All I want for Christmas is a City time machine

Are smartphones fuelling a pandemic of youthful anxiety and depression? That’s the question parents will wrestle with this Christmas as their offspring clamour for the latest Samsung or Huawei. And the answer seems to be yes: these must-have accessories are corroding the nature of human interaction for the next generation — but the young can’t live without them, so we’d better get used to it. And that gives rise to an even trickier yuletide dilemma: what of the previous generation? Is there a digital device that’s safe to pop under the tree for an elderly relative?

The solution, I suggest, is the iPad. Not the iPad Pro — with more power than anyone who’s not a Hollywood film editor and part-time nuclear physicist could possibly need — but the basic £300 model that techies will tell you passed its sales peak five years ago, swept aside by the smartphone surge. Yesterday’s fashion it may be, but it’s also a timeless example of its maker Apple’s philosophy of simplified, intuitive design.