Irenes (many)May 8, 2024
Apple SVP of marketing, apparently: so our core message should really be that Apple will destroy all the things you love, and sell you a joyless piece of glass to replace them
Show threadIrenes (many)May 8, 2024

sorry, we know this is low-hanging fruit, just, we can't get it out of our head hours later

the horrible part is we don't think they were trying to horrify viewers!

Show threadIrenes (many)May 8, 2024
it's an ad in which musical instruments, fancy cameras, an arcade cabinet, pottery items, representations of well-loved characters, etc are all crushed by a giant press. very detailed videography of each thing being destroyed.
Show threadRoss AndrewsMay 9, 2024
@ireneista I don't like the symbolism either but I don't think they actually crushed anything. It would be very hard to get that footage with actual stuff and an actual press, and it would be much easier to do so with a computer.
Show threadIrenes (many)May 9, 2024

@randrews we're unconvinced - we do in fact think it's likely to be real videography, even if there was fancy editing to make the press look bigger

but, like

they made it very vivid. they show everything in detail. they clearly intended to produce a strong emotional impact ... well, they succeeded

Show threadRoss Andrews
@ireneista Well sure. And that's part of why I think it was faked. Look at actual hydraulic press videos, things don't splash like those paint cans did, or bend symmetrically like the metronome. The "game over" on the arcade cabinet synced with the thing being crushed? It's hard to predict at exactly what point a cabinet will crush.
May 9, 2024 at 2:29amWeb
Show threadIrenes (many)May 9, 2024
@randrews sure, but we saw some behind-the-scenes stuff recently about people who do food videography with custom robots... they record and play back an entire sequence of movements. they also routinely deal with fluids that need to splash just right, and so on.
Show threadIrenes (many)May 9, 2024
@randrews it's clear how techniques like that could produce this ad, especially since the editing cuts around a lot and makes no pretense of being a single take.
Show threadIrenes (many)May 9, 2024
@randrews expensive, for sure, but... more expensive than modeling all the fancy equipment in sufficient detail? we're not aware of any rendering techniques for realistic wood splintering, as of yet
Show threadRoss AndrewsMay 9, 2024

@ireneista Reproducing movements is harder than reproducing at exactly what point a ceramic jar will crack though.

An alternate theory: suppose you were told to do that without just rendering everything. Would you start with an actual trumpet, an actual cookie jar, whatever? Or would you make something that _looks_ like a vintage thingy but actually has strategically-omitted weld joints or slots sawn out or a case made of rubber?

Show threadRoss AndrewsMay 9, 2024
@ireneista *Easier,* not harder. You know what I mean.
Show threadIrenes (many)May 9, 2024
@randrews we would refuse, we don't believe in destroying musical instruments or precision optics (most of the other stuff looks like it was probably just props to us, as you suggest)
Show threadRoss AndrewsMay 9, 2024
@ireneista The trumpet could have been a real trumpet, hacked (literally) to make it fall apart that way. Lenses, same way, although I'm not sure they were vintage lenses, or just some random modern lenses, of which there's no shortage. Could even have been already-nonworking modern lenses. I'm just thinking about how I'd have done that, and my method would not start with "buy a bunch of vintage stuff and a press."
Show threadIrenes (many)May 9, 2024
@randrews like for the record, it doesn't really affect our feelings very much whether the things were vintage or modern, or even whether the whole thing is CGI (though we see no way it could be)
Show threadIrenes (many)May 9, 2024
@randrews we agree that there was a lot of rigging things to make them fall apart in certain ways. an impressive feat, shame about the everything else about it :/
Show threadRoss AndrewsMay 9, 2024
@ireneista Of course, I get that completely. For me it matters if it's vintage or modern stuff; if I can replace something easily it bothers me less if it breaks. I'd be pretty upset if an 80-year-old rifle or a 40-year-old C64 were damaged, I'm trying to preserve that stuff for later generations to also get to see. But this laptop? I'd just go buy another one. Nothing that special about it.
Show threadIrenes (many)May 9, 2024
@randrews we do see that as a reasonable distinction
Show threadRoss AndrewsMay 9, 2024
@ireneista A strange thought I just had: something you notice about a lot of vintage stuff is that it does one thing. It puts letter-shaped ink on a page, or it adds numbers, or it receives AM transmissions, or whatever. Whereas new stuff is a computer in the shape of a whatever (and this ad is trumpeting exactly that). I've often wondered what a computer would look like that wasn't an all-encompassing device, that fit into a world where everything was a separate machine. (1/2)
Show threadRoss AndrewsMay 9, 2024
@ireneista (2/2) so my thought is... why doesn't that exist? Wouldn't Apple much rather sell me a separate machine for music, writing, web browsing, reading, etc etc? Maybe they think I wouldn't buy all of them, but most people would want at least one.
Show threadIrenes (many)May 9, 2024

@randrews oh

well

honestly we have an easier answer

Apple wouldn't be the one selling you that

they cornered the music-playing-computer market, briefly, and noticing how smartphones made that entire market go away should be instructive

but that's not really the main point

Show threadIrenes (many)May 9, 2024

@randrews most of the things you mention are things that there are already well-established companies that do it very well and have built a lot of trust in the specialized markets they serve

Apple can't outdo them at their own game

they can only outdo them by changing the game to be something else

Show threadRoss AndrewsMay 9, 2024
@ireneista Oh, as in, if there were smaller markets for specialized devices, Apple wouldn't hope to control all of them? That makes sense.
Show threadIrenes (many)May 9, 2024
@randrews yeah
Show threadRoss AndrewsMay 9, 2024
@ireneista Which is the same argument against the separate-devices model within the computer as well. If everything is a stream of lines of text that can be manipulated by interchangeable tools, then anyone can make those tools. Very cool if you're making Unix but not so cool if you're trying to sell one of the tools.
Show threadIrenes (many)May 9, 2024
@randrews right. our thread did hint a bit about why people might still WANT separate devices, mind, even if it's not necessary to have them
Show threadRoss AndrewsMay 9, 2024
@ireneista For some things (cameras) there are physical reasons why something can't be a camera and simultaneously something else. I am looking at a 300mm f/2.8 lens, and anything that will do what that does will necessarily also be the size of a fire extinguisher and weigh ten pounds. Not great if that's also my pocket calculator. :)
Show threadIrenes (many)May 9, 2024

@randrews of course, Apple has been at great pains to convince people they shouldn't care about the stuff they can only do with specialized equipment

optics are definitely going to continue being a holdout, for sure

Show threadRoss AndrewsMay 9, 2024

@ireneista For as long as there are laws of physics, yeah. In order to gather that light, you have to put a piece of glass that size in that position.

They're apparently very good at faking it with iPhones now. At least people think they are until they see the shots even I can make, with my gear and no skill.

Synths are interesting because the signals are slow enough that you actually can just fake it. I have analog and digital synths both and there's no real quality difference imho.

Show threadRoss AndrewsMay 9, 2024

@ireneista Again I'm with you in that I hate the message and the ad, I just think it's unlikely any actual vintage or valuable stuff was smooshed.

And that's a lot of what I hate about the message tbh: you're not saying "the iPad can do all this stuff!" you're saying "the iPad is made of a condensed slurry of all these things, after a ride in a Blend-Tec." I don't want the crushed bits of a lens, I want the lens structure, the complexity that's removed by crushing is why I like that gear.