English primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall, who died on 1 October, has one more message through Apple. Hers is the voice of a new Mac advert celebrating creativity.
All you see in the minute-long film is a blinking cursor as the camera zooms in on a MacBook. The voice moves you as much as Goodall’s message: “Every story you love. Every invention that moves you. Every idea you wished was yours. All began as nothing — just a flicker on a screen asking a simple question: ‘What do you see?’”
The machine sits amid the clutter of a busy desk, suggesting it belongs to someone constantly working, thinking of ways to bring about change. Suddenly, images appear — artists, creators, entrepreneurs, musicians, filmmakers and scientists caught in the middle of their creative process. Then come glimpses of their finished ideas, all of which began life on a Mac.
The group includes Bruce Strickrott, an ocean engineer documenting deep-sea discoveries; Ruchika Sachdeva, fashion designer and founder of Bodice; Alice Wong, a disability rights activist who created the Disability Visibility Project; and the team at AI and robotics company 1X Technologies.
These are no ordinary people. Those with disabilities are often underrepresented in publishing, journalism and popular culture. Wong used her MacBook Pro to found the Disability Visibility Project — building a website, creating a brand identity and recruiting participants through social media. Unable to speak, she relies on the Spoken Content accessibility feature to have her Mac voice her thoughts. She also uses Mail and Zoom daily to champion people with disabilities.
Consider the contribution of 1X. Its mission: to give people more time to do what they love. That idea led the company to build helpful humanoids for the home. With the aid of the MacBook Air, NEO was born — a robot companion capable of handling essential household tasks. NEO was designed using Figma, CAD, VS Code and Magnet, making the Mac the brain behind the brains at 1X.
To bring her fashion-forward concept to life, Ruchika Sachdeva turned to iMac. Her creation, Bodice, is a modern fashion brand for Indian working women that draws on Indigenous designs of the past. From collecting references in Adobe Photoshop to building early mood boards in Keynote and collaborating with her team over Zoom, Sachdeva trusts Mac to make Bodice stand out from the couture clutter.
Since 1996, the Mac has been integral to ocean engineer Bruce Strickrott’s explorations. As chief pilot of Alvin, a three-person submersible, he uses Keynote and iMovie to document discoveries and deliver presentations worldwide on the ocean’s impact on people and the planet. He relies on his MacBook Pro as his mobile office, editing suite and entertainment centre on expeditions that can last a month or more.
Goodall has long been close to Apple. She appeared in its 1998 ‘Think Different’ campaign, created after Steve Jobs returned to the company and rehired Chiat/Day, the agency from Apple’s glory days. The result was a memorable campaign showing “what we stand for and who our heroes are”, as Jobs put it.
The campaign included a video and a series of print ads and billboards, each focused on a single individual — a black-and-white portrait accompanied only by the words Think different and the Apple logo. Jobs admired Goodall’s work and considered it an honour when she agreed to be featured. He donated large numbers of Apple computers to charities and organisations chosen by participants or their estates.
On Apple TV, the series Jane follows a nine-year-old budding environmentalist on a quest to save endangered animals. Using her powerful imagination, Jane takes her best friends, David and Greybeard the chimpanzee, on epic adventures to protect wildlife. It draws on the words of her hero Jane Goodall: “Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help, can they be saved.”
