I
wonder
if
Apple
CEO
Tim
Cook
was
surprised
by
the
visceral
revulsion
many
people
felt
after
viewing
the
newest
commercial
for
Apple’s
iPad.
In
it,
a
plethora
of
creative
tools
are
flattened
by
an
industrial
press.
Watching
a
piano,
which
if
maintained
can
last
for
something
like
50
years,
squished
to
advertise
a
gadget,
designed
to
be
obsolete
in
less
than
10,
is
infuriating.
The
backlash
was
immediate.
The
message
many
of
us
received
was
this:
Apple,
a
trillion-dollar
behemoth,
will
crush
everything
beautiful
and
human,
everything
that’s
a
pleasure
to
look
at
and
touch,
and
all
that
will
be
left
is
a
skinny
glass
and
metal
slab.
Astoundingly,
this
is
meant
to
sell
a
product.
“Buy
the
thing
that’s
destroying
everything
you
love,”
says
Apple.
This
is
quite
a
change
from
the
famous
“1984”
ad,
where
Apple
styled
itself
as
smashing
boring
conformity.
Sure,
the
new
ad
is
tone-deaf
— after
all,
Apple
rose
to
prominence
by
aligning
itself
with
creative
types.
But
it
also
takes
an
embarrassingly
narrow
view
of
technology.
Imagine
being
such
a
rube
that
you
believe
that
the
only
good
technology
is
new
technology.
The
iPad
doesn’t
replace
those
experiences
That
view
of
technology
is
fundamentally
disrespectful.
We
are
surrounded
by
stuff
that’s
meant
to
endure.
Technology,
in
a
much
broader
sense,
is
innately
hopeful.
It’s
a
bright
golden
thread
between
our
past
and
our
future.
Language
is
the
most
basic
technology,
the
one
that
lets
us
build
everything
else.
Writing
down
our
thoughts
meant
we
could
begin
to
access
lifetimes
of
experience.
The
Pythagorean
theorem
was
so
significant
when
it
was
first
discovered
that
a
cult
formed
around
it;
I
learned
it
in
sixth
grade
because
it
was
foundational
for
a
lot
of
things
we
created
later.
These
foundations
— language,
math
— made
possible
a
chain
of
events
that
allowed
Apple
to
exist.
There’s
still
a
place
for
the
technology
Apple
crushes
in
its
ad.
A
TV
screen
is
larger
and
more
enjoyable
to
use
than
an
iPad
if
you
don’t
need
to
be
on
the
move;
that’s
why
most
people
still
own
one.
A
record
player
allows
the
secondary
joy
of
trading
physical
objects,
and
get-togethers
at
record
stores.
The
arcade
video
game
exists
in
places
where
you
gather
with
other
people.
The
iPad
doesn’t
replace
those
experiences.
At
its
best,
it
complements
them.
I
have
never
met
a
professional
carpenter
who
uses
only
a
multi-tool
to
get
their
job
done.
But
if
you’re
trying
to
travel
light,
that
Swiss
Army
knife
is
probably
better
than
an
entire
toolkit.
This
ad
does
highlight
a
particular
Silicon
Valley
attitude:
It
scorns
the
past
as
outdated
This
ad
does
highlight
a
particular
Silicon
Valley
attitude:
It
scorns
the
past
as
outdated
rather
than
respecting
it
as
clever.
In
some
sense,
these
companies
have
to:
they’ve
got
products
to
sell.
If
Apple
were
to
build
something
as
durable
as
a
piano,
it
would
sell
a
lot
fewer
computers.
In
fact,
the
company
has
a
history
of
kneecapping
its
own
products
in
order
to
sell
more
of
them:
it
deliberately
slowed
its
older
iPhones,
for
instance.
It
also
has
a
history
of
making
repairing
and
maintaining
its
products
difficult.
In
this
ad,
technology
is
disposable.
I
flinched
when
that
piano
got
crushed.
But
apparently,
no
one
inside
the
company
did
— and
a
lot
of
people
had
to
sign
off
on
this
ad.
The
emotional
valence
of
crushing
is
unmistakable;
simply
reversing
the
ad,
as
Reza
Sixo
Safai
did,
so
that
all
the
creative
tools
spring
from
the
iPad
immediately
improves
it.
After
all,
the
iPad
can
also
be
a
creative
tool,
and
isn’t
that
what
the
commercial
was
meant
to
suggest?
Apple
has
a
habit
of
suggesting
its
older
devices
are
obsolete
by
releasing
new
versions
that
change
their
shells
and
styling
without
altering
what
they
do
in
any
meaningful
way.
The
point
of
this
ad
is
not
about
the
iPad’s
creative
uses
— it’s
that
it’s
skinny.
That’s
the
big
selling
point:
the
skinniest
ever.
Apple
was
so
focused
on
its
exciting
new
marketing
feature
that
it
lost
sight
of
what’s
really
important:
the
tools
that
make
the
things
we
love.
Original author: Elizabeth Lopatto
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