SAUCY APPLE REVEAL THEIR STROKE OF GENIUS

As bitch-tits lady-haired rocker Meatloaf never sang: "two out of four aint bad". Last night's post promised a wonderland of intuitive, interactive, functional, feature-packed and foam-inducing iPods. As usual the DG didnt fail to deliver.

So, this afternoon (UK-time) the "Jobs with the Toys" laid out his stall:

* He got ringtones for his iPhones ... whatever
* He got Nanos .... they've got video on 'em, but I've got fingers like a donkey's fifth leg so, hey, I'll pass
* He whacking a beef injection into my iPod (a pocket-rocketing 160gig!) and re-naming the faithful beast as "iPod classic" ... still to this day ahead of its time, but now resigned to history ... poetic

Then it happens. I hear a drum beat. It echoes in my head. The 21st century comes to life in a way that Marty McFly could only dream of. 88 miles an hour? Screw you McFly, where we're going, we don't need scroll-wheels.

My iPod's just gone full-screen. Where my finger used to get dizzy going round-and-round like a kid on a fibre-glass grinning horse, I've now got finger "Tr-action Force" TM (that's mine, I've patented it ... screw you InfoSync). I got Wi-Fi, I got wirefree iTunes downloads, I got an album-art caoursel, I got mini-Mac OSX ... all in a silver sliver the size of - and as cool as - a 1930's cigarello case, and with no mobile contract handcuffs. In multimedia consumption-terms, this is a cultural gear shift akin to the communications evolution that saw the telegram phased out in favour of the home phone, the letter scurnched up in favour of the email, the simple conversation replaced by the text message. It's an incredible - not unexpected, but incredible and welcome - step-change in the way we will consume media on the move.

All this is a hugely canny business play by Apple. Just three months ago, Jobs - resplendent in black polo-neck and trousers-to-match (looking like he could either serve you up a skinny wet latte, or lay out a roadmap for the future of the broadcast, music and computing industry), announced a multi-million dollar "exclusive" deal with AT&T for the iPhone, which not only included a whopping up-front payment, but a revenue-share snatch too. Then followed reports (signed, though still officially un-confirmed) of three European operators (across three seperate countries - UK, France and Germany) keen to retain (or boost) their credibility (and potentially also lift non-iphone sales with the Apple "halo" effect while they're at it) who hurridly wrote cheques for millions of notes made out to Mr S Jobs and Co, in order to bag his little bag of tricks. But now AT&T are already battling the hackers in vain (completely unlocked - ie SIM free - iphones are going for between 460 and 650gbp on Ebay ... one master hacker - all of 20-odd years old - has even been given a job by one of AT&T's rivals as a strategic consultant). The Euro operators will have the same fight on their hands ... only now it'll be an even tougher business nut to crack, what with the challenge of, er, itself (sans phone) on the market.

With tidy multi-million dollar and euro deals all sown up with the US and European mobile operators, Apple have delivered their "hah-hah jack-in-the-box strategy" to ensure the whole world (not just customers of certain mobile operators) can start stroking their screens. The 21st century iPod generation will not just consist of die-hard Apple-ites who'd follow Jobs over the cliff screaming i'll switch my network for you Stevieeeeeeee ... thud'.

Apple have played the network operators for a blinder. Good luck to those who wrote the cheques.