Apple’s “exciting announcement from iTunes” was the availability of the Beatles’ music catalogue in the iTunes Store. No music streaming service, no subscription-based iTunes, no “iTunes in the Cloud”. It was “just” about the Beatles. Did hype take over our minds once again? Yes. But this time, Apple itself created the hype.

See, for as much as I love the Beatles and I’m sure many fans were waiting for their entire collection to be available on iTunes Store, you don’t change the whole Apple.com homepage stating that something “we’ll never forget” is about to happen and that something turns out to be the Beatles library. It was a bad PR move. Why? Because Apple is not a young and promising computer company that’s betting on an online music store anymore, it’s a mobile devices giant that successfully launched iTunes 10 years ago. They have a tremendous amount of hype to live up to. This move would have made sense 10 years ago, not today. For as much as the Beatles can be considered the most important band ever existed, changing Apple’s homepage for 24 hours to anticipate the release of the Beatles’ library in iTunes doesn’t make sense.

This is not an angry internet rant: I’m simply saying that considering Apple’s nature today, this looks like Steve Jobs’ wet little dream to feature his favorite band on the homepage of his company. They’ve been working on the deal for years, almost a decade. Indeed, I’m not saying I don’t care about the Beatles or the importance of their presence in the iTunes Store.

I’m just saying Apple screwed up on its own promotional strategy. And when it’s on the homepage, you don’t want to mess with people’s minds.

Now we can go back to waiting for iOS 4.2.