Apple ended the day at $74.17, down 3 cents. A 0.04% drop in price. Surprising after the spate of good news that came out just this past Tuesday, new iPod announcements, music being sold through iTunes Music Store, and the new iTV being shown off.

However Apple's price steadily spiked leading up to the announcement due to rumors about all of the above, which always take a little wind out of the sales for Apple right after a product release. The price of the stock pre-figured in the good news. Also today Microsoft stole some of Apple's attention with a formal announcement about the Zune, the former 'iPod killer,' although you still can't actually order one yet, it should be ready for the winter sales run.

I've pointed out that Apple's ability to negotiate with movie industry executives to be able to allow iTunes Music Store to carry videos will be key in Apple's plans to continue making the iPod the hippest media device around. Macminute points out an article that confirms that Lions Gate Entertainment has plans to offer movies through iTunes, as well as MovieLink and Cinema Now, and this will happen before the end of the year. At that point, will we see a name change? ITMS could go from iTunes Music Store to iTunes Media Store.

This places the iPod in a crucial place. The iPod is the storage center for an increasing ecosphere of iPod-enabled objects. From cars to computers to soon TVs, putting Apple at the top of pyramid of media devices. There is no resting on laurels here, the moment someone stops someone else can step up. We saw this happen when Apple snapped the lead away from Creative.

There are some less-than-positive pieces to this piece of good news for Apple. Unlike with the music offerings, Apple doesn't have exclusivity in its movie offerings, so customers will have a wide variety of services to choose to try. This works in the customers' favor, but Apple won't have the easy edge it snagged before. Secondly, Apple is supposedly choosing a rental approach for the movies.

I think the second issues will have the greatest impact. Are customers ready to pay but not get to keep the media around? Certainly in the past online customers haven't seemed too excited about the idea of this, can even Apple's hype change the average consumers mind? It will probably depend on the price.

Tobias Buckell is a freelance blogger, futurist, and author who grew up in the Caribbean. He owns shares in Apple.