rogifan_old said: But then that signals the only difference is screen size which currently isn't true and I don't think will ever be true.
Does the lack of a name difference for the two sizes of iMac and MacBook Pro signal that the only thing different is screen size?
No and believe me I wish Apple's naming conventions were simpler but if all we had were iPhone and iPad as naming conventions but the larger sizes had different specs (outside of batteries) I could see that causing a lot of confusion and some annoyance that the larger screen gets better tech. We see that now with the annoyance that the 5.5" iPhone gets the better camera and the 9.7" iPad the better processor.
Honestly I think wherever Apple is using the same naming convention they should offer the same specs regardless of screen size unless there is a specific technical reason they can't (like thermal or battery issues). With the iMac and MacBook Pro it seems more about marketing and upselling than engineering reasons. Is OIS only available the 6 Plus because of technical reasons or because marketing is trying to upsell people to the more expensive iPhone? If it was up to me there would be iPad (7.9 and 9.7) with identical specs and an iPad Pro that was larger and more powerful. And I'd do the same with Apple's laptop line: rMB (maybe add a 14" model) and more powerful rMBP. The specs/BTO offerings would be the same for each line regardless of screen size. So your questions would be how much power, how many ports and what screen size do you need. But so long as Phil Schiller is obsessed with upselling we're going to get these muddled product lines and older models that hang around longer than they should purely to meet some price point or to get the consumer to spend that extra $50 or $100.
I don’t know how I feel about this design, but it’s certainly interesting. Can’t stand the idea of not having a hardware button, and rounded screen corners is idiotic (never mind perpetual bluetooth, camera, and orientation buttons to always be hitting accidentally). And don’t we have enough screen already?
I don't think it would mean more screen - just less bezel.
I'd really rather see SIGNIFICANT movements in ApplePay, CarPlay, and AppleTV. And Apple hitting the ball out of the park with its Enterprise solutions.
Everything mentioned here seems incremental at best.
Hire an SVP to run iCloud, Maps and Siri and then give Eddy Cue a clear mandate with iTunes, Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Pay. His job should be on the line if we don't see significant improvements in Apple's content businesses in 2016. iTunes is a big bloated mess and Apple Music still needs a lot of work. Jim Dalrymple is still badmouthing the product; just the other day he sent out a sarcastic tweet about Taylor Swift "owning" Apple now as she's plastered all over Apple Music.
I also hope Phil Schiller taking over all of App Store is about more than where someone sits on an org chart. I love my iPad Pro and use it every day. I would hate to see that product languish or fail because developers don't feel it's worth their time or effort to develop for it. This is a case where Apple needs to be a bit more humble and not just assume if they build it everyone will develop for it. Rene Ritchie was on John Gruber's most recent podcast and he made some comments that indicated software engineers inside Apple know there need to be more improvements with iOS on iPad Pro (especially who used with the keyboard) so I'm cautiously optimistic some improvements will be announced at WWDC.
Yeah well I'm just calling it as I see it. The rMB wasn't introduced to be killed a year later and if the MBA was hanging around long term it would have gone retina and got the new trackpads. Once you throw a retina screen into the Air what's the point of the 13" Pro? The way I see it, the Pros will get closer to the Airs in terms of weight and thickness and the rMB will become more powerful and the price will come down. Once that happens Apple can kill the Air line, or leave one of them around just for educational purchases. I'm not convinced the rMB will gain a second port though. Yes we know what happened with the MBA but considering that happened yet Apple still chose to release the rMB with one port tells me they want it to be a wireless machine as much as possible. Also if the Pros do become lighter then the choice for those who need more ports will be easy.
This is pretty much how I see it too, MBP gets more like MBA size/weight, renders MBA redundant, rMB is the new "Air" line (thin, light weight, wireless exactly as you say). What wouldn't surprise me a bit, then, is that they release a new "Air" line and it becomes the first machines to sport an A-series chip, but it doesn't run OS X, it runs a non-touch version of iOS. They don't have to displace Intel in their current line of Intel-based hardware, just make iOS more sophisticated (as they are doing each year) so it can handle non-touch input (think: tvOS as first, rudimentary non-touch iOS version) and start rolling out new lines with non-touch iOS and A-series chips and see where it takes them. This is the game changer with which they could surprise us at WWDC.
What would a non-touch version of iOS consist of and how would it be preferable to OS X (other than the difficulty of porting OS X apps to ARM)? My concern would be introducing a lot of complexity and Microsoft will just say we have one OS that scales across all screen sizes and here's Apple with touch iOS, non-touch iOS, OS X, tvOS, watchOS and who knows what else in the future - some are pushing for an iPad specific OS, could CarPlay turn into carOS etc.
iTunes the concept remains valid, they just need to stop dicking around with the UI. Why can’t I resize my artwork? I went to the trouble of finding artwork that would look good on retina displays for a REASON. I’d like to see it bigger on my Macs, too. Why isn’t there a UI for lyrics in iOS (anymore) or OS X?
Why is Music in iOS so horrible? Some of us have local libraries, Apple. Some of us don’t care to live in your fantasy world where everything is downloaded on demand. I don’t care what was recently added. Don’t force me to see it. And on that point, why isn’t there setting parity between iOS and OS X across the board?
Oh, know what would be nice? For the alarms we set in iOS to go off in OS X on synced computers. “Hey, Siri, remind me to [whatever] in [amount of time],” and then I’m upstairs away from my phone and boom, I’m notified on my laptop, too.
iTunes is a big bloated mess. What does music have to do with apps and what do either of those have to do with device syncing or installing new versions of an OS? Apple Music should never have been bolted on to iTunes. It should have been a separate app and should have been the impetus for finally blowing up iTunes once and for all, Windows be damned.
I would love a bigger iPod Touch (5.5 inch), I think there is a huge market for that. The iPad mini is just way too big to carry around every single day (in a bag that you also have to carry around) and it's just not versatile enough, ie: you can't take it out in the middle of the street to take a photo or look up music.
Also, a thinner MacBook Pro OR bigger MacBook/MacBook Air. And bring back the 17 inches laptops whatever you call them
I would love a bigger iPod Touch (5.5 inch), I think there is a huge market for that. The iPad mini is just way too big to carry around every single day (in a bag that you also have to carry around) and it's just not versatile enough, ie: you can't take it out in the middle of the street to take a photo or look up music.
Also, a thinner MacBook Pro OR bigger MacBook/MacBook Air. And bring back the 17 inches laptops whatever you call them
I second that. Have the iPod mirror the sizes of the iPhone.
Having said that. I do understand Apple's business logic of promoting the iPhone over the iPod because of the monthly dataplan fee.
The Beats headphones are to be replaced with the revolutionary iPod headphones.
I somehow wish the iPod to evolve to Siri operated headphones. It'd be cool to charge your iPod headphones through the lightning port of your iPhone. A couple of minutes would suffice for a day's charge. Music storage would be in the headphones. So, no streaming. Saves the battery.
iTunes the concept remains valid, they just need to stop dicking around with the UI. Why can’t I resize my artwork? I went to the trouble of finding artwork that would look good on retina displays for a REASON. I’d like to see it bigger on my Macs, too. Why isn’t there a UI for lyrics in iOS (anymore) or OS X?
Why is Music in iOS so horrible? Some of us have local libraries, Apple. Some of us don’t care to live in your fantasy world where everything is downloaded on demand. I don’t care what was recently added. Don’t force me to see it. And on that point, why isn’t there setting parity between iOS and OS X across the board?
Oh, know what would be nice? For the alarms we set in iOS to go off in OS X on synced computers. “Hey, Siri, remind me to [whatever] in [amount of time],” and then I’m upstairs away from my phone and boom, I’m notified on my laptop, too.
iTunes is a big bloated mess. What does music have to do with apps and what do either of those have to do with device syncing or installing new versions of an OS? Apple Music should never have been bolted on to iTunes. It should have been a separate app and should have been the impetus for finally blowing up iTunes once and for all, Windows be damned.
I would go further and say that iTunes as a method of connecting to the stores is working well, but iTunes in regards it's (original) purpose or maintaining, organising and editing a local library of media content is basically complete abandonware.
Apple is literally driving all it's customers who don't buy into the cloud, to Plex. They have essentially given up on the local iTunes library metaphor and local storage of content completely.
The average iTunes user now has literally almost no control over local content and the local database, and the new Apple TV no longer displays any of the meta information the local user has added to their files. There is no real control over genres, or art work and iTunes in the cloud is pretty much constantly at odds with what is contained in your local library. There are constant errors between what you actually purchased and what iTunes says you purchased, and between what you have on your local drive and what iTunes thinks you have on your local drive. I've troubleshot many of these errors with Apple and the only solution (and the one they push the most of course) is to give up on the local library and only stream from the cloud.
Remember when we used to talk about whether Apple will ever get a good deal from the content rights holders and when iTunes will have *all* the stuff in it? Well it's happened and this is the price that Apple had to pay. They had to agree to f*ck over all the local content users who have been buying stuff legally in iTunes for the past decade or so. They had to agree that all content is basically just "rented" from the rights holders in the cloud and no real physical copies must exist in the hands of the user.
A line is being drawn underneath iTunes as a local content media storage/database, even though Apple has steadfastly refused to say this explicitly or even discuss it with end users. "Owning" content (and storing it locally) is officially done. People just haven't twigged to it yet.
Does the lack of a name difference for the two sizes of iMac and MacBook Pro signal that the only thing different is screen size?
No and believe me I wish Apple's naming conventions were simpler but if all we had were iPhone and iPad as naming conventions but the larger sizes had different specs (outside of batteries) I could see that causing a lot of confusion and some annoyance that the larger screen gets better tech. We see that now with the annoyance that the 5.5" iPhone gets the better camera and the 9.7" iPad the better processor.
Honestly I think wherever Apple is using the same naming convention they should offer the same specs regardless of screen size unless there is a specific technical reason they can't (like thermal or battery issues). With the iMac and MacBook Pro it seems more about marketing and upselling than engineering reasons. Is OIS only available the 6 Plus because of technical reasons or because marketing is trying to upsell people to the more expensive iPhone? If it was up to me there would be iPad (7.9 and 9.7) with identical specs and an iPad Pro that was larger and more powerful. And I'd do the same with Apple's laptop line: rMB (maybe add a 14" model) and more powerful rMBP. The specs/BTO offerings would be the same for each line regardless of screen size. So your questions would be how much power, how many ports and what screen size do you need. But so long as Phil Schiller is obsessed with upselling we're going to get these muddled product lines and older models that hang around longer than they should purely to meet some price point or to get the consumer to spend that extra $50 or $100.
There's a couple of valid ways Apple could go with their laptop lines:
First is, as you say, MBA is dead man walking, and you have the following:
I'd really rather see SIGNIFICANT movements in ApplePay, CarPlay, and AppleTV. And Apple hitting the ball out of the park with its Enterprise solutions.
Everything mentioned here seems incremental at best.
Hire an SVP to run iCloud, Maps and Siri and then give Eddy Cue a clear mandate with iTunes, Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Pay. His job should be on the line if we don't see significant improvements in Apple's content businesses in 2016. iTunes is a big bloated mess and Apple Music still needs a lot of work. Jim Dalrymple is still badmouthing the product; just the other day he sent out a sarcastic tweet about Taylor Swift "owning" Apple now as she's plastered all over Apple Music.
I also hope Phil Schiller taking over all of App Store is about more than where someone sits on an org chart. I love my iPad Pro and use it every day. I would hate to see that product languish or fail because developers don't feel it's worth their time or effort to develop for it. This is a case where Apple needs to be a bit more humble and not just assume if they build it everyone will develop for it. Rene Ritchie was on John Gruber's most recent podcast and he made some comments that indicated software engineers inside Apple know there need to be more improvements with iOS on iPad Pro (especially who used with the keyboard) so I'm cautiously optimistic some improvements will be announced at WWDC.
"give Eddy Cue a clear mandate with iTunes, Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Pay"
Also, don't forget he'd have the mandate to run the iWork, iMovie, Photos, GarageBand, FCPX, LPX - unless you think Apple should reintroduce the SVP for Applications, which they used to have. But I generally agree that Eddy Cue is starting to become a weak link.
I would love a bigger iPod Touch (5.5 inch), I think there is a huge market for that. The iPad mini is just way too big to carry around every single day (in a bag that you also have to carry around) and it's just not versatile enough, ie: you can't take it out in the middle of the street to take a photo or look up music.
Define "huge". From the numbers reported by Apple's quarterly results, I don't think there's even a huge market for the iPod Touch, let alone a "huge" subset for a bigger-sized one. As prices on phones come down, and kids are getting phones younger and younger, and parents are passing down their old iPhones to their youngest kids when they upgrade, the iPod Touch is becoming less and less relevant. Plus, with Apple's "hand-off" and device integration technologies, a larger Touch could threaten Apple's phone business, since a customer could buy a cheaper Touch rather than upgrading their phones, to use with their older iPhones and wifi calling. I expect a larger capacity 256GB Touch would go a long way toward making legacy iPod users happy, but if anything, they'd want the device to be smaller rather than larger -- since the focus is as a portable off-line music player. But honestly, I have a hard time imagining Apple will ever again upgrade the Touch again, and will quietly discontinue it, just like the Classic sometime during the 7S release. I'd say the entire iPod line might go away, except there is some value to an inexpensive ultra-portable music player. I expect to see a merger of the nano and shuffle when the prices can be dropped a lot more, for a Bluetooth/wifi device that can be synchronized with iCloud and Apple Music. Beyond that, there's the more expensive Watch, and the iPhone that serve the same purpose. What I can see instead is Apple offering the iPhone models with similar cellular plans to the iPads. In other words, buy the iPhone Plus, but with an activate as needed plan. One price for an actual phone number, another price for a data only connection. This makes the iPod Touch more expensive, but it gives the Touch users the better features of the iPhone that they most likely want, and the option for cellular. That way Touch customers can chose which level and features they want -- the entry-level iPhone with 3 year old tech, or the most expensive flagship with the latest features. And who knows, if there really is a substantial market for Touch customers, Apple might even offer a model of each iPhone without the cellular radio just like the iPad, which would certainly be cheaper than maintaining a completely separate product line.
No and believe me I wish Apple's naming conventions were simpler but if all we had were iPhone and iPad as naming conventions but the larger sizes had different specs (outside of batteries) I could see that causing a lot of confusion and some annoyance that the larger screen gets better tech. We see that now with the annoyance that the 5.5" iPhone gets the better camera and the 9.7" iPad the better processor.
Honestly I think wherever Apple is using the same naming convention they should offer the same specs regardless of screen size unless there is a specific technical reason they can't (like thermal or battery issues). With the iMac and MacBook Pro it seems more about marketing and upselling than engineering reasons. Is OIS only available the 6 Plus because of technical reasons or because marketing is trying to upsell people to the more expensive iPhone? If it was up to me there would be iPad (7.9 and 9.7) with identical specs and an iPad Pro that was larger and more powerful. And I'd do the same with Apple's laptop line: rMB (maybe add a 14" model) and more powerful rMBP. The specs/BTO offerings would be the same for each line regardless of screen size. So your questions would be how much power, how many ports and what screen size do you need. But so long as Phil Schiller is obsessed with upselling we're going to get these muddled product lines and older models that hang around longer than they should purely to meet some price point or to get the consumer to spend that extra $50 or $100.
There's a couple of valid ways Apple could go with their laptop lines:
First is, as you say, MBA is dead man walking, and you have the following:
That's possible though I have a feeling if the MBA was sticking around it would have received the new trackpad. Both the 13" and 15" rMBPs did even though they didn't get a redesign.
I would love a bigger iPod Touch (5.5 inch), I think there is a huge market for that. The iPad mini is just way too big to carry around every single day (in a bag that you also have to carry around) and it's just not versatile enough, ie: you can't take it out in the middle of the street to take a photo or look up music.
Define "huge". From the numbers reported by Apple's quarterly results, I don't think there's even a huge market for the iPod Touch, let alone a "huge" subset for a bigger-sized one. As prices on phones come down, and kids are getting phones younger and younger, and parents are passing down their old iPhones to their youngest kids when they upgrade, the iPod Touch is becoming less and less relevant. Plus, with Apple's "hand-off" and device integration technologies, a larger Touch could threaten Apple's phone business, since a customer could buy a cheaper Touch rather than upgrading their phones, to use with their older iPhones and wifi calling. I expect a larger capacity 256GB Touch would go a long way toward making legacy iPod users happy, but if anything, they'd want the device to be smaller rather than larger -- since the focus is as a portable off-line music player. But honestly, I have a hard time imagining Apple will ever again upgrade the Touch again, and will quietly discontinue it, just like the Classic sometime during the 7S release. I'd say the entire iPod line might go away, except there is some value to an inexpensive ultra-portable music player. I expect to see a merger of the nano and shuffle when the prices can be dropped a lot more, for a Bluetooth/wifi device that can be synchronized with iCloud and Apple Music. Beyond that, there's the more expensive Watch, and the iPhone that serve the same purpose. What I can see instead is Apple offering the iPhone models with similar cellular plans to the iPads. In other words, buy the iPhone Plus, but with an activate as needed plan. One price for an actual phone number, another price for a data only connection. This makes the iPod Touch more expensive, but it gives the Touch users the better features of the iPhone that they most likely want, and the option for cellular. That way Touch customers can chose which level and features they want -- the entry-level iPhone with 3 year old tech, or the most expensive flagship with the latest features. And who knows, if there really is a substantial market for Touch customers, Apple might even offer a model of each iPhone without the cellular radio just like the iPad, which would certainly be cheaper than maintaining a completely separate product line.
Not to repeat myself (reply 68), but I see the iPod evolve into a headset. Especially since Apple is planning to drop the headphone jack in favour of the Lightning port.
Hire an SVP to run iCloud, Maps and Siri and then give Eddy Cue a clear mandate with iTunes, Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Pay. His job should be on the line if we don't see significant improvements in Apple's content businesses in 2016. iTunes is a big bloated mess and Apple Music still needs a lot of work. Jim Dalrymple is still badmouthing the product; just the other day he sent out a sarcastic tweet about Taylor Swift "owning" Apple now as she's plastered all over Apple Music.
I also hope Phil Schiller taking over all of App Store is about more than where someone sits on an org chart. I love my iPad Pro and use it every day. I would hate to see that product languish or fail because developers don't feel it's worth their time or effort to develop for it. This is a case where Apple needs to be a bit more humble and not just assume if they build it everyone will develop for it. Rene Ritchie was on John Gruber's most recent podcast and he made some comments that indicated software engineers inside Apple know there need to be more improvements with iOS on iPad Pro (especially who used with the keyboard) so I'm cautiously optimistic some improvements will be announced at WWDC.
"give Eddy Cue a clear mandate with iTunes, Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Pay"
Also, don't forget he'd have the mandate to run the iWork, iMovie, Photos, GarageBand, FCPX, LPX - unless you think Apple should reintroduce the SVP for Applications, which they used to have. But I generally agree that Eddy Cue is starting to become a weak link.
Honestly I think whoever owns those apps under Eddy should be moved under Craig Federighi or even this new cloud SVP I'm advocating. Somebody with more real software chops than Eddy. And another thing I forgot to mention under Cue's org is Apple News. And that just brings up more of his less than stellar work...Newsstand and that news magazine The Daily were both failures. I'd be curious to know how frequently iOS users use the News app. I'll admit with Facebook and Twitter and plain old Safari I don't use the app much. I'm not exactly sure what Apple's purpose was in creating it (other than a way to get rid of newsstand) and I see it being difficult to get traction (just like Connect within Apple Music) because it's another place people have to go and they're going to use Facebook (and in some cases Twitter) anyway.
What does music have to do with apps and what do either of those have to do with device syncing or installing new versions of an OS?
They sync to the same place. iBooks already refuses to actually sync my content to my iDevices. You’d prefer getting seven applications that can’t talk to each other so that NO content gets to your devices?
Apple Music should never have been bolted on to iTunes.
Agreed fully. Some people will never use it and would prefer their Music app not to marginalize their actual music.
Apple should implement standard ports in all devices: Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 Type C (reversible) Generation 2.
Amen.
Also, regarding OS X, please, please, please don't let Ive use the white crayon. If anyone enjoys reading 3 point gray text on a white background, please kill yourself.
He's smart, but white is his achilles heel. Above all, I need to USE my devices and that means I need to be able to READ them. TEXT matters. Please use the space allotted and remember that we're all getting older.
Absolutely right. Also, bring back color labels and scroll arrowheads. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
I don’t know how I feel about this design, but it’s certainly interesting. Can’t stand the idea of not having a hardware button, and rounded screen corners is idiotic (never mind perpetual bluetooth, camera, and orientation buttons to always be hitting accidentally). And don’t we have enough screen already?
You do realize you are referring to some "concept" that has no basis in fact and no connection what so ever to Apple, don't you? And if you don't, do you always discuss fiction as if it were non-fiction?
The future of the iPhone is not expanding in the analog headphone market, so dropping the 3.5mm jack can happen. New iPhone 7 purchases can include Lightning EarPods and an analog adapter, and anyone complaining at that point will look like a Luddite. Square and others will be happy to sell you a new card reader.
the future is tight integration with all-digital systems: cars, home theater and security, and the like. No place for analog jacks.
Comments
Honestly I think wherever Apple is using the same naming convention they should offer the same specs regardless of screen size unless there is a specific technical reason they can't (like thermal or battery issues). With the iMac and MacBook Pro it seems more about marketing and upselling than engineering reasons. Is OIS only available the 6 Plus because of technical reasons or because marketing is trying to upsell people to the more expensive iPhone? If it was up to me there would be iPad (7.9 and 9.7) with identical specs and an iPad Pro that was larger and more powerful. And I'd do the same with Apple's laptop line: rMB (maybe add a 14" model) and more powerful rMBP. The specs/BTO offerings would be the same for each line regardless of screen size. So your questions would be how much power, how many ports and what screen size do you need. But so long as Phil Schiller is obsessed with upselling we're going to get these muddled product lines and older models that hang around longer than they should purely to meet some price point or to get the consumer to spend that extra $50 or $100.
I also hope Phil Schiller taking over all of App Store is about more than where someone sits on an org chart. I love my iPad Pro and use it every day. I would hate to see that product languish or fail because developers don't feel it's worth their time or effort to develop for it. This is a case where Apple needs to be a bit more humble and not just assume if they build it everyone will develop for it. Rene Ritchie was on John Gruber's most recent podcast and he made some comments that indicated software engineers inside Apple know there need to be more improvements with iOS on iPad Pro (especially who used with the keyboard) so I'm cautiously optimistic some improvements will be announced at WWDC.
Also, a thinner MacBook Pro OR bigger MacBook/MacBook Air.
And bring back the 17 inches laptops whatever you call them
Having said that. I do understand Apple's business logic of promoting the iPhone over the iPod because of the monthly dataplan fee.
The Beats headphones are to be replaced with the revolutionary iPod headphones.
I somehow wish the iPod to evolve to Siri operated headphones. It'd be cool to charge your iPod headphones through the lightning port of your iPhone. A couple of minutes would suffice for a day's charge. Music storage would be in the headphones. So, no streaming. Saves the battery.
Apple is literally driving all it's customers who don't buy into the cloud, to Plex. They have essentially given up on the local iTunes library metaphor and local storage of content completely.
The average iTunes user now has literally almost no control over local content and the local database, and the new Apple TV no longer displays any of the meta information the local user has added to their files. There is no real control over genres, or art work and iTunes in the cloud is pretty much constantly at odds with what is contained in your local library. There are constant errors between what you actually purchased and what iTunes says you purchased, and between what you have on your local drive and what iTunes thinks you have on your local drive. I've troubleshot many of these errors with Apple and the only solution (and the one they push the most of course) is to give up on the local library and only stream from the cloud.
Remember when we used to talk about whether Apple will ever get a good deal from the content rights holders and when iTunes will have *all* the stuff in it? Well it's happened and this is the price that Apple had to pay. They had to agree to f*ck over all the local content users who have been buying stuff legally in iTunes for the past decade or so. They had to agree that all content is basically just "rented" from the rights holders in the cloud and no real physical copies must exist in the hands of the user.
A line is being drawn underneath iTunes as a local content media storage/database, even though Apple has steadfastly refused to say this explicitly or even discuss it with end users. "Owning" content (and storing it locally) is officially done. People just haven't twigged to it yet.
First is, as you say, MBA is dead man walking, and you have the following:
rMB - 12" & possibly 14"
rMBP (new) - 13" & 15"
Second, laptop line with a revamped MBA:
rMB - 12"
MBA (new) - 13" & 15"
MBP (quad-core & discreet GPU options) - 15"
"give Eddy Cue a clear mandate with iTunes, Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Pay"
Also, don't forget he'd have the mandate to run the iWork, iMovie, Photos, GarageBand, FCPX, LPX - unless you think Apple should reintroduce the SVP for Applications, which they used to have. But I generally agree that Eddy Cue is starting to become a weak link.
Agreed fully. Some people will never use it and would prefer their Music app not to marginalize their actual music.
the future is tight integration with all-digital systems: cars, home theater and security, and the like. No place for analog jacks.