Skip to main content

Home Culture Culture News

Apple criticised for destroying vintage instruments in ‘dystopian’ iPad advert

“I’d expect this from an AI company not Apple.”

By Will Richards

Apple's new advert sees a number of instruments crushed

Apple have been criticised by music fans online for a new iPad Pro advert in which vintage instruments are destroyed.

To a soundtrack of Sonny and Cher’s track ‘All I Need Is You’, a host of rare and expensive instruments are smashed and destroyed.

The ad was shared by Apple CEO Tim Cook, who said: “Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create.”

Fans immediately shared their distaste at the advert’s content, with one writing: “This feels like the first ad that is a tone deaf miss from Apple. An ad showing beautiful tools of human creativity being crushed to be replaced by the newest and thinnest gadget feels antithetical to Apple. I’d expect this from an AI company not Apple.”

Another said: “What an incredible self own by Apple, lol—at a time when artists, musicians and creatives are more worried than ever that tech companies are trying to crush them into dust for profit, along comes Apple and makes an *ad* whose whole message is: yes that is exactly what we’re doing.”

Another criticism of Apple said the advert showed the company has “become the faceless culture crashing force they rallied against in 1984… the only way to save this ad is for them to play it in reverse and celebrate the cultural opportunities bursting out not being crushed.”

Last year, Apple Music launched a new London Sessions series with Maisie Peters covering Brandon Flowers’ track ‘Between Me And You’.

The company’s streaming service also made headlines back in January when they announced that artists would receive higher royalty rates for music made in spatial audio.

They said that the move comes “not only to reward higher quality content, but also to ensure that artists are being compensated for the time and investment they put into mixing in Spatial.”