(Reuters) - Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) apologized on Thursday after an advertisement for its 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 myriad of 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 advertisement titled "Crush" has over a million views on Apple's YouTube channel and was shared by CEO Tim Cook on social media platform X. It shows a variety of creative tools and objects such as a camera, guitar, piano and paint being destroyed by an industrial crusher.
Then the crusher reveals the newly unveiled iPad, symbolizing how much the new thinner model encompasses.
Online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and an unwelcome departure from the company's historic positioning of its brand as nonconformist, 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 courtesy of Silicon Valley.”
The Cupertino-California based tech giant unveiled the tablet on Tuesday with a new chip for artificial intelligence computing as it rushes to catch up with its Big Tech rivals in a race to dominate the emerging technology.
Apple said the iPad Pro, which became available for order on Tuesday, has upgraded displays and is "the thinnest Apple product ever."
(This story has been corrected to say iPad Pro became available for order on Tuesday, not Thursday, in paragraph 9)