Ad Age says Apple apologizes for iPad Pro “Crush” ad.

(Reuters) – Apple apologized on Thursday after an ad for the latest iPad Pro model sparked criticism by showing an animation of musical instruments and other symbols of creativity being crushed, Ad Age magazine reported.

“Our goal is to always celebrate the countless ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry,” Ad Age quoted the iPhone maker as saying.

An Apple spokesperson declined to comment but directed inquiries to the Ad Age report.

The ad titled “Crush” has received over a million views on Apple’s YouTube channel and was shared by CEO Tim Cook on the social media platform X. The ad shows a variety of gadgets and creative objects such as a camera, guitar, piano and paint being destroyed by an industrial crusher.

The crusher then reveals the newly unveiled iPad, symbolizing just how much the new, thinner model encompasses.

Online commentators criticized the ad as insensitive and an unwelcome departure from the company’s historical positioning of its brand as non-conformist, human-friendly and an antidote to a dystopian, colorless world.

In a post on X, actor Hugh Grant said the ad showed “the destruction of the human experience thanks to Silicon Valley.”

The Cupertino, California-based tech giant unveiled a tablet on Tuesday with a new chip for artificial intelligence computing as it races to catch up with its Big Tech rivals in a race to dominate the emerging technology.

The iPad Pro, which became available to order on Tuesday, has upgraded displays and is Apple’s “thinnest product ever,” Apple said.

(This story has been corrected to say the iPad Pro became available to order on Tuesday, not Thursday, in paragraph 9)

(Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)