Apple can generally be trusted for smart, well-produced ads, but it failed with it’s the last, which shows a tower of creative tools and analog elements literally squished into the shape of the iPad. Many, including me, had a negative, visceral reaction to this, and we should talk about why.
It’s not just because we’re seeing things get crushed. There are countless video channels dedicated to smashing, burning, exploding, and generally destroying everyday objects. Plus, of course, we all know that this kind of thing happens every day at transfer stations and recycling centers. So it’s not that.
And it’s not that the material itself is that valuable. Sure, a piano is worth something. But we see them exploited in action movies all the time and we don’t feel bad. I like pianos, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do without some unused baby grand pianos. The same goes for the rest: it’s mostly junk that you can buy on Craigslist for a few dollars or at a landfill for free. (Maybe it’s not the editing station.)
The problem is not with the video itself, which to be fair to the people who put it together and filmed it, is actually very well done. The problem is not the media, but the message.
We all understand the apparent point of the ad: you can do all this on an iPad. Excellent. We could also do it on the latest iPad, of course, but this one is thinner (by the way, no one asked for that; cases don’t fit now) and a percentage better.
What we all understand, however, because unlike Apple advertising executives we live in the world, is that the things that are crushed here represent the material, the tangible, the real. And the real has value. Value that Apple clearly believes it can turn into another black mirror.
This belief is repugnant to me. And apparently for many others as well.
Destroying a piano in a music video either Mythbusters episode It is actually an act of creation. Even destroying a piano (or a monitor, or a paint can, or a battery) for no reason is, at worst, wasteful.
But what Apple is doing is destroying these things. to convince you that you don’t need them — all you need is the company’s little device, which can do all that and more, without the need for annoying things like strings, keys, buttons, brushes or mixing stations.
We are all dealing with the repercussions of media moving massively towards digital and always online. In many ways, it’s really good! I think technology has been enormously empowering.
But in other, equally real ways, digital transformation feels harmful and forced, a billionaire-approved technotopian vision of the future in which every kid has an AI best friend and can learn to play virtual guitar on a cold glass screen.
Does your child like music? You don’t need a harp, throw it in the trash. An iPad is good enough. Do you like to paint? Here, Apple Pencil, as good as pens, watercolors and oil paints! Books? Don’t make us laugh! Destroy them. The paper is worthless, use another screen. In fact, why not read on Apple Vision Pro, with even faker paper?
What Apple seems to have forgotten is that it’s real-world things (the same things Apple destroyed) that give value to fake versions of those things in the first place.
A virtual guitar cannot replace a real guitar; That’s like thinking that a book can replace its author.
That doesn’t mean we can’t value both, for different reasons. But Apple’s announcement sends the message that the future it wants doesn’t have paint bottles, dials to turn, sculptures, physical instruments or paper books. Of course, that’s the future they’ve been working to sell us for years, they just haven’t said it so clearly before.
When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Apple is telling you very clearly what it is and what it wants the future to be like. If that future doesn’t bother you, you are welcome.