APPLE has issued a rare apology for its new iPad advert which onlookers have described as "inhuman and tone deaf".
The heavily criticised advert, showing off Apple's new iPad Pro, has beautiful examples of art and human ingenuity being crushed into a single tablet.
It was designed to highlight the new iPad Pro's extra thin OLED screen - the thinnest product it's ever made.
Many TV models still don’t feature OLED displays.
But actor Hugh Grant the “destruction of human experience," on X (formerly Twitter), and millions of others on social media agreed.
"I ordered the new iPad Pro immediately… but holy cow that ad," one Apple fan tweeted.
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"Watching beloved tools of creativity destroyed by a giant industrial press!?!
"It’s utterly inhuman and tone-deaf for our digitally detached times."
Another added: "This iPad ad is just so wildly narcissistic and tone-deaf. Celebrating creativity by literally destroying every symbolic creative tool.
"You won’t need these anymore, you only need me.
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"Seems like a good metaphor for the state of the tech industry these days."
The advert was fairly universally hated across the world.
But Apple says it intended to "celebrate" human expression in the new advert, rather than destroy it.
Tor Myhren, Apple’s vice president of marketing, said the company “missed the mark”.
We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry
Tor Myhren
“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world,” Myhren told magazine 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.”
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