No such thing as bad press?
Apple’s new Crush! ad for its latest iPad received such a negative reaction that the company issued an apology just 2 days after its release, ditching plans to run it on TV, with Apple’s VP of marketing communications Tor Myhren conceding that the promo had “missed the mark”.
The one-minute video features various instruments of culture and creativity — a guitar, books, turntables, cameras, antiques — being pulverized by an industrial crushing machine, leaving only the new, admittedly very thin, iPad Pro in its wake. Some people wrote long indictments of the ad, outlining why it represented all that was bad about big tech, while others were more economical in their damnation: “Worst. Commercial. Ever.”
Rage bait
The tech giant now has an interesting opportunity to take the old “all publicity is good publicity” maxim out for a test drive. Preliminary Google Trends data suggests this might be the most buzzy bit of promotion that the iPad product line, quarterly sales of which peaked back in 2014, has had in years.
Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a world where Apple’s marketing execs didn’t see some kind of strong reaction to a striking visual of creative objects being destroyed. The fact that they’ve pulled the ad, however, weakens the deliberately provocative argument. It’s also just not very Apple — which has found success with upbeat, uplifting ads in days gone by.
For now, the ad still sits on CEO Tim Cook’s Twitter feed, having racked up nearly 60 million views and thousands of enraged replies.
More Tech
See all Tech
Anthropic reportedly doubles current fundraising round to $20 billion
Anthropic has doubled its current fundraising round to $20 billion on strong investor demand, according reporting from the Financial Times. The new fundraising round would value the company at a staggering $350 billion. That’s up 91% from September, when it raised at a valuation of $183 billion.
The company reportedly received interest totaling 5x to 6x its original $10 billion fundraising goal, and it’s expected to haul in several billion more than that tally before the current round closes.
Anthropic’s success with enterprise customers and the popularity of its Claude Code product are boosting the company’s momentum as it chases the current valuation leader of the AI startup pack: OpenAI.
The company reportedly received interest totaling 5x to 6x its original $10 billion fundraising goal, and it’s expected to haul in several billion more than that tally before the current round closes.
Anthropic’s success with enterprise customers and the popularity of its Claude Code product are boosting the company’s momentum as it chases the current valuation leader of the AI startup pack: OpenAI.
Amazon says it’s doubling down on opening Whole Foods stores. That sounds familiar.
The company says it’ll open 100 Whole Foods locations in the next few years. That sounds similar to plans Whole Foods’ CEO laid out in 2024 for opening 30 stores a year. Since then, it appears to have added 14, total.
One year after the DeepSeek freak, the AI industry has adjusted and roared back
A look back at how the Chinese startup shattered conventions, changed the way Big Tech thought about AI, and blew a $1 trillion hole in the stock market that got filled right back up... and then soared to new levels.
Georgia lawmakers introduce data center construction moratorium amid statewide pushback
More and more communities across the US are wrestling with the pros and cons of having a data center come to town. Georgia has become a hotspot of resistance to the data centers planned by Big Tech, according to a new report from The Guardian. The Atlanta metro area led the nation in data center construction in 2024.
Georgia state representatives introduced legislation that would place a one-year moratorium on data center construction in the state. Ten Georgia municipalities have already passed local bans on data centers.
Per the report, at least three other states have seen similar data center moratorium legislation introduced in the last week, including Maryland and Oklahoma.
Georgia state representatives introduced legislation that would place a one-year moratorium on data center construction in the state. Ten Georgia municipalities have already passed local bans on data centers.
Per the report, at least three other states have seen similar data center moratorium legislation introduced in the last week, including Maryland and Oklahoma.
