The ad rubbed some creatives the wrong way. Hugh Grant called it a “destruction of human experience,” while Handmaid’s Tale director Reed Morano told Apple CEO Tim Cook to “read the room” in a post on X.
15 years ago also Lg had released a similar video introducing their new phone at that time. The ad had also felt some backlash. Apple did not consider this when remaking the same video.
Samsung released an ad "Creativity cannot be crushed" for their Samsung S9 tab series which mocked Apple's and Lg's ads.
Apple was forced to make an apology over the backlash it faced when releasing the video.
"Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it's incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world," Apple vice president of marketing communications Tor Myrhen said in a statement to Ad Age. "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."
Apple promised not to run the ad on television.
