It Seems Like Crushing All Creativity Into an iPad Pro Might Have Been a Bad Idea

Whenever an ad goes viral, it’s usually for two simple reasons—1. Everyone pretty much loved it or 2. Everyone hates it and has something to say about it.

And the latter is exactly what happened with Apple’s new iPad Pro launch ad. Posted on social media on Tuesday by Apple CEO Tim Cook, the ad starts as a sort of capsule of human creativity.

There’s a metronome. A record player. Then the lights come on in a warehouse-like room, where you see those items and dozens of other creative tools sitting on a metal slab in the center of the shot. There’s also a CRT TV, cans of paint, a globe of the Earth, a piano, an ‘80s arcade video game, a sculptural bust of a human head, and a trumpet. Another giant metal slab hangs ominously above it all.

And then you see the action happen. Everything gets crushed one after the other in a symphony of colors and the iPad Pro gets revealed.

For decades, Apple has been the number one choice for creative ones like designers, musicians, and film editors with its great products that give creators a way to express themselves. But this latest ad seems to have offended the crowd in the wrong way.

So, instead of taking in the reveal of the latest iPad Pro, people seem to have taken in the image of how big tech has crushed centuries’ worth of effort and creativity, and how new devices have replaced them.