I love The Beatles and am happy to see them . It's their music I play when I pick up my guitar and their tunes that often pop into my head-unbidden. I'm old enough to remember when the quartet was still a band, can recall with startling clarity the day John Lennon was shot, and was saddened when George Harrison succumbed to cancer. Their story and the musical legacy they've left behind (before breaking up in the early 70's) is stuff of legend. So why, after today's long-awaited announcement am I thinking, "Is that all there is?"

I blame Apple. Only the fruit-logoed company would have the hubris to make an "event" out a press release. Seriously, this is a paragraph-long announcement that Apple tried to turn into a mini event by promising us yesterday: "Tomorrow's just another day. That you'll never forget". Here's the headline: Apple Finally Gets The Beatles' Catalog. There are other meaty details, like a full back catalog boxed set for, $149 and access to all the music from the band's 13 studio albums. Apple has prettied up the whole thing with supporting video (a concert video from 1964 and a retrospective).

Don't get me wrong, Beatles fans, of which there are probably still millions, are over the moon right now. On the other hand, I'm sure the hardcore fans already have digitized Beatles music that they've either ripped themselves or downloaded off some illegal service.

It has taken Apple the better part of a decade to get this done, so I guess you can't blame them for making a big deal out of it, but such overhyping of small bit of news is what happens when you spend too much time talking amongst yourselves and not thinking about how the news might be perceived by the outside world.

When news of the announcement hit, the first rumor was that Apple would finally give in and offer an iTunes music subscription service. This is the typical kind of wishful thinking we get before every Apple announcement. The events are essentially like Rorschach tests wherein everyone sees some different possibility in the invite. Seriously, people pick apart the graphics and text looking for hidden messages. Sometimes those messages aren't hidden or even particularly subtleif it's a music event, for instance, there's a guitar. I spent some time trying to search the Web for the exact words Apple used to over-hype this news. Unfortunately, all the online news about the phrase "Tomorrow's just another day. You'll never forget" blotted out the sun on Google so all my results were for news stories and blog post written about the upcoming event.

In any case, that first rumor quickly gave way to leaks, the first of which appeared on the Wall Street Journal. Despite Apples' iron-fisted information control, this is happening more and more often. Most people I talked to believed the WSJ report. That's fine, but when a single announcement is all you have and now it's been leaked to everyone, all the air's been let out of your big announcement. As the morning wore on and I waited for Apple to make it official, I worried that Apple might not have anything else to say. "But that's ridiculous," I thought, "Apple has to announce something more. They wouldn't make us all stop work and queue up like this for a press release, would they?"

Apple would. Apple did.

Here's the problem, when you do this and everyone in the media (and possible the world) clamors to prepare for the big announcement only to find that a one paragraph e-mailed press release would have sufficed, the media may not be so apt to line up to hear you speak the next time. It's almost, but not quite, like the Tech Company that Cried Wolf.

Even just looking at the announcement on its own merits, one has to wonder if Apple is over-selling. The Beatles on iTunes might have been amazing 5 years ago, but how many people in the newest digital generation are into the Beatles today? My own nearly 16-year-old son hates The Beatles (heresy, I know), and it made me wonder if Apple may have misfired a bit with this little rollout. Probably not, but when someone oversells, it is worth considering.

In the end, Apple will reap the rewards of this "Beatles on iTunes" development. Many, many people will buy Beatles songs and the timingright before the holidayscould not be better for Apple, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the estates of George Harrison and John Lennon. One of the most popular gifts during any recent holiday season are iTunes gift cards. Just imagine how many will be for Beatles Music on iTunes.

So, yeah, I'm annoyed and wishing for more, but some part of me knows that, even here, Apple will winas it always doesthough I'm not so sure I want to be fooled again.