On Tuesday 7 May, Apple presented the new iPad Pro, a new version of its famous tablet that is thinner than all those presented so far, with a thickness of 5.1 millimeters. During the presentation, the advertising campaign accompanying the launch of the new product and which many found disturbing was also shown. The commercial shows a huge press that compresses musical instruments, paint cans, books, screens, emojis and other cultural products resulting in the new iPad Pro.
The intent of the advertising was to convey the idea of the compactness of the new tablet and at the same time of the many things that can be done using it, from composing music to drawing through reading books, but the fact that the images show more than other the destructive effects of the press in great detail has communicated to many a different concept: the destruction of cultural products.
Among the many people who criticized the commercial on social networks there was also the British actor Hugh Grant, who has https://twitter.com/HackedOffHugh/status/1788183871504204257 the video a «destruction of the human experience». Others commented reporting similar impressions and a certain sense of annoyance towards one of the richest and most powerful companies in the world, seen metaphorically as an actual cause of destruction.
The advertisement was created to point out that all the things that can be done with the objects finished under the press can be done with a new iPad Pro, now thinner and more practical to carry around. Some have observed that the message of the commercial was perceived differently perhaps due to the times we live in, with a large part of the artistic community at least disturbed by the progress achieved by some artificial intelligence systems in the production of new content, from images to texts passing through the videos. Apple also manages a streaming platform and like others has been criticized by actors who last year protested against some policies applied by the platforms, not to mention the recurring protests by singers over the low revenues deriving from the licensed use of their content on apps for listening to music.
It is likely that the success of some YouTube channels which show the destruction of objects using hydraulic presses also contributed to that sensation of destruction, rather than compression. Compressing a concept into a few tens of seconds is not always easy.
