Apple’s iPad Mini videos: design philosophy, psychedelic consumerism

In case you’ve just got back from a vast, desolate wilderness without access to any sources of information — the iPad Mini launched last night. With it come two fresh videos from Apple.

The first is typical Apple fare. A variety of executives pontificating on the device from a room so white it can only be heaven, gorgeous product shots and ridiculously good looking people using the iDevice.

Jony Ive also reprises his role as designer cum genius tech philosopher. Apparently the iPad Mini is a “concentration of, not a reduction of” the full iPad experience. In Apple land, that’s what cramming bits and pieces of the iPad 2 into a smaller shell with slightly narrower edges means. Apparently.

The second video concerns the new Smart Cover, which Apple is very keen you know about.

This time there’s no talking, but the piano music — along with the dancing, colour-changing Smart Cover clad iPad Minis — means that this ad could just as easily be a psychedelic comment on the childish narcissism inherent in post modern capitalism.