While the retail stores themselves were obviously the big story at the press event in McLean, Apple's push into store-ownership wasn't the only thing on the agenda. Steve also announced that the new iBooks are now shipping in volume, and to mark that occasion, Apple has a new 60-second commercial in the vein of the popular "Concert" ad that was all the rage a few weeks back. Of course, if you're a TV junkie worthy of the name, you already know that-- because, like faithful viewers Stephen M. Sebeny and Jon Rousseau (and, of course, the AtAT staff), you've already seen it in the course of your standard Monday evening's televisual entertainment regimen.

Personally, we caught it during Boston Public-- we're not particularly crazy about the show, but on Monday nights we usually leave it on as a tube-warmer between syndicated reruns of The Simpsons and Everybody Loves Raymond. If you've been neglecting your couch potato duties, since the new 60-second spot isn't available yet from Apple's ads site, here's the gist: a Young Man In The Target Demographic (was it the guy from "Concert"? We weren't sure) is buying a plane ticket. The airline rep asks if he'd like a window or aisle seat; he replies, "Middle." She gives him a look, and books his ticket.

On the plane (which appears to be a red-eye overnight flight), the guy waits until his two neighbors are asleep, and then lowers his tray table from its full and upright position-- as well as the ones on either side. Onto his own center tray he deposits his iBook; his "overflow" trays are for the items that comprise his "digital lifestyle": a digital camera, a Handspring Visor, a DV camcorder, a portable MP3 player, and a huge stack of CDs. Soon the woman to his right wakes up, and he shows her the footage of his girlfriend that he's editing in iMovie. He's also listening to music via iTunes, and when the suit-clad gentleman to his left wakes up and stares at the pile of CDs on his tray, Demographic Guy offers to share his music and unplugs his headphones. The soulful strains of "Who Let The Dogs Out" then wakes the entire plane, Demographic Guy flashes a smile and a roll of Mentos, the other passengers then smile and shake their heads as if to say "darn kids today" instead of beating the tar out of him, and everyone lives happily ever after. The end.

Overall, we give it two thumbs up; there's a nice shot of the iBook and its relative shrimpiness, it really underscores the whole "hub of your digital lifestyle" message, and it should appeal to kids who aspire to nothing less than one day to wake up a whole cabin full of snoozing airline passengers by using the coolest technology on the market. Minor points off for reinforcing the idea that you'll still need three tray tables and a middle seat to actually do all that cool stuff on a plane; maybe the ad could have used more emphasis on "the iBook is really small" instead of "the iBook plus all the junk you can hook up to it is really unwieldy"-- for a second we thought he was going to connect a USB printer and scanner the next aisle over. And a quick tag at the end like "iBook. Starting at $1299." might have been prudent, since Apple finally has a price worth shouting from the rooftops. But these minor quibbles aside, we hereby declare Apple's latest ad to be the feel-good hit of the summer. Now let's see if it sells.

What do you mean, we imagined the Mentos part? But it's the Freshmaker!