Apple on Thursday apologized for an advertisement for its new iPad Pro after the commercial was met with a firestorm of criticism on social media.
The video promoting the device, which was shared by Apple CEO Tim Cook on X earlier in the week, showed several creative tools—musical instruments, a typewriter, cans of paint—being crushed in a huge hydraulic press. The press then reopens, revealing the iPad, symbolizing how all of the creative potential of the different tools has been crammed into the newer, thinner device.
Not everyone saw it that way, it seems.
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“The destruction of the human experience,” actor Hugh Grant wrote in one withering X post trashing the ad. “Courtesy of Silicon Valley.” Others replying to Cook’s post of the video said the clip made them feel sad, ashamed to buy Apple products, and missing Cook’s predecessor, Steve Jobs.
“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world,” Tor Myhren, Apple’s vice president of marketing communications, told advertising industry magazine Ad Age in a statement Thursday. “Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”
Apple has also dropped plans to air the ad on television, the magazine reported.
