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Apple: All sizzle and no steak

• Maggie Shiels
• 10 Sep 09, 10:05 GMT

In Scotland, we have another way of putting it: "fur coat and nae knickers." And that's what Apple's "Only Rock 'n' Roll" event boiled down to.

Sure, there was a video camera for the iPod Nano and a voice recorder, pedometer and FM radio. There were some price reductions and a bigger iPod Touch at 32 and 64 gigabytes.

For iTunes, there was some nifty software and a feature that lets you buy liner notes, lyrics, photographs and memorabilia - the equivalent of those old LPs Mr Jobs made fond reference to.

Oh, and let's not forget 30,000 ringtones.

But most of the press, analysts and guests were really there to see Apple's own rock star make his first big appearance following a medical leave of absence: Mr Jobs was treated for pancreatic cancer in 2004.

The hype and second-guessing beforehand was feverish, but there was little doubt that he had to turn up given how the market has reacted in the past to the merest hint of him having the sniffles.

And he didn't keep us in suspense for long, taking charge from the start. Mr Jobs sounded emotional when he talked about his liver transplant and said that he was able to stand in front of us thanks to the generosity of a 20-year-old who died in a car crash.

While he soon got down to business, there was a lot of flash bang but not much whizz. Given that the iPod is now nine years old, perhaps it's understandable. After all, what more can Apple make it do? Have it make you a cup of tea?

Accompanying these iterative upgrades was a plethora of stats: 100 million registered iTunes users; 220 million iPods sold; 8.5 billion songs sold; 1.8 billion app downloads.

But nothing really detracted from the main news: Steve Jobs was back centre-stage and running the show.

Remember, this is a man who could well afford to put his feet up and move on from the stress of running a multi-billion dollar company, but who told us: "I'm back at Apple and loving every day of it."

While this might be reason enough, the pressure is on. Analysts I spoke to were disappointed by the product announcements and hoped that the famed "Apple tablet" will appear in the new year and set the heather on fire.

Meanwhile, Apple will jealously guard its boss from the prying eyes of us in the media. Every time I, or another journalist, pointed a camera in the direction of Mr Jobs to get a more "intimate" post-show snap of the boss chatting to his execs and guests, a burly chap in a black shirt would "happen" to block the shot.

On a side note, Google CEO Eric Schmidt watched the presentation from the front row, evidence perhaps of no hard feelings after his departure from the Apple board.

I don't know how some big-name tech companies felt, though, because I know of two big firms and one smaller one that moved their own press events because they knew that all eyes were on Mr Jobs. And they sure didn't want to play second fiddle there.

And for the traditional "one last thing", we got the delightful Norah Jones to serenade us - and she got a kiss from Mr Jobs.

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