They came from across Europe, the scruffy techies, the well-heeled IT crowd and the suits. The atmosphere of expectation rivalled that of a first night, the buzz of continental languages punctuated by London vowels and Californian drawl.

But if the eager experts and technophiles were keen to find out what Steve Jobs and Apple had in store (and I do mean “in store”), their enthusiasm dwindled by comparison with that of their counterparts in San Francisco.

From the moment the huge screen, flanked by the two familiar luminous white Apples, showed Jobs taking the stage — an unassuming bespectacled figure in jeans, black sweatshirt and trainers — it was as if an evangelical lay preacher had arrived to address a willing congregation.

His appearance was greeted by whoops and wild applause; as the presentation continued, particular buzzwords triggered explosive bursts of excitement. “Ringtones” was a favourite; “gigabytes” was another, and when Jobs pulled the diminutive new iPod Nano from his jeans pocket the gasps of awe were almost orgasmic.

There was much talk of the “digital lifestyle”, and at times the level of sophistication on display seemed to my technophobic eyes more suited to a society of androids than to people.

Sure, Jobs uses homely language that might indicate how user-friendly all the kit is: everything, he assures us, is “really cool”, and we’re “gonna love it”.

He even downloads some Aretha Franklin and does some restrained geeky dad-dancing. But I couldn’t help longing for something to go horribly wrong, in vintage Tomorrow’s World-style, just to show there was a human element here; the iPod may be great for music, but Jobs and the Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz were more convincing when expressing their passion for what they called “aggressive roll-out”.

“We’re all searching for a community,” said Schultz, suggesting that in these alienated days that’s what Starbucks supplies. It’s a sobering thought. KT Tunstall supplied the evening’s musical finale — and, signally, its one technical cock-up when a piece of her equipment briefly failed. It was the best bit; and like the rest of the event it only reconfirmed my long-held conviction that however good technology gets, nothing beats the real, live thing.

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