TV Commercials Yup
4 HN mentions · mentioned in 4 months, 2021–2025
0:31 · 32K views · Jul 27, 2019
A 2017 Apple TV commercial for the iPad Pro in which a kid asks "What's a computer?" while using the tablet. It pitches the all-screen iPad Pro as something that goes beyond what people think of as a computer.
Cited as a concise example of Apple and the wider tech industry framing devices as anything but a personal computer.
4 comments from Hacker News
> I'm saying this would not be an average user. The average user would not be comparing AI capabilities, they open an app that uses AI, with a high chance of not even being aware of it What is the point here? If the average user doesn't care about comparing AI capabilities, then clearly Apple wasn't targeting that user in their AI capability comparison. > What should they have compared it to? There's only one other tablet on the market, with an old chipset and a fraction of the performance, that just received its first real video editor late last year [1]. It's very clear that Apple is trying to make the case that the iPad Pro is a replacement for a laptop. In fact, that was their core marketing claim when it came out : "What's a computer?" [1], and arguably that's the point of their latest ads where they market it as a general purpose computer. Given the price point and the marketing, yes, they should be comparing it with a computer when making the case it's a good replacement for a computer. And when they do, they should not be misleading to the point of falsehood. [1]: this video
Yes they think this, but not in the way you or I think about it. At least this is my admittedly cynical take. There is a strong push across tech to erase the concept of a Personal Computer, and make everything function like a tablet. Calling tablets/phones PCs is part of this, by muddying the water, as well as attempts like these: this video Interfaces and functionality keep being dumbed and locked down like they are on tablets and phones. Microsoft and Apple are watering at the mouth for the day when the true personal computer is gone and every computing device is a walled garden where every user uses their pre-approved apps doing only the pre-approved tasks, preferably as thin clients into their controlled cloud.
Apple is obsessed with their lifestyle designation: this video They publish ads and write all their copy with the intention of framing their products as anything other than a computer.
I think Apple captured this very concisely (for better or worse) in one of their ads: this video "What's a computer?"