Few people knew what to expect when the lights dimmed on Apple’s highly-anticipated press event Wednesday. The rumors that ran rampant prior to the event scarcely scratched the surface of what turned out to be an extremely iPod-focused affair. Steve Jobs announced new iterations of the iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, and iPod Touch, as well as taking the wraps off iTunes 10, which will integrate an interesting social networking feature called Ping into their music service. The rumors did manage to predict the second generation of Apple TV, which should start making in-roads into the cable market when it releases next month.

With all this fanfare, iPad owners could be excused for believing that they had been left in the dust entirely.

The details were few and far between, but they were there. While the iPad is being temporarily left  in the lurch as it concerns iOS 4.1, Steve Jobs announced that the iPad would be brought up to speed in November, when it receives the iOS 4.2 update alongside its iPod Touch and iPhone cousins. Some of the wilder speculations about what would be included in this update seem unfounded, but the addition of multitasking, wireless printing, and wireless streaming of music, movies, and photos should more thoroughly flesh out the iPad experience. And contrary to prior reports, the update will be free.

Perhaps the most intriguing addition, however, is Game Center, which is coming to the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad. Like the Xbox Live service on video game consoles, Game Center will act as a social dashboard for gaming on iOS. You’ll be able to track what games your friends are playing, utilize player-to-player matchmaking, and accrue achievements across multiple games.

As if the prospect of multiplayer gaming on the iPad weren’t intriguing in its own right, they also released a free tech demo called Epic Citadel. Created in just eight weeks by a small group of Epic Games programmers, Epic Citadel is far and away the most visually stunning thing we’ve ever seen rendered on the iPad. Granted, it’s just a passive world to explore with no actual gameplay or inhabitants to slowdown the performance, but when you see the brilliant-looking engine on the big iPad screen, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was an Xbox 360 game.

Epic Games President Mark Rein was serious when he told an industry panel that he wants to bring Triple-A games to the iPad platform, and Epic Citadel is the proof in the pudding.