Ad Age says Apple has apologized for iPad Pro ‘crush’ ad

Apple apologized on Thursday after being criticized for featuring an animation of musical instruments and other symbols of creativity being crushed in an ad for its latest iPad Pro models, Ad Age magazine reports.

Ad Age quoted the iPhone maker as saying, “Our goal has always been to celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed that goal with this video And we’re sorry.”

An Apple spokesperson declined to comment but directed inquiries to the Ad Age report.

The ad, titled “Crush”, has been viewed more than one million times on Apple’s YouTube channel and was shared by CEO Tim Cook on social media platform X. It depicts various creative tools and objects such as cameras, guitars, pianos and paints being destroyed in an industrial crusher.

Crusher then reveals the newly unveiled iPad, which is a symbol of how much is included in the new slimmer model.

Online commentators criticized the ad as insensitive and an unwanted departure from the company’s historical positioning of its brand as non-conformist, human-friendly and the antidote to a dystopian, colorless world.

In a post on X, actor Hugh Grant said that the ad showed “the destruction of the human experience courtesy of Silicon Valley”.

The Cupertino-Calif.-based tech giant on Tuesday unveiled a tablet with a new chip for artificial intelligence computing, as it tries to catch up to its Big Tech rivals in the race to dominate the emerging technology.

Apple said the iPad Pro, which became available for order on Thursday, has an upgraded display and is “the thinnest Apple product ever.”

(Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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