There is so much Information about Jobs’s vision for Next—and today’s Apple as well—packed into the first five minutes, I find it mind-boggling that so many industry experts and especially competing CEOs still don’t understand it.

He says that not only does he want Next to be perceived as a company that’s not just in it for the money, it also has to be this company. This is something so very few companies understand as they strive to shape the public’s image of themselves; at heart they don’t believe that they have to live this image.

This video only reinforces my opinion of Apple as being the first and prime No-Bullshit Company of our time and it’s the reason why I have so few reservations to giving them my hard-earned money.

Ok… forget my snarky comment from before. What a good insight into a great leader.

While it really focuses on Jobs, it made me wish we could learn more about the rest of this team. Sure, there’s documentation about them. But they sound like an interesting bunch, as a group.

It’s also interesting to think about the ebbs and flows of “educational technology”. Apple had a strong focus on education, at different points in its history. NeXT did indeed have a foot in academia (as did Silicon Graphics). Since Jobs’s return to Apple, “education” has meant diverse things, for Apple. Including programs to sell laptops (and, later, tablets) in bulk to K-12 schools. At the same time, the Apple Education Consultant Program (AECP) is near forgotten. With the potential exception of iTunes U, Apple’s presence on college and university campuses tends to be limited to individual hardware purchases.

Since Jobs’s departure from the company (and, then, from life), “education” has taken yet another turn.

Some of this was pre-announced in Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography, especially in relation to textbook publishing (including iBooks Author, last January). The expected release of the “iPad mini” might go in the same line.

But what about Apple’s other educational efforts? Is Apple following Negroponte’s “One (Device) Per Child” vision? Is the “iPad mini” a take on the XOXO? Are students of all ages going to be more than passive consumers of eBooks? While Negroponte’s approach had many flaws, his (and Papert’s) approach to learnable computing has a lot of merit in the future of educational technology.

Among things I wish Apple could release, during an education-related announcement:

A revitalisation of the AECP. An expansion of online learning initiatives beyond iTunes U and iBooks Author (for instance through a “Learning Management System” which goes beyond individual courses) Maybe even something to replace iWeb?- More tools to help students create their own learning experiences (say, a “learnable programming” environment) Significant updates to Apple software like iWork, which could become especially useful in learning contexts (and could respond to Microsoft’s efforts). An emphasis on collaboration and sharing would make sense. Since iWork.com went away, the value of Apple’s productivity suite has decreased.

Call it wishful thinking but I do hope Apple can do more in the education sphere than bulk “iPad mini” purchases, eBooks, and podcasts.