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Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'

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Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'

#961
post #894

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

ironically enough, the use of CGI replaces the need/demand for real instruments in making this ad just like how AI is replacing the need/demand for real instruments in creative industries

Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'

#963

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!"

Double-edge sword with only one surface. Just don't get it wet, expect it to last over 7 years, expect your old accessories to work with it, or for it to actually substitute for the mastery of physical artistic crafts like Mehmet Girgiç is to felt.

Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'

#964
post #956
post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was there a similar backlash to this identical ad from LG in 2009? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo

The popular sentiment has changed from enthusiasm about "digital", to disillusionment about big tech inserting themselves into our lives to monetize everything. In 2009, smartphones were a novelty, and the iPad has not been announced yet. People were wowed by the new capabilities that "multimedia" devices were enabling. They were getting rid of the old, outdated, less capable tools. Nowadays "multimedia" is taken for…

I guess earlier people must have assumed it is not really possible to replace all those instruments and tools with a small phone.

So the ad was probably punching up in a way back then.

Today there is a real recognition of how pervasive digital devices and AI tech is becoming.

With all the might and influence Apple and tech companies now have - this ad might have evoked a sense of punching down.

Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'

#966
post #852

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!"

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)

American exceptionalism is easy to pick apart, and George Carlin would agree.

The point he's making was (c. 1970) that much of American culture's presumption of innate superiority post-WW2 was unfounded overconfidence demonstrating a lack of humility and intrinsic tempered confidence in relation to other rich traditions that also exist. It is also true that American culture was and is intrinsically hollow and shallow in many (but not all) dimensions not replicated in other parts of the world. And to be fair, Zappa was brilliant and a guitar virtuoso but a bit off in a way the 60's-70's counterculture celebrated profusely in a reactionary oppositional mirror of mainstream American culture. Growing up, my hippie nudist neighbors with their hydroponic weed and horrible tasting tomatoes would be all over everything Zappa. Incidentally, I have a signed Zappa KSJO sticker signed at a Campbell, CA venue and its newspaper clipping provenance... going to get it framed and probably sell it on FleaBay at some point.

Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'

#967

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…

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.

Exactly. It's not only the creative artists who are opposing, although that's what this ad targets; a lot of others not in big tech are also very displeased with where things are going. The sentiment of this resistance can be summed up in two short sentences: "You will not replace us. Machines will not replace us."

Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'

#968
post #924
post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was there a similar backlash to this identical ad from LG in 2009? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo

Apple ads team should apologize to LG for stealing their ad

Apple steals _everything_ and never apologizes.

https://www.theregister.com/2012/10/12/apple_licenses_swiss_...

Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'

#970

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!"

Beautiful, colourful, creative objects gathered together in a the middle of a grey room and destroyed to be replaced by a generic rectangle. This is like the 1984 ad with Apple as the bad guys.
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