But the Apple TV as we know it may simply be a prelude. Rumors of a full-fledged Apple television set, complete with streaming content, have been flying for years now. But negotiating with content providers and existing distributors has proven difficult; having seen what happened to their counterparts in the music business, those companies have been decidedly leery.

At the moment, the saving grace for Apple in the living room is that none of its competitors have managed to gain much of a foothold there, either. But the company can't afford to not be a player in what is sure to be a contentious--and lucrative--market.

One thing's clear: In the near term, at least, the future of Apple's laptops seems to rest on the MacBook Air. The new MacBook Pro is the first of Apple's high-end line to adopt the Air's thinner, lighter design, but that change wasn't much of a surprise: Apple has long aimed to make its products ever-thinner, ever-lighter, and ever more powerful. The questions for MacBooks, Pro and Air alike, are how thin they can go and how affordable their solid state drives can get.

Apple has some decisions to make on the desktop side, too. The iMac hasn't seen a significant physical refresh since 2007. The Mac Pro infamously scored only earlier this year, after two years of stasis. Apple's biggest Mac sales growth is in laptops, but it's unlikely that the company would simply forsake the desktop market completely. The question is whether Apple can create compelling new hardware that transcends traditional product evolution.