Apple’s first original TV show, “Planet of Apps,” premiered its first episode this week.
The show is essentially “Shark Tank” for app developers. They pitch their ideas to a roster of celebrity judges with the end goal of raising money from VC firm Lightspeed Ventures.
Reviews of the first episode have been far from flattering, and now the show is in hot water for running a promotion on Friday featuring one of its contestants, Andrew Kemendo, that says he barely sees his kids because of his app development.
“For the ultimate reward, he’ll put everything on the line,” the official “Planet of the Apps” Twitter account wrote on Friday. The “reward” that’s referenced is a potential investment of a few million dollars by Lightspeed Ventures, the first investor in Snapchat.
The founder and CEO of work chat tool Basecamp, Jason Fried, screenshotted the tweet before it was deleted from the "Planet of the Apps" account:
Pathetic… even Apple is promoting workaholism now. Check out this ad for their Planet Of The Apps show. pic.twitter.com/PKn30pWWgn
— Jason Fried (@jasonfried) June 9, 2017
Others joined in criticizing the ad:
I wonder if Apple would run an ad with a female founder saying this. 🤔@planetoftheapps pic.twitter.com/breJb3m0hv
— Esther Crawford 💫 (@EstherCrawford) June 9, 2017
planet of the apps is a complete disaster. here's a deleted tweet pic.twitter.com/jAHJANBq0w
— William Turton (@WilliamTurton) June 9, 2017
Glad this got deleted, but really surprised it was posted in the first place. pic.twitter.com/Pxy6EJVSoc
— Matt Bischoff @ WWDC (@mb) June 9, 2017
"my family? who cares. me love apps."https://t.co/XI3rWW94PR pic.twitter.com/6PeXRvjYTV
— ಠ_ಠ (@MikeIsaac) June 9, 2017
We've reached out to Apple for comment to confirm that the ad has been pulled.
