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Apple can generally be relied on for apt , well - produced ads , but it miss the mark withits recent , which show a tower of creative tools and analog point literally crush into the physique of the iPad .
Apple has since apologized for the ad and cancel design to televise it . Apple ’s VP of Marketing Tor Myhrentold Ad years : “ We leave out the grade with this video , and we ’re good-for-naught . ” Apple declined to offer further commentary to TechCrunch .
But many , let in myself , had a disconfirming and nonrational reaction to this , and we should talk about why . It ’s not just because we are watching clobber get crushed . There are unnumberable television transmission channel commit to crushing , burning , blow up and generally destroying everyday objects . Plus , of course , we all live that this kind of thing happens daily at conveyance stations and recycling centers . So it is n’t that .
And it is n’t that the hooey is itself so valuable . Sure , a forte-piano is worth something . But we see them blown up in action movies all the fourth dimension and do n’t feel bad . I care pianos , but that does n’t mean we ca n’t do without a few disused child grands . Same for the rest : It ’s mostly detritus you could buy off Craigslist for a few bucks , or at a dump for gratuitous . ( perhaps not the redaction station . )
The job is n’t with the video itself , which in candour to the people who staged and shot it , is actually very well done . The problem is not the media , but the content .
We all get the ad ’s ostensible gunpoint : you could do all this stuff in an iPad . corking . We could also do it on the last iPad , of path , but this one is thinner ( no one ask for that , by the fashion ; now cases wo n’t set ) and some made - up portion better .
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This notion is disgusting to me . And apparently to many others , as well .
destroy a pianoin a medicine videoorMythbusters episodeis actually an act of creation . Even ruin a piano ( or monitor , or paint can , or thrum kit ) for no reason at all is , at spoilt , wasteful !
But what Apple is doing is destroying these thingsto convince you that you do n’t need them — all you need is the company ’s little equipment , which can do all that and more , and no motive for annoying material like strings , keys , buttons , brushes or unify stations .
We ’re all consider with the recoil of media moving sweeping toward the digital and always - online . In many way , it ’s genuinely full ! I recollect engineering science has been hugely empowering .
But in other , as real manner , the digital transformation feels harmful and forced , a technotopian billionaire - approved vision of the future where every child has an AI honorable protagonist and can learn to play the virtual guitar on a insensate looking glass silver screen .
Does your child like euphony ? They do n’t postulate a harp ; throw it in the waste-yard . An iPad is good enough . Do they like to paint ? Here , Apple Pencil , just as practiced as pens , watercolors , oils ! Books ? Do n’t make us laugh ! put down them . newspaper is worthless . Use another screen . In fact , why not read in Apple Vision Pro , with even shammer report ?
What Apple seems to have block is that it is the affair in the substantial macrocosm — the very thing Apple destroyed — that give the fake version of those things value in the first place .
A virtual guitar ca n’t replace a literal guitar ; that ’s like thinking a book can replace its author .
That does n’t imply we ca n’t treasure both for different understanding . But the Apple ad sends the message that the futurity it wants does n’t have bottle of paint , dials to wrick , carving , physical instruments , paper books . Of course , that ’s the future it ’s been work on sell us for years now , it just had n’t put it quite so bluntly before .
When someone tells you who they are , think them . Apple is telling you what it is , and what it wants the future to be , very clearly . If that hereafter does n’t gross out you , you ’re welcome to it .
