Why Apple’s Controversial M4 iPad Pro Ad Ain’t All That Bad

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Earlier this week, Apple launched the brand new M4 iPad Pro.

They also placed a bunch of objects into what I have nicknamed Tim’s Mahoosive Robotic Crusher Machine Pro Max and crushed them into… an M4 iPad Pro. The video is called ‘Crush!’, and if you haven’t seen it yet, you might want to take a look.

Now that the burst paint has dried, all hell has broken loose. Following a raft of complaints from big names in creative industries, Apple was forced to apologise for the ad, with Vice President of Marketing Communications Tor Myhren, saying “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”.

Even Hugh Grant has got involved, noting on X that the ad depicts the “destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley”.

Wowsers trousers. And there was me just admiring how cool it was.

I’m gonna throw my hat in the ring on this one and suggest that the degree of trouser-fire-setting is rather daft. I think it’s all got a bit silly.

Sorry, Hugh.

Here we go.

What’s all the fuss about?

Here’s a list of the things I spotted in Tim’s Mahoosive Robotic Crusher Machine Pro Max:

• metronome
• record player
• MPC-type device (I think)
• trumpet
• Space Imploder arcade machine
• upright piano
• loads of tins of paint
• school blackboard
• a video editing suite
• an array of camera lenses
• a mixing desk
• the desk lamp (which looks suspiciously Pixar-like)
• drumkit
  

And loads more stuff – all of it crushed, smashed, and squelched into a digital device. Only streaks of discarded paint remained when the lid of Tim’s Mahoosive Robotic Crusher Machine Pro Max was raised to reveal the shiny new OLED tablet.

Mr Grant and many others have set their trousers on fire about this advert because they feel it is sending out the wrong message. Fancy learning to play the piano? Buy an iPad. Want to get into painting? Grab an Apple Pencil Pro with its fancy new gyroscope. Want to be a videographer? Don’t bother buying proper cameras – buy an iPad, sign up for Final Cut Pro, and do everything there instead.

Oh, and get rid of that bloody trumpet.

I understand the consternation. I own a record player and I deeply love every element of placing a piece of vinyl on that platter and listening to the pop, crackle, and warmth that emanates from those grooves. I also own an upright piano (it’s digital, granted, but it isn’t an iPad) and I love it to death. I’ve never got into painting, but if I did, I’m fairly sure I’d grab a proper paintbrush and easel over an iPad and a copy of Procreate.

The idea of getting rid of all those things and replacing them with a device which is, at its most basic level, a combination of metal, glass, and silicon, is deeply unsettling. I wouldn’t want a future like that for my son, and I would never suggest anyone who is serious about playing the piano try doing so on an iPad instead.

But that isn’t what Apple’s video is all about.

Hold onto those trousers

I think this is the first time Apple has apologised for an advert. Come to think of it, I think it might be the first time they’ve publicly apologised, properly (i.e. without instead issuing phone bumper covers), for anything.

I’m surprised they have. It appears they’ve caved, immediately, due to the sheer weight of disgust that has been thrown at Tim’s Mahoosive Robotic Crusher Machine Pro Max. Although, it does amuse me that the ad is still live on Apple’s YouTube channel at the time of writing. They can’t be that sorry, eh?

I believe Apple when they say they want to empower creatives. The Crush! video doesn’t suggest you can or should replace all of your beloved creative objects with a tablet – it merely illustrates that the tablet is capable of replicating all of those things.

You can do some wonderful stuff with an iPad. You can make music, paint, write, build stuff, design stuff, and so much more. But the fact remains that you’re still ostensibly interacting with a touch screen and some biblically powerful computery stuff behind it. This is why anyone who is remotely serious about being creative with an iPad will use it as a tool within a diverse tool belt.

Artists may sketch out ideas with an Apple Pencil before committing anything to canvas. Music producers will lean on the convenience and immediacy of Logic Pro on the iPad to noodle on a song idea during a train journey. Filmmakers with tiny budgets and big ideas will use Multicam shooting on the M4 iPad Pro to bring those ideas alive. The aspiring pianist? Well, they may not have the room for an upright piano at this moment in time, but if their first experience of stringing a triad chord together takes place on an OLED display, it won’t be long before they’re itching to try out the real thing.

This is a natural evolution of the toolsets we have at our disposal and it will not stop evolving.

It really is no big deal.

Sorry, Hugh.

Final thought

I’m resolutely with Apple on this one, and I don’t think they should have apologised. There was an element of risk involved with this ad, which I’m sure they were acutely aware of during the entire production process. It was going to piss some people off. People like Hugh.

I have a theory about those people – I think they’re very easily offended. Equally, I think they’re anti-tech and have never bothered to explore what devices like the iPad can do. If they widened their horizons a bit, I think they’d be surprised and inspired.

Does that mean they’d turn to their beautiful 1920s upright piano and start smashing it with a hammer? Of course not. I wouldn’t want them to, and neither does Tim Cook.

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