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Forget the iPhone (you might as well, you are not going to see one for at least nine months). Forget the AppleTV, or whatever it is called. Actually, before you do that, refer to p17 in the 5 August 2005 issue of MacUser and see how closely I predicted that very product in this column all that time ago. I get these things right about as often as Steve Jobs admits he is wrong or that he knew that fellow board members have been up to no good for that matter, so I'm going to take the opportunity to crow about it.

Back already? Surely not. Go on, read it again - it is well worth it. OK, now forget the AppleTV.

Neither of these two products was even close to being the most significant announcement of Jobs' keynote. The most significant statement was almost tossed in casually, perhaps in the hope that amid all the hoopla surrounding the phone, no one would notice. It was the final confirmation that, three months short of the 30th anniversary of its incorporation, and at a critical moment in its history, Apple is no longer a computer company. Now, you may think it has not been a computer company for some time, but Apple Computer Inc is now officially dead, to be replaced by the slimmer, fitter, sexier and much more flexible Apple Inc.

On its own, that may not seem like much, but together with the other significant change in this year's keynote, it is a watershed. Has there ever beena keynote at a Macworld Expo where an Apple CEO took to the stage and did not announce a new Mac, demonstrate a Mac running the next version of the operating system, or even some new Mac software? Yes, there was a bit of huff and puff at the

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beginning about the Intel transition, and the phone does run the Mac OS, but that does not change the fact that it seems, for the forseeable future at least, that the Mac is very much in the back seat at Apple. Remember, too, that the last major Jobs event in the autumn was all about the iPod, iTunes and the TV thing.

Where was the mooted quad-core Mac Pro? What about iLife '07 and iWork '07. And what about the opportunity to show the world just how much better Leopard is than Vista, just as Microsoft is getting ready to ship retail versions of its new operating system? It is perhaps understandable that Jobs, having spent two and a half years working on the iPhone, would want to make sure nothing detracted from the publicity it would receive. But if that is the case, why mention the AppleTV? Or, given the fact that it is six months away from shipping, why not wait a couple of months and host a special event? Maybe the answer lies in announcements from a few miles up the road in the Nevada desert where Nokia, Sony Eriksson et al were unveiling their latest mobile phones.

Jobs' speech would have set Las Vegas alight had it been made at the Consumer Electronics Show, but despite the whooping of a few idiots in the audience, it seemed strangely out of place at a Macworld keynote. Strangely out of place from a company that seemed to be chasing a larger share of the PC market with renewed vigour - and some success. And strangely out of place from a man who, according to a former senior Apple sales manager, once told senior managers at Disney that the reason its animated films did so badly at the box office was because they were not made on Macs.

It is true that the rate at which Apple made the transition to Intel and then swiftly upgraded to Core 2 Duo last year was incredible, but if it does not now do the same every time Intel produces a new Core 2 chip, as it did at the beginning of January with the quad-core version, that momentum will soon be lost. Except for the MacBook, Apple has not produced a new case design for its Macs since it launched the Mac mini two years ago and the cases of the Mac Pro and MacBook Pro, arguably its two most important machines, are looking decidedly long in the tooth.