It's a long term , downward
| trend of misanthropy , banality & nihilism in advertising
| messaging.
|
| Once you see it you can't unsee it. I hope this ad helps improve
| awareness.
| mvkel wrote:
| I haven't seen anywhere but maybe this thread knows: all those
| objects were CGI, surely, right?
|
| Like I can't imagine it was possible to make the trumpet and
| other objects "crumple" at the perfect spot to not disrupt the
| Rube Goldberg crush cascade.
|
| If the objects were real, they must have destroyed a lot of
| pianos.
| sssilver wrote:
| I can't comprehend the hubris it took to conceive the idea that
| an iPad could replace an acoustic piano. Heck, not even a piano
| -- that an iPad could replace the sheet music on that piano,
| typeset and printed beautifully on a piece of paper that has
| infinite resolution and incredible texture when you touch it.
| kernal wrote:
| I like the fact that Apple left the ad up on YouTube. I was
| disappointed the comments were turned off as that would have been
| the real entertainment.
| johnea wrote:
| Do people actually care about this?
|
| Apple made a stupid commercial and everyone is traumatized?
|
| WTF?
| Simon_ORourke wrote:
| Will the marketing executive that green-lit this disaster face
| any career repercussions? I highly doubt it. Some junior VT tech
| will probably get all the blame and be forced to clear our their
| cubicle desk.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| This is very cultural. Eastern cultures, for eg. Indian, Asian
| etc. place a lot of respect in objects associated with learning
| or education or creation even if they are just objects.
|
| Indians never touch books with their feet, it's considered very
| disrespectful to the idea of education / learning, since a book
| is an embodiment of that. Likewise for musical instruments.
|
| Western cultural prides itself on its irreverence for conventions
| like these. And everything is viewed from a lens of individual
| freedom.
| fl0ki wrote:
| Serious question: Did anyone already want to buy an iPad, but the
| ad made them not buy it in protest? I don't have the data, but I
| don't expect this to be very common.
|
| I don't watch TV ads and if it wasn't for the controversy I
| probably wouldn't have known it even existed. Either way, I would
| choose based on specs and reviews, not whether an ad had the
| right subtext.
| brrrrrm wrote:
| if anything the controversy increased sales. I watched the ad
| and thought it was pretty cool
| kernal wrote:
| The irony in the ad was monumental. Apple crushed perfectly
| working objects of creativity that would have lasted for decades
| and some even centuries for an iPad that will become e-waste in
| 5-10 years.
| smsm42 wrote:
| That ad is the most cringy ad I've seen for a long time, which is
| a hard bar to clear. It makes me physically uneasy.
|
| And if you analyze it, it says "no matter who or what you are, a
| giant corporation would crush you and put you inside a very small
| shiny metal box, and you better like it".
| martini333 wrote:
| Classic "Someone should be offended", yet one one is.
| snappr021 wrote:
| An ironic way to say "Our devices are good. Put them down and go
| and play outside before the world around you disintegrates while
| you were distracted."
| nottorp wrote:
| I'm still waiting for the apologies for:
|
| - dumbing down mac os to make it more ios like (where's my
| location manager in Sonoma?)
|
| - having too low default ram in the base models (that one should
| be obvious)
|
| - the thinness fetish (isn't it enough that the iPad Pro has the
| M4? why did they spend development resources to also make it the
| thinnest ever?)
| wiseowise wrote:
| Why didn't they put their original Mac in there? Or an iPod?
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| The iconography was very bad, but I thought it was kind of wild
| how many people were like "I now blame apple for all the bad
| things happening to creatives because of technology in general"
| notfed wrote:
| 1. "We apologize for this ad"
|
| 2. <keeps ad up on YouTube>
|
| 3. Profit
| newobj wrote:
| They can never unring this bell in my mind
| Madmallard wrote:
| I don't understand the piano part like is there an app that does
| keyboard? Are they aware acoustic pianos sound better in person
| than any other piano sound implementation and it has basically
| always been that way?
| fagrobot wrote:
| great ad. cucks being cucks in a cuck empowered world
| NiloCK wrote:
| A stirring ad that captures my lived experience.
|
| They should do a follow-up with my friendships and family life.
| mjpuser wrote:
| I dunno I thought it was well done. This is an entertaining trend
| on social media and they applied it to their product well.
| mrangle wrote:
| I loved the commercial. Apple shouldn't have apologized. There
| was no hidden meaning in it. People are psychotic.
| adamtaylor_13 wrote:
| I have been blown away by how badly people took this. I don't
| mean to take away from them, I mean to highlight how fucking
| CLUELESS I must be. I thought it was a clever commercial and I
| understood the message as it was intended to be communicated.
|
| It was very surprising to me when I started reading just how
| badly people hated it.
| advisedwang wrote:
| What a bonanza of free air for Apple.
|
| I would never have known about this product launch except for
| this brouhaha. Now I know their launch, the key feature their
| selling, and the concept backing it. What a coup for whoever is
| running this campaign.
|
| An apology is a genius addition. More free coverage for them, and
| they get to "be doing the right thing" while getting it!
| rchaud wrote:
| This might be true if the person watching it had just been
| defrosted from cryogenic storage. Apple releasing another iPad
| update is not an uncommon occurrence.
| jonahx wrote:
| My first thought as well was that all the reporting on this
| were obvious "submarine articles":
|
| https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
| kbos87 wrote:
| The inherent mistake here is that there are a lot of large but
| loosely affiliated groups represented by the crushed objects that
| are inevitably going to contain people looking to be offended by
| something.
| colmmacc wrote:
| The iPad updates are 'meh', as is the whole line-up. This comes
| after the Vision Pro launches to a fizzle, and resorting to a
| massive share buy back to hold the stock value. In the last week
| I've seen more articles about Tim Cook succession than in all the
| time before. I bet inside Apple things feel they might need every
| bit of help to push revenue.
|
| This ad has gotten Apple and the iPad an incredible amount of
| free media coverage; and they waited a few days for the apology
| ... which will now go on to do exactly the same. This seems like
| a very very successful campaign.
| alex_young wrote:
| I don't understand the outrage. Does anyone seriously think an
| iPad is going to replace a trumpet or a piano?
|
| If you went out for dinner at a jazz place, would you accept the
| entertainment being someone fiddling with an iPad?
|
| Somehow I don't think musicians have much to worry about.
| wnc3141 wrote:
| If I were the advertising director - I would have people reach
| into the glass to take out large unwieldy instruments to
| expressively use them and then pack them all back into the glass
| of an iPad and walk off. This version suggests you are unlocking
| all of these instruments rather than destroying them .
| yard2010 wrote:
| Hey excuse me for being off topic but get your head out of your
| ass. This ad is nothing. Apple paid 500 billion dollars to buy
| back its own stocks and cancel them to manipulate the stock
| price.
|
| This is backwards and I am terrifically shocked that such
| practice is legal.
|
| This is wrong and evil.
| giobox wrote:
| Tangent, but related; I wish Apple would now stop shaving mm off
| the iPad's thickness and start improving battery life. It's been
| officially "up to 10 hours" since 2010 - 14 years.
|
| I think it's the only compute device Apple sell that hasn't
| increased its Apple-rated battery runtime in the last 14 years.
|
| I had zero complaints frankly about the previous generation M2
| iPad Pro's thickness, it was already impressively thin! I'd much,
| much rather see battery runtime go up at this stage. That 10hrs
| number falls notably under heavy loads too. More battery is more
| headroom to run heavy applications or games away from a plug
| socket.
|
| This advert's focus on thin just further reminds me that Apple
| have spent over a decade not improving iPad run-time.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| I'm just shocked apple thinks we need a thinner Ipad. What am I
| going to do with it, prepare food? Shave? Will I need to wear
| gloves to prevent lacerating my fingers?
| datahack wrote:
| Much ado about nothing.
|
| Didn't LG do the exact same ad some years ago?
|
| Seems like the real conversation here is about the total lack of
| originality here: this is so, so far from anything Steve would
| have approved.
| jeffchien wrote:
| Apple isn't reading the room at a time when many older creatives
| (their customer base) feel threatened by generative AI.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Would have been better to see these items coming from the phone
| and growing big.
| blindriver wrote:
| I don't understand why they need to apologize for this.
|
| At worst, it was a waste of a lot of money over things that seem
| pretty nice like a trumpet or a piano. Those could have been used
| by a school or something. And that's the worst criticism I could
| think of. If the entire thing were 3D graphics, then I actually
| would be extremely impressed.
|
| Otherwise it's just an ad, and apologizing makes them look weak,
| not that it will affect them at all.
| topaz0 wrote:
| Too many people care about this.
| hubert022 wrote:
| It works, people are talking and will buy anyway
| zhengiszen wrote:
| Not to diminish the other conflicts but currently the same
| process is applied to History, Justice and people, all are
| crushed without any remorse and it happens in Palestine.
| neves wrote:
| Nice false polemic to make us watch the ad. It looks like the
| boring polemic of smashing digital representation of products is
| part of the advertising campaign.
| iosjunkie wrote:
| I'm probably an asshole for thinking this, but we have gone soft.
| dumpHero2 wrote:
| Anyone who's worked in "creative" field and has stepped in an art
| gallery would tell you that it's very normal to play on emotions,
| exaggerate and make viewers feel intense emotions. I don't know
| who the apology is meant for.
| i5heu wrote:
| You mean the proof that it is art is because ppl get angry
| about it?
|
| It reminds me of "Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue"
|
| > Two of (3) them have been the subject of vandalistic attacks
| in museums.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_Afraid_of_Red,_Yellow_...
| andrewp123 wrote:
| Always a bad idea to destroy musical instruments.
| crawsome wrote:
| Slow news day
| khiner wrote:
| I thought it was epic, gorgeous, fun, and made total sense for
| the product! There are other pianos in the world. Like, a _lot_
| of pianos in the world. It only stands to reason a few will get
| crushed in a massive hydraulic press for a fun ad.
| XajniN wrote:
| This exaggerated sensitivity bulshit is becoming unbearable.
| root_axis wrote:
| Who cares about this? I can't think of anything more unimportant
| and naval gazing than trying to extract subtext from an ad.
| Scrolling through the comments on this thread I'm genuinely
| surprised to see so much earnest rancor and performative outrage
| over a meaningless ad. Stop worshiping tech companies and go
| touch some grass.
| theyinwhy wrote:
| The one thing really killing expression is constant outrage about
| everything. If everything you do is wrong, the only thing you can
| do is nothing.
| hariis wrote:
| Just saying, I would have made something like, all these things
| slowly swirling and sucked into a black hole and at the
| singularity, you show the ipad :)
| ksec wrote:
| The problem is Apple, for a long time, at least its image built
| during Steve Jobs era and carried over for quite some time he
| passed away. (Apple's PR still uses Steve Jobs's as a "tool" in
| marketing. ) Apple was the friend of Art and creative intent, NOT
| the digitalisation of everything, that was Microsoft in the 90s.
|
| The bigger problem is that Apple has lost a lot of its soul. A
| lot of their marketing and advancement are now very technical,
| such as M4, XDR Retain etc. It feels very non-Apple. And they are
| at the forefront of trying to Digitalise everything. There is far
| less Art about it.
|
| The iPad Pro pricing is also non-Apple as if the iPad Pro isn't
| really for professional usage. And just look at the Apple Pencil
| Page [1], what happened to slim lineup and forward looking
| product planning.
|
| A lot of the current Apple just lacks the character and soul of
| the old Apple, and are now mostly driven by sales and operation
| efficiency.
|
| [1] https://www.apple.com/shop/select-apple-pencil
| unreal37 wrote:
| Since Apple apologized for the ad, it seems they, too, agree that
| it wasn't a good ad.
|
| They wouldn't apologize for something if there were nothing wrong
| with it.
|
| Personally, it was too real. It was CGI, sure. But that hydraulic
| press crushed (destroyed) the tools humans use to create every
| handmade thing we consider beautiful.
|
| Apple absolutely intended to convey the meaning that Apple an
| iPad can replace a piano or a trumpet or paint.
| young_unixer wrote:
| Apple, and west coast US companies in general, are the biggest
| promoters of political over-correctness, "inclusion",
| "diversity", etc. (to put it in non-offensive terms).
|
| It would be extremely hypocritical for them to simply dismiss
| the feelings of people. So, even if it doesn't make sense,
| they're obligated to apologize to be consistent with their own
| discourse.
| kristjank wrote:
| We really should get telling people to kill themselves back into
| fashion when they produce such culturally deaf and offensive
| content just to promote the newest consooomerism gadget. I hate
| everything this whole phenomena represents
| the_real_cher wrote:
| I thought the ad was pretty cool and I'm a musician.
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