The fun thing about Apple product announcements is that even when most of the rumours turn out to be true, you'll normally get something completely unexpected. So it was a surprise to finally see a video iPod, after years of Steve Jobs saying 'no, we won't do that', and every rumour site insisting at every Apple Event that this time, oh this time, they'll launch it. It's finally here, and it's pretty much what everybody expected it to be; 320x240 video, capable of connecting to NTSC and PAL televisions, and coming in 30Gb and 60Gb versions. While I still can't see the appeal of the system to the majority (if you work in a city and take mass transit into work, then yes, this is great), it seems to have made many people happy.

The iMac G5 is lovely. The inbuilt webcam shows that Apple is serious about all this videoconferencing malarky with iChat (it'd be nice if Microsoft and Yahoo could get their act together and add video support to their applications, though). Possibly another reason why Mr. Ellis has decided to go back into the messageboard business.

The best part of the iMac is probably Front Row, which, from what I can tell, is what resulted after Apple finished laughing at Microsoft's Media Center applications. It's a TIVO module away from achieving everything you've ever dreamed about a media hub, and on the first attempt, too.

But, as all the coverage of the event indicates, the big news was the deal with ABC/Disney, allowing you to download ABC TV shows direct from iTunes (as long as you're American, of course). Again, 320x240, locked to five computers with FairPlay digital rights technology, and costing $1.99 per episode. Oh, and music videos too (UK conversion for the music videos and Pixar shorts is £1.89, which seems a trifle high). Buying a complete series this way is something of a rip-off ($44 versus a DVD set for about $10 extra, at a much higher resolution, bonus features, and hey, if you really want to, you can encode it for iPod viewing as well), but for the occasional purchase, it's not bad. iTunes 6 is a vast improvement over iTunes 5, in that it didn't junk my music library on the upgrade like the latter did, and now you can have video playlists! Even in fullscreen! This feature excites me, even if it's not exactly groundbreaking.

So, lots of shiny new stuff that looks great and I can't afford. Yay Apple!