Celebrities speak out as Apple Crushing iPad Ad triggers an uproar online

Apple’s Crushing iPad Ad Sparks Outrage Online. (Photo Credit – Instagram)
Actor Hugh Grant ripped into tech giant Apple over their latest iPad Ad, which showed a myriad of creative tools being crushed with an industrial-sized hydraulic press. The ad for the new iPad Pro triggered an uproar on social media on Wednesday, May 8, after many perceived it as a subliminal message of technology replacing human creativity.

The minute-long Ad called Crush, which dropped on Tuesday, May 7, showed a heavy-duty machine pulverizing all creative materials, including musical instruments, sculpture and an analogue camera, as the soundtrack of the Sonny and Cher 1971 tune “All I Ever Need Is You” plays in the background.

The Apple commercial sparked outrage online as many opined it implied generative AI can easily replace human creativity. Several social media users took offense to the ad, rendering the creative tools superfluous in the age of technology. Among the people who slammed the new commercial was actor Hugh Grant, who wrote on X, “The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley.”

Willy Wonka actor’s tweet eviscerating Apple comes amid growing fears that AI could potentially replace Hollywood creatives. The Bridget Jones Diary Star was not the only celebrity to blast the commercial. Emmy-winning and Directors Guild Award-winning Handmaid’s Tale director Reed Morano addressed Apple CEO Tim Cook directly after the latter posted a link to the commercial on his X account. Morano wrote, “Hey @tim_cook, READ THE ROOM, BRO. CUZ THIS S*IT IS ACTUALLY PSYCHOTIC.”

Justine Bateman asked Tim Cook, “Truly, What is wrong with you.” Meanwhile, the ad has been watched almost 400,000 times on YouTube since its release. Tim Cook has yet to respond to the criticism online as the outrage intensified.

Hugh Grant, Justine Bateman and More Slam Apple for iPad Pro ‘Crush’ Ad: ‘Truly, What Is Wrong With You?’

“Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create,” Apple CEO Tim Cook says of the controversial new commercial

Apple’s latest ad “Crush!” sparked controversy through Hollywood and beyond after it dropped on Tuesday. A commercial for the new iPad Pro depicted media across the spectrum – movies, TV, books, music, video games, etc. – being compressed into said iPad via a hydraulic press.

The company’s apparent sentiment of “look at all the things you can do from the ease of one device” didn’t land that way among a number of users, including actors and filmmakers. In fact, many read it as the tech industry encroaching destructively on the arts.

“The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley,” Hugh Grant wrote on X.

“Truly, what is wrong with you?” Justine Bateman replied to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

“If you thought THIS iPad ad was weird, you should have seen the first cut where they lined up all your favorite characters and shot them,” actor, writer and producer Luke Barnett added to the chorus.

Cook was also active on X for the big reveal, writing, “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.”

“Like iPads but don’t know why anyone thought this ad was a good idea. It is the most honest metaphor for what tech companies do to the arts, to artists musicians, creators, writers, filmmakers: squeeze them, use them, not pay well, take everything then say it’s all created by them,” director/producer Asif Kapadia responded.