Apple's advert shows why Big Tech just doesn't get it

SICKLY strip lighting flickers on in a grey concrete room as the strains of All I Ever Need is You by Sonny and Cher start up. Sculptures, TVs, books, musical instruments, beautiful paints and more are all neatly arranged gleaming objects sparkling with promise. That’s when the hydraulic press starts descending.

- Nick Clark

First to go is a trumpet, which crumples into an ugly tangle under the impossible pressure. A Space Invader arcade machine cracks and buckles next. TVs pop and fizz, camera lenses shatter until with a final splurt of paint and poof of coloured dust that hydraulic press hits the floor. It raises again to reveal… ta-da: a new iPad. Supposedly, the idea behind Apple’s big new release was all about celebrating culture. The visual metaphor being that all the cool stuff you just saw squidged into dust, and what it represents — music, games, TV — is packed into this (itself very flat) bit of kit. The noise made by the cratered piano was less tone deaf.