Remember John Lennon’s famous quip that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus?

Well, now Steve Jobs is bigger than the Beatles, says music-industry pundit Bob Lefsetz.

“Steve Jobs’ appearance today is the biggest story in the world,” he wrote today.

“What kind of crazy, fucked-up world do we live in where the biggest rock star doesn’t even play an instrument? I don’t know if you were online at 10 A.M. (1 P.M. on the east coast), but a roar was heard on the Internet louder than any audience explosion ever noted on a dB meter.  Steve Jobs hit the stage!”

Lefsetz has banged on about Jobs being a rock star before, but he is absolutely right.

Who’s heard a peep all day about the Beatles? It’s all been about Steve Jobs. And that’s because Apple has got someting new and fresh and honest, while the music industry is once again repackaging something old, something “that meant something once,” Lefsetz says.

Go read the whole thing.

Why doesn’t the new iPod touch have a camera? And why can’t the nano take still pictures? Steve Jobs gave David Pogue of the New York Times some answers…

While it’s great news that Steve Jobs is “vertical,” CultofMac’s readers are in revolt over the lack of a camera in the new iPod touch. One reader is even threatening to buy a Microsoft Zune.

“That pretty much seals the deal for me to go to Zune,” says reader Joan. “Darn, and I thought that Apple would have blown Zune’s top off today.”

Reader Miguel writes that he will not be upgrading his iPod Touch. “Big disappointment from Apple,” he says. “Hopefully they include it next year or before that.”

Why didn’t Apple upgrade the iPod touch with a camera? Here at CoM we suspect it’s the last-minute manufacturing glitches that were rumored to have delayed the new devices. After all, convincing photographs of a prototype, camera-equipped touch have been circulating, and case manufacturers are betting heavily that the iPod would get a backside camera.

CoM writer Giles Turnbull suspects it’s only a temporary manufacturing delay. Apple will add cameras as soon as the factories are ready.

Says Giles: “I think it’s coming, possibly sooner than people think. It’s madness to have a camera at the top end and bottom end and not in the middle, so common sense suggests it will be added to the touch as soon as manufacturing facilities can be secured for it.”

New leaked photos of iPod cases hint Apple may reveal a new feature: cameras. That appears to be the suggestion from supposed first pictures of iPods Cupertino is expected to announced later today.

The photos from Asian iPod accessories maker Cygnette show an iPod touch case with a lens on the reverse and what Gadget Lab surmises as a “dedicated shutter release” button. The iPod nano images show a taller device.

The veracity of the images are in question with some reports cautioning the pictures could have been Photoshopped combinations of previous iPhone and iPod cases. However, we include the photos and a link to Cygnette for you to decide.

[Via Gadget Lab and Cygnette]

The Pogoplug from CloudEngines looks like a boring power adapter, but it’s a fantastic little gizmo that turns any USB hard drive into your own little cloud server accessible over the Internet.

Just stick a router and USB hard drive into the $99 Pogoplug, plug it into the wall and baboom — instant cloud. Which means I can dump my important files and media onto a drive, and as long as I’m online, I can access those files, anywhere, anytime.

Hit the jump for the full review.

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Apple has introduced a new system for controlling the way files are opened in Snow Leopard, and some users are very upset about it.

“Apple has made a huge, dumb mistake,” says Ross Carter, a developer whose application, Pagehand, is affected by the change.

We start the week with an intriguing goose-neck desktop lamp from iHome. Not only does it shine 60-watts of artificial illumination, it’ll pump up your morning with tunes from your iPod. The light/speaker is also a dock. If you’d like a bit more boom for your buck, check out iLive’s portable boombox. But if you just want to chill on this Labor Day (for Americans) you can always nab some App Store freebies from Apple.

Details on these bargains and many others (like a universal touch screen stylus) can always be found on CoM’s Daily Deals page.

All the icons for folders and apps in Snow Leopard are now drawn in glorious 512 x 512 pixels. It’s a step toward making the operating system resolution independent, and perhaps also to make Snow Leopard a touchscreen friendly OS.

But it’s also obviously done just for the art of it. These icons are real beauties. They are full of great details and little surprises. One icon contains the words to a song, visible only if you blow it up to its full size.

Hit the jump for a gallery of hardcore icon porn.

Twitter user livelovelight just posted this picture of Steve Jobs’ car in a handicapped spot at Apple’s campus. The snap was posted at 2.43 PST — about half an hour ago. Steve’s car is probably still there.

Forty minutes earlier, livelovelight tweated that he’d just missed Jobs: “At apple headquarters. Just missed steve jobs by 2 minutes,” he said.

Jobs is famous for parking in the handicapped spots (check out this hilarious gallery), but perhaps now he’s recovering from a liver transplant he has a genuine handicapped permit. I don’t see it hanging off the mirror though. He must have taken it with him.

And here he is talking to Jonny Ive. This picture was uploaded to Skitch about 33 minutes ago.

If Apple wanted to stand the world on its ear next Wednesday at the It’s Only Rock and Roll But We Like It event in San Francisco, the company would announce it is opening iPhone software development to all comers and is dropping the facade of exclusive distribution through the iTunes App Store.

Heresy, you say? Perhaps in the eyes of some, but read on to learn why those two moves would be best for the company, the platform, for developers and – most of all – consumers.