Apple: things that you may want to know

• Apart from nano -- which, as a replacement for the best-selling iPod mini, is a major move for the company -- Apple's cupboard is fairly bare. It is a low point in the product cycle, with much of the behind-the-scenes work focusing on the Intel-based computers due next summer. But new iPods are on the way, and Jobs promises "a lot of new things in the pipeline".

This relative downtime is giving Jobs a chance to promote Apple itself, and the company's wider beliefs. It is an important time: while the long-standing computer business remains just as important as the newer focus on music -- he wonders whether anyone would ask which of his children was more important to him -- it is clear that Apple is changing.

Lifestyle brand

At the centre of it all, Apple is now a lifestyle brand, rather than a technology company. Each iPod comes inscribed with the words "designed in California", a seemingly throwaway statement that gives a fundamental insight into the company's outlook.

The message is straightforward: we are innovators, we are cool, we are friendly. It's an extended new age mantra that betrays Apple's west coast roots and has proved crucial to its image -- both good and bad -- over the years.

SHREWD POLITICIAN

"Music companies make more money when they sell a song on iTunes than when they sell a CD," Jobs says. "If they want to raise prices, it's because they're greedy. If the price goes up, people turn back to piracy -- and everybody loses."