Apple can generally be counted on for smart, well-produced ads, but it missed the mark with his last, depicting a tower of creative tools and analog objects literally smashed into iPad form. Many, including myself, had a negative and visceral reaction to it, and we need to talk about why.
It’s not just because we see things getting crushed. There are countless video channels dedicated to crushing, burning, exploding and generally destroying everyday objects. Plus, of course, we all know this sort of thing happens every day at transit stations and recycling centers. So it’s not that.
And it’s not that the material itself is that valuable. Sure, a piano is worth something. But we keep seeing them blow up in action movies and don’t feel bad. I like pianos, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do without some old-fashioned babies. Ditto for the rest: It’s mostly junk you could buy off Craigslist for a few bucks or in a dump for free. (Maybe not the processing station.)
The problem isn’t with the video itself, which in fairness to the people who directed and shot it, is actually pretty good. The problem is not the media, but the message.
We all understand the pretentious point of the ad: You can do all these things on an iPad. Exceptional. We could do it on the latest iPad, of course, but this one is thinner (no one asked for it, by the way, now the cases don’t fit) and some percentage better made.
What we all understand, however, because unlike the Apple advertising executives we live in the world with, is that the things being crushed here represent the material, the tangible, the real. And the real thing has value. Value that Apple clearly believes it can crush into yet another black mirror.
This belief is disgusting to me. And apparently to many others as well.
Destroying a piano in a music video the Mythbusters episode it is actually an act of creation. Even destroying a piano (or monitor, or paint can, or drum kit) for no reason is, at worst, wasteful!
But what Apple is doing is destroying these things to convince you that you don’t need them — all you need is the company’s little device, which can do all this and more, without the need for pesky things like strings, keys, buttons, brushes or mixing stations.
We are all dealing with the effects of media moving wholesale to the digital and always online. In many ways, it’s really good! I think technology has given tremendous power.
But in other, equally real ways, digital transformation seems harmful and forced, a technobillionaire-sanctioned vision of the future where every kid has an AI best friend and can learn to play virtual guitar on a cold glass screen.
Does your child like music? No harp needed. throw it in the landfill. An iPad is good enough. Do they like to draw? Here, the Apple Pencil, just as good with pens, watercolors, oils! Books; Don’t make us laugh! Destroy them. Paper has no value. Use another monitor. In fact, why not read on Apple Vision Pro, with even more fake paper?
What Apple seems to have forgotten is that it’s the things in the real world — the very things Apple destroyed — that give fake versions of those things value in the first place.
A virtual guitar cannot replace a real guitar. it’s like thinking a book can replace its author.
That doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate both for different reasons. But Apple’s ad sends the message that the future it wants doesn’t have paint bottles, dials to turn, sculpture, physical instruments, paper books. Of course, this is the future he’s been working to sell us for years now, he just hadn’t said it so bluntly before.
When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Apple tells you what the future is and what it wants to be, very clearly. If that future doesn’t disgust you, you’re welcome to it.
