Just on the meta-discussion of "who cares about dissecting some ad":
It's alright to consider implied meaning in media IMO. Just because it's misinterpreted by the standards of what the ad team wanted to accomplish, doesn't mean it WASN'T interpreted by people.
Maybe "outrage" is a bit useless if it's only there for screaming at people online, but talking about how crushing things that people love sends the wrong message, is a good thing for people to do. It's not exaggerating at all to me. A lot of people will see this ad spot, and each one is going to form some idea about what it means. That's a lot of power to give Apple.
As easy as it is to interpret it as "fuck your cherished things! get indoctrinated by tech" It is just because tech's true colors have really exposed themselves as of late to be money grubbing criminals to the extreme. It is inevitable that any corporation of sufficient size (only acheivable by evil) will stop being able to be "cute" advertising anymore
I could imagine some other ways of making this spot that I think would've changed the mood but still be cute. At a certain level of evil though, you have to poke at yourself.
Imagine some big team of apple engineers running around music halls and art galleries with notepads (or iPads with an apple pencil), taking notes on everything they see.
Cut back to factory, everyone is working on some comically Apple version of an artistic instrument. I'd absolutely get a laugh out of a big metal and glass piano or a solid aluminium canvas. These are obviously... framed as not ideal. Followed up by one of them frustratedly scrolling around on their iPhone in the break room, realizing lots of posts say "made on procreate on my iPad" or "garageband on iPad". Running back to the factory setting, hurriedly throwing everything in the crusher. Smush. New thin iPad.
I wonder if it's just about the ad or how we feel about the company. My uncontroversial opinion of apple is that they want us to spend as much of our lives in their hyperreal walled garden as possible. People might not have noticed if the ad was from, say, LG.
It's alright to consider implied meaning in media IMO. Just because it's misinterpreted by the standards of what the ad team wanted to accomplish, doesn't mean it WASN'T interpreted by people.
Maybe "outrage" is a bit useless if it's only there for screaming at people online, but talking about how crushing things that people love sends the wrong message, is a good thing for people to do. It's not exaggerating at all to me. A lot of people will see this ad spot, and each one is going to form some idea about what it means. That's a lot of power to give Apple.