Where's the beef? Steve may be vegan (heck, so are we), but that's hardly an excuse; we bet there are a heckuva lotta Mac fanatics pulling a Clara Peller right about now. Is it just us, or did that Stevenote seem... well, a little light on surprises, relatively speaking? There was no "one more thing," not even one as anticlimactic as last summer's iDVD 2. The big announcement was the new flat-screen iMac, but every Mac-using sentient being with a pulse knew that was a sure thing-- even before Time Magazine signed its own death warrant last night, which we'll get to later. And nothing against iPhoto, of course, which looks positively spiffing, but again, the rumor addicts already had that classified as a lock. About the only part that actually surprised us (since we received a divine waxy build-up about that "Mac OS X as default operating system" a week before Christmas) was the introduction of a new iBook model with a 14-inch screen.

But here's the real difference between this keynote let-down and, for instance, the one last summer: whereas last time the rumor mill raised expectations too high (at least we were prepared for reality back then), this time Apple has no one to blame but itself. When faced with unprecedented levels of hype, were we unreasonable to expect unprecedented levels of shock and amazement? Were we wrong to think that Apple's own assertion that these announcements would be "way beyond the rumors sites" meant something other than iBook price drops, the shipping of an image-editing application that the rumor mill has been talking about for months now, and the unveiling of a G4-based flat-screen iMac that most people expected six months ago?

Don't get us wrong-- we're pretty happy with the announcements made today. Finally, Apple has really and truly eliminated the CRT from its product line, and the iMac has graduated to G4 status and even has a pretty affordable SuperDrive option. iBooks (which were already great values) are now even cheaper, and those of you with weaker eyes can avoid the squints by ponying up for the model with the 14-inch screen. Apple finally has an iApp that brings the elegance of the Mac experience to digital cameras, and with iPhoto's wonderful ability to allow users to order prints and even hardbound books of their digital snapshots, it may just prove to be a killer app. Heck, even without all that good stuff, Steve's two, count 'em, two snarky comments about Photoshop's continued absence from the Mac OS X Hit Parade would have made it a thumbs-up event in our book.

But that still doesn't excuse the way that Apple hyped this show to the stars and then gave us a reality hovering maybe four feet above sea level. Seriously, what was it about today's presentation that was supposed to shock and awe us so? The fact that the iWalk (gasp!) didn't ship? The way that Steve and Jon Ive have apparently come to the unimpeachable conclusion that what consumers want more than anything else in this world is a computer that looks like a desk lamp? What? Maybe Steve was so flustered by the Great Time Press Leak that he just plumb forgot to announce his "one more thing": that the articulated display arm of the new iMacs are perfectly integrated with iTunes and can groove to the music like one of those dancing Coke cans. We can but hope.