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When Apple announced their smorgasbord of product refreshes last week, the first thing I did was order a Mac mini. Okay, that’s just a reflex, but after that was taken care of, I started to think; something is different, and I don’t like it. I’m fairly certain the source of my mild dissatisfaction with the recent announcements stemmed from the absence of that Steve Jobs touch.

Tuesday, March 2nd, just wasn’t as much fun as it could or should have been. I woke up to the Apple Store being down, and I saw a bunch of new products. I ordered a new machine, and called it a day. I know I’m not the only one who thought it was a little weird that Apple refreshed at least 7 products without having a special event. Steve Jobs would have made a day of it. Sure, I bought a Mac mini anyway, but that had been decided months ago. What happened to inviting the press? What happened to the anticipation? What happened to Apple making me feel as though I need all of their new products regardless of whether I actually do. I never got that feeling of “Oh I need that and I’m not sure why.”

No, instead, Apple decided to confuse us all. They quietly refreshed a ridiculous number of their products without any sort of announcement other than a typed-up press release. And then, to make matters worse, have you seen the store pages for the iMacs, Mac Minis or Mac Pros? They’re confusing. There are four base configurations of iMacs. What!? Four? Why? I thought Apple was all about simplicity. How about two? One for each screen size. Then, just have us build to order upgrades.

And the Mac mini. Apparently, for $200, the only upgrades you receive are an extra 200GB of HDD space and an extra GB of RAM. Well, that’s not completely true, but you really have to search to find out that the higher end model has an extra 128MB of graphics memory. I still think it’s a bit overpriced. Can’t you knock an extra $100 off of it, Apple?

I have to say though, it seems Steve had his hand in on this at least a little bit. Did you notice the new keyboard that comes default with new iMacs? Fewer buttons buttons, a sure sign of Jobs.

I’m certain these are all great products, but that’s because I trust Apple, not because they’ve done a great job of explaining what is so much better about all of this. Let this be a lesson, Apple. Stick with what works. Send out invitations to the press and tell us all why we need to empty our accounts at the Apple Store. We’d really appreciate that.

I can’t wait for Steve to come back…though my wallet probably can.