In May 2024, Apple played an advertisement about their new iPad Pro at an event. The ad had apple’s signature industrial minimalism, only showcasing a stage of artistic tools or instruments. There’s a piano, paints, a clay sculpture, cameras and their lenses, and sketchbooks. Then, it pans up to a hydraulic press that begins its slow, cruel decent onto the stage.

It crushes the paint and instruments until flattening all of those tools in a shockwave of pressure. When it raises, all that is left is the iPad Pro. The thinnest and most powerful one if the narration is to be believed.

In what was likely a shock to whatever marketing team that agreed upon this campaign, people were upset. I can understand the intent: with an iPad you can do all of these incredible things on a single device. It’s honest and genuine. If you’ve every watched an Apple event, Apple consistently stresses the importance of creativity and creation. However, with this specific ad people took it as traditional art being irrelevant now in the digital age.

Actor Hugh Grant’s tweet summarizes the backlash pretty well.

Apple reacted quickly by choosing not to air the ad again and eventually pulled it entirely from the online space. In a statement to Adage, Vice President of Marketing Tor Myhren said that they “missed the mark” and that “creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world.”

The ad is a silly thing to get heated over, yes. In the past, it wouldn’t have been controversial. However, in a world that is rapidly running toward the convenience of AI created “art” at the expensive of real people, it strikes a nerve to those that spent years practicing their craft. It’s an oblivious campaign especially considering the iPad pro is often markets to those very same creative types.

That being said, I do think people need to take a deep breath and lock their phones every once in a while.