--- title: "Apple’s New Ad Showing Machines Crushing Human Creativity Is a Bit on the Nose" description: "A new iPad ad shows a hydraulic press crushing beloved creative objects — and, perhaps, our dreams along with them." date: "2024-05-09" modified: "2024-05-09" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/new-apple-ad-crushing-dreams" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "advertising" - "apple" - "ipad" - "the digest" --- # Apple’s New Ad Showing Machines Crushing Human Creativity Is a Bit on the Nose ![A new iPad ad shows a hydraulic press crushing beloved creative objects — and, perhaps, our dreams along with them.]() *\Image: Apple\* ## Pressed A new iPad ad shows a hydraulic press crushing beloved creative objects — and, perhaps, our dreams. In a [video posted to X-formerly-Twitter](), Apple CEO Tim Cook boasted that the latest iPad Pro is not only its most powerful offering, but is also "the thinnest product we've ever created." In the ad, Sonny & Cher's "All I Need Is You" blares in the background as the industrial press crushes, one by one, an "Angry Birds" desk ornament, a guitar, a piano, several paint cans, a metronome, a television, and some books. It's a heavy-handed attempt at saying that the super-thin new iPad is skinnier than all that stuff put together, and perhaps that it "crushes" its competition. But if the comments are any indication, it struck a very discordant chord. "Crushing the symbols of human creativity to produce a homogenized branded slab is pretty much where the tech industry is at in 2024," [author Hari Kunzru quipped](). "It is a heartbreaking, uncomfortable, and egotistic advertisement," tech executive [Hiroki Akiyama tweeted](). "When I see this...I'm ashamed to buy Apple products." https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/1787864325258162239 ## Riddle Me This Comics illustrator Yuval Kordov, meanwhile, had an even more cutting allegory. "Forty years ago, Apple released the 1984 commercial as a bold statement against a dystopian future," the creator of the "Dark Legacies" comic [tweeted in response](), referencing the famous [Ridley Scott Super Bowl ad](). As that 40-year-old ad shows, listless automatons shuffle through industrial tunnels, watching televisions featuring a close-up of a man's face in what is a clear symbol of brainwashing. Throughout it all, a svelte young woman runs through the maze-like tunnels with a giant hammer, and at the end, she throws it while stormtroopers close in on her, smashing the screens and freeing the prisoners from their opiate haze. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErwS24cBZPc It might not be an exact analog, but it is a little close for comfort. "Now you are that dystopian future," Kordov wrote. "Congratulations." **More on Apple products no one asked for:** [*Apple Secretly Working on AI Robot That Follows You Around The House*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()