Disappointed

Like millions of other Apple aficionados, on Monday I watched the WWDC broadcast.

And like I do almost every time I watch one of these things lately, I came away disappointed.

While I am not in the market for a new Mac—and not a MacBook Air by any means—I was still very much looking forward to seeing the array of fun new colors that were supposedly slated for this major redesign of the iconic laptop.

With apple throwing a rainbow-hued paint bucked on the iMac last year, almost everyone was expecting them follow a similar design aesthetic and do the same thing—including white keyboards—with the new Air.

Sadly that did not happen.

What we got was the usual silver and space grey, with  two new colors: starlight (kind of a champaign gold) and midnight (a dark, dark navy that seems to border on black). While a new solid black would be welcome (anyone remember the black MacBook from years ago?), we didn't get that; nor did we get the expected white keyboards across the line.

I only half-listened to the presentations on iOS. It's not my focus. I don't hold nearly the amount of passion and engagement with my iPhone as I do with my Mac. It's a tool, nothing more.

And we got MacOS 13, also to be known as…

Ventura? Really? I know it's just a name and next year it will be something else, but with all the inspiring named locations in California you'd think they'd have gone with something a little more interesting. What's next? MacOS Oxnard?

I'll admit the default wallpaper is rather pretty.

I personally liked the name that had been floated prior to WWDC…

But I get it. Something lumbering and well, extinct (even though the name refers to Mammoth Lake (or maybe Mountain)—and not the long-dead mammal—isn't exactly the image Apple is trying to project.

Regardless of the name, some of the features and applications (to be honest, a lot of which are playing catch-up with Windows as well as Apple's own iOS) touted in Version 13 are interesting, but nothing that reached out and grabbed me, demanding "You need to install this beta NOW."

That said, will I upgrade when the final version becomes publicly available? Or even a late-stage beta on a separate partition? Of course I will. And I'll upgrade my iPhone to iOS16 when the final version is available as well (I don't mess around with betas on my phone)—even though I'll no doubt continue to utilize only a small fraction of what it's capable of doing.