Craig is the best thing about WWDC 
Personally I think this year could be exciting. I don’t remember a time that we’ve known so little about an upcoming iOS or OSX release as this year, so fingers crossed there’s some excitkng software to wake up to tomorrow!!
Interesting insider info from a verified Foxconn worker on reddit:
Discontinuing MacBook Air pretends to be shocked.gif
I just hope that the actually properly test software before releasing it for a change, the last few releases of both iOS and OS X have been buggy pieces of crap for me.
But then again I probably don’t care as I suspect the new shiny MacOS won’t run on my Mid 2012 15" MacBook Pro anyway, or if it does it will be operationally crippled in such a way as to try and prompt the purchase of a machine.
I’ll watch them if I’m able to do so, either live or afterwards, but the excitement isn’t there anymore.
Part of it comes down to the different approaches between Jobs and Cook, another part is almost everything is leaked or speculated for weeks/months in advance and it’s nothing more than a tick in a list of things we think will happen. I remember the days of HOLY CRAP THIS IS AMAZING WHAT A SURPRISE I LOVE THIS FEATURE. Now it’s “I heard this may be a thing and it’s good it’s happening”.
You can even see the changes in audience reactions. It used to be lots of cheering and amazement, the last WWDC or iPhone release (I forget which) you could feel the awkwardness with the polite clapping.
Shame about the MacBook Air, from my experience it’s one of the most reliable systems Apple produces. Still popular in education as well, mainly because no other Mac fits within a price bracket suitable for most education budgets.
There’s no doubt that Cook is no Jobs, but I think he tends to be underestimated. There are thousands of MBA holding, business as usual, ‘shareholder value’ type CEOs out there and Jobs could have had any dozen of them. Apple was far too important to him to have left it in the hands of one of those guys.
Not saying this applies to you Sue, but a lot of people here who discount him seem to be saying that Jobs was a visionary genius who somehow managed, after studying succession carefully including looking to Disney as a great example of a business that prospered after the death of its founding visionary, to completely stuff it up and leave it in the hands of some supply chain numpty who only cares about the bottom line. Based on Apple’s performance and in spite of the lack of excitement of late, which disappoints me as much as anyone, it just seems to be unsupportable position. Jobs was too smart and cared too much to have done that and Cook would never have been in that position at Apple if that’s all he ha going for him.
It’s very difficult to imagine Jobs appointing someone who would ditch a brilliant person because he was a career threat. That’s something a man-child like Drumpf would do; Cook shows no signs of being an easily threatened toddler. No, anyone in a C level position at Apple knows they have to negotiate the challenging path of allowing the next Jobs to come up if and when s/he arrives. They all need successors too and making sure you’ve got a good replacement is part of your job at that level. I heard that Forstall was very divisive and that refusing to take responsibility for the Maps debacle was the hill he died on. If he’s any good we will hear from him again.
Apple would kill for a great keynote speaker again. They would have put up with heaps of shit from Forstall if he was that guy because it would have been worth it. It looks like he must have been pretty toxic.
This times 100 for education. They need to update it, its still very popular and its the only MacBook I can recommend to people. The end of the Air will be the end of Macs in education.
Its only discontinued according to one rumour. Bloomberg suggests a spec bump.
On a brighter note -
Spoilers
Macbooks (Air and other) are already dead in the education here in NZ they are far too expensive to buy and maintain. Schools have replaced them with Chromebooks which they can buy several of for the price of one Macbook - and they integrate into the Google infrasrtucture which almost every school here use.
Gone are the days of young impressionable minds seeing the Apple logo day in and day out at school and associating that with computers/education/IT - now they see the Google logo and are very likely to use their products and services by default.
I have already seen this happen in 90-95% of the schools whose IT infrastructure I support and I’m hearing the same thing from It people throughout the country.
This will of course not worry Apple as they will still think they can get that market later but I suspect on 10 years time things will be markedly different once these school children become the young and up and coming of the future
Not really… he was in a position that suited his talents. Jobs had to find someone he thought would be able to do the job as he saw it ought to be done, and at first, it seemed like thats exactly what was happening. It isnt, now. And really it could not be. Nobody can BE Steve Jobs, and nobody would have exactly the same vision as Jobs. But I dont see Tim Cook being “visionary” at all. From out here it looks like he passed a lot of decisionmaking to Sir Jony and others. Perhaps I am wrong, but thats what it looks like to me.
Airs are still in education where I work, but if the Airs go then the Macs will go all together, as Chromebooks are cheaper than Macs and so much more flexible and manageable than iPads.
Have you ever thought that Job chose Cook because he was good at the supply chain, but was not a threat to the immortality of Steve’s reputation?
Anyway, a file manager for iOS would show Apple is actually listening to some of its best customers, something that hasn’t happened for a while.
It can get rid of the MBA if it drops the price of the MacBook to that of the MBA and adds a port.
The MB is inferior in literally every way to the MBA (besides thinness and the screen) and doesn’t fill the general purpose laptop role very well. Less battery life, less robust, no MagSafe, lack of ports, no SD card reader, slower etc. It is a great 'ultimate thinness/executive laptop, and a beautiful piece of engineering, but its not for a lot of people and it makes no sense for education. They should rename it the MacBook Air and the MacBook Air should be renamed MacBook as those are the roles each should fill.
Good points there Oldmacs.
A new AppleTV with a small screen which acts as an assistant in a box… also with a built in speaker… for $800
Lol sorry I got fired up 
I’m a bit passionate.
The two iOS leaks from tonight are exciting, hopefully tomorrow morning is exciting!
They can ditch the headphone jack tbh and add a second USB C port. More than enough given the base MBP has two USB C ports 
Just woke up, and Santa Clause has come seven months early. I will watch the keynote tonight. It must have been good. Real good.
Now to find $3600 for the iMac I would like.
For the first time ever, I want everything that was announced.
Watching now, but I read the macrumors live blog first to see if I wanted to bother… and I did. The OS updates look pretty good.
Is the iMac Pro something which may signify the death knell of the Mac Pro?