Apple announced this morning that the Beatles catalog is now available on iTunes. That’s right, Apple’s homepage and the iTunes Store were taken over yesterday to tease the release of the Beatles catalog in iTunes.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the Beatles. I don’t really enjoy listening to their music, I’d rather spend my time listening to something a little less 1960’s. But, they are arguably the most iconic band in the history of music.

Jim Dalrymple wrote a nice piece about the announcement for The Loop. I especially love this bit:

If this was 2005 and the Beatles came out on iTunes, I’d be so excited. But it’s 2010 and we’ve been through so many false starts about the band coming to iTunes, it’s kind of anti-climatic.

I’ve spent the past couple of hours trying to figure out why Apple would hype this like they did. Last night Mike Davidson speculated that the reason it got a homepage spot is because it meant so much to Steve Jobs. This could be the case, but I think Marco Arment nailed it:

Also: Major Apple promotion may have been one of the negotiation terms required to GET the Beatles on iTunes.

It all makes sense now. And, at the very least we won’t have to hear anymore Beatles joke-speculation before every single Apple event.