As I write, Apple fans around the world are slavering over the impending launch of the company’s tablet device. And I’m sure they’re right to be excited – it’s bound to be gorgeous. But it’s unlikely to be the most significant thing that happens today in San Francisco.

Wired magazine, perhaps with some insider knowledge, has an interesting take on this. What’s really important is not the hardware, but what it’s likely to herald in the way of changes to media as we know it.

There have been tablet devices around for years. Yes, Apple’s will be prettier. Yes, the technology has advanced somewhat. And no, it won’t be crippled by trying to run bloatware like Windows 7. Yet, for all the sexiness of the machine, this will be as nothing compared to the way the media world will shift on its axis.

We know that Apple is in negotiations with book, magazine and newspaper publishers. We pretty much know that one function of the tablet – iSlate, iPad or whatever it ends up being called – is as an e-reader. But that’s still to concentrate on the hardware. The tablet will be more than just another – albeit somewhat larger – e-book reader.

Apple has done this kind of thing before. The iPod is not just an MP3 player. It is the hardware part of a music ecosystem. The iTunes software and iTunes Music Stores are every bit as important – arguably more important – than the cute device in terms of the changes the iPod made in how music is distributed, bought and consumed.

Microsoft has been trying to flog tablet computers for a while now, by teaming up with the likes of HP. But it failed to give us a compelling reason to buy one. That’s what Apple can do.

With iTunes, Apple integrated the whole process of buying and listening to music into a seamless, one-click experience. If it produces an iTunes equivalent for magazines and books, then that may prove the final tipping point for digital media.

This is because it opens the way, not just to buy books easily, like you can with, say, the Kindle. Apple’s adoption of technologies like HTML5, paves the way for whole new forms of media. And just as HTML5 is one of the major technologies giving rise to a new breed of hybrid applications, which live partly on your machine and partly on the web, so it may provide a mechanism to invent a new form of media – not quite a web page, not quite a magazine.

Imagine your favourite magazine being delivered automatically to your tablet (the way iTunes currently picks up my favourite podcasts). But it’s not just the text and pictures you’re used to: it has embedded video, animations and links. And it’s updated regularly. And maybe you don’t buy the whole magazine, but just your favourite sections – much as I currently download my favourite bits of Radio 4.

The same could happen with books. They might be sold chapter-by-chapter, with embedded rich content. It might open the way for serials – just as Dickens used to publish his books in weekly parts. There will be a significant blurring of the boundaries between books and web content.

What’s more, all this will be available just a click away. With iTunes, Apple revolutionised the ease with which we can find and buy music. Everything you want is one easy search away. And with a click, it’s bought and on your device.

I’m not saying this will all happen today. But what we can be sure of is that the Apple announcement won’t just be about a nice bit of hardware.