So most of the buzz here is about the much-anticipated Mac Book Air - and it's a very impressive, very elegant slice of computer. But every Apple device has been applauded at launch, so we expected that. (And as at least one site had come up with the name Air already, maybe the industry is getting better at anticipating Apple's moves and extracting details from leaky parts of the Apple mothership.)
As a side note, the Steve Jobs keynote is a must - not just because of the announcements, but the art with which he delivers it. He is true master of his audience to an almost scary degree. It takes uncomfortable, lip-biting moments like when Apple TV failed to display Flickr photos to remind us that this is all live - and it took Jobs just three seconds to think of a shareholder-assuring line that blamed Flickr's servers for the fault and not Apple's product.
The most interesting part is Apple's pushing deeper into content with its film rental deal.
Apple has been dropping out of favour as the trend for DRM-free music takes off, and record companies resentful of Apple's dominant market share had started looking to rivals, like Amazon. But despite complaints across the industry that music companies don't see enough of the iTunes Store revenues, Apple has managed to bring in all six major film labels, and more, in a very convincing stab at easy, accessible film downloads.
20th Century Fox chief executive Jim Gianopulos
This is truly the end of the CD era. Films were the missing link in Apple's download-centric content offering, and nobody expressed the situation better than 20th Century Fox chief executive Jim Gianopulos.
He didn't hint at whether the "no-brainer" decision had included weighing up the complaints of the music industry; instead he said: "There was music, and then there was the iPod. Then there were phones, and then there was the iPhone. This will be the transformative version of the rental model."
He added that video on demand will continue in other ways - and managed to plant another flag for the Blu-Ray format as the likely future of hard-format HD.
So here's the offering: films to rent through the iTunes store, through the iPhone and through Apple TV - and watchable on computer, iPhone and through your TV via Apple TV. Details like being able to transfer from one to another mid-film really make this work.
Gianopulos said he has two objectives for his films: to make great movies, and to get them to as many people as possible in as many ways as possible. Consumers want choice, easy access, convenience, control over when and where they watch and portability, he said. iTunes film rentals will offer 1,000 films by the end of February, but if we look back at this development at the end of the year we could see this as the moment when Hollywood finally caught up, caught on and went digital.
The walled garden principle, that a manufacturer or content provider tries to lock you in their own, proprietary system, rarely appeals to consumers. But Apple manages to provide such a compelling offer within that walled garden that we forget what is over the wall. I'll keep looking over the wall regularly, but I haven't seen anything to tempt me outside yet.
