New Apple TV intro is all human work

Pushing against the trend, the iPhone maker skirts artificial intelligence (AI) and actually films the new intros for Apple TV and Apple Original Movies.

Three years after the launch of ChatGPT sparked a global AI frenzy, we've reached a point where something created by humans is suddenly perceived as a breath of fresh air, a luxury even.

Fitting, then, for an upmarket device maker that appears to value human creativity – from its Christmas commercials to Lunar New Year shorts – to reach for authenticity again.

After announcing a rebrand of Apple TV+ to simply Apple TV last month, the company took the opposite direction with its new intros, which will play at the start of shows and movies on its streaming service.

Instead of black-and-white graphics, the colorful new sequences nod to Apple’s 1980s logo and were produced in a real studio. Not only did Apple refuse to jump on the AI bandwagon, but the intros aren’t even CGI.

The props were built from glass and filmed in-camera, according to software designer Andreas Storm, who shared behind-the-scenes footage on social media.

The intros feature a theme composed by American musician FINNEAS and were met mostly positively online, with social media users describing them as “wonderful” and “beautiful.”

More positive feedback followed after it was revealed that the intros were filmed rather than animated, indicating the value consumers put on human-made content.

Positioning as a champion of human creativity also helps Apple to distract investors from the fact that the company still lags considerably behind other tech giants in developing its own AI systems.

In any case, Apple’s choice stands in stark contrast to some other major corporations, including Coca-Cola and Google, that went all in on AI-generated ads this holiday season.

Coca-Cola reimagined its classical “Holidays Are Coming” ads using AI for the second year in a row despite backlash from critics who disparage them as “uncanny” and “soulless,” while Google declared that consumers don’t really care if the ads are created using AI.

Other companies relying on AI for their advertising include H&M and Heinz.