Phil Schiller said in 2013 that “education is in Apple’s DNA,” and it’s no exaggeration. The company’s commitment to the education sector was there from the very beginning. Steve Jobs told the Smithsonian that he wanted to donate a computer to every school in the U.S. as long ago as 1979.
I thought if there was just one computer in every school, some of the kids would find it. It will change their life. We saw the rate at which this was happening and the rate at which the school bureaucracies were deciding to buy a computer for the school and it was real slow. We realized that a whole generation of kids was going to go through the school before they even got their first computer so we thought the kids can’t wait. We wanted to donate a computer to every school in America.
The company couldn’t afford it in those days, but Steve lobbied Congress to introduce a bill that would have created sufficient tax breaks to make it possible. That attempt failed, but Apple did succeed in brokering a tax deal in California that saw the company donate an Apple IIe to every school in California. Apple led the PC market in education for a time, and even created education-specific Mac models.
More recently, Apple appeared set to bring its educational success into the iPad era in 2013 when it announced a $30M deal (that would eventually have been worth a quarter of a billion dollars) to equip every student in the LA Unified School District with an iPad. If that program had succeeded, it would have created a template for rolling out similar ones across the whole of the USA. Instead, it failed catastrophically, and it now appears that Chromebooks are winning where iPads have failed …
CNBC reported last month that Chromebooks now make up more than half of all devices in U.S. classrooms, while Apple’s share of classroom purchases more than halved between 2012 and 2015. Why is that, and what – if anything – can Apple do to reverse the trend?
Below are the eight reasons I think Chromebooks are currently winning the battle, and in italics the steps I think Apple needs to take to address each …
1. The LAUSD disaster
There’s no other word to use to describe what happened to the LA deal. Well, there is, but the first part of that word is ‘cluster’ and the second part isn’t suitable for a family-friendly site. For those who don’t recall the details, here’s a summary I prepared earlier:
The first sign of trouble emerged when students managed to bypass the restrictions designed to ensure the devices could be used only for school work, but that was only the start. The LAUSD was accused of having miscalculated the cost of the program, resulting in its suspension and later abandonment.
Both the FBI and the SEC were called in to investigate allegations of corruption, and a federal review concluded that the entire project had been doomed from the start. Apple paid back the $4.2M it had received to date.
You’d have to be a pretty brave administrator to announce that, despite all that, you wanted to invest in the same deal.
Apple seems to have mostly kept its head down, with little sign of any public comment. I think this is the wrong approach. Apple needs to present a clear analysis of exactly what went wrong, how it happened, what parts were and weren’t Apple’s fault – and the steps it has taken to ensure the same thing can’t happen again. Only with that approach will school districts elsewhere regain confidence in investing in iPads.
2. Cost
iPads are relatively expensive devices. You might think schools would be offered deep discounts for purchasing in bulk, but instead they reportedly paid an additional $200 per device for the software and support package.
Chromebooks, in contrast, are cheap. One of the models offered to schools is the CTL J2, priced at $199, while Toshiba’s Chromebook 2 runs to $249.99, with a $30 management fee covering teacher-approved apps and books. Other models start from just $149.
Apple operates on the highest profit margins in the business on all its major products, and is of course perfectly entitled to do so: nobody is forcing anyone to buy Apple devices. But you’d have thought that a company that once gave products to schools free of charge when it was very much smaller might at least offer a deal at close to cost now that it can comfortably afford to do so.
Shareholders might object, but Tim Cook has stated on more than one occasion that Apple does what’s right, and any investor not happy with that should get out of the stock. I’d also argue that it doesn’t exactly hurt the company’s long-term prospects to introduce entire new generations of people to the Apple ecosystem from an early age.
3. Multi-user support
While one device per student is obviously the ideal, that’s an expensive approach no matter what the device. Many schools need to share devices between students, and that requires support for multiple users.
iPads have so far been single-user devices. Chromebooks have always been cloud-based and account-based, and thus intrinsically suited to multi-user setups. Every time someone logs into a Chromebook, it becomes their device.
Apple is finally addressing this soon in iOS 9.3, but really it should have happened a long time ago.
4. Control
Both iPads and Chromebooks are very nearly immune to viruses, so equally appealing in that respect, but Chromebooks offer schools greater levels of control.
With Chromebooks, student accounts are linked to the individual school, and the school gets full administrative control of what those accounts can and can’t do. iPads offer profiles that provide some degree of control (when kids don’t figure out how to bypass them), but this is an area where Apple needs to up its game.
Again, the changes seen in iOS 9.3 suggest that Apple is aware of this.
5. Apps
For the LAUSD program, Apple did a deal with Pearson to provide educational software and electronic textbooks pre-installed on the iPads. It’s unclear exactly what went wrong here, but teachers complained that the apps were unreliable and not fit for purpose.
Chromebooks, in contrast, come supplied with teacher-approved apps in addition to ad-free versions of the standard Google Apps suite and access to school-specific shared Google Drives, Calendars and documents. Google also provides a dedicated Classroom app designed to help teachers organize classes and communicate with students.
Whatever the root cause of the issues with the education apps, this is clearly something that Apple urgently needs to fix. See point 6.
6. Sales process
Google appears to have made it extremely easy for schools to purchase and setup Chromebooks for use in schools. Apple has a reputation for being great at selling direct to consumers, not so great at dealing with IT departments.
It strikes me that Apple’s IBM partnership could be the perfect vehicle for educational sales. IBM knows exactly how to sell to IT departments, and it also knows how to create bespoke apps for specific industries. Harnessing this expertise could solve problems five and six in a single stroke.
7. Hardware keyboards
We may be moving toward a world where keyboards are less important, and voice input comes more to the fore, but we’re not there yet. Even if we were, a school classroom is not a suitable environment for 30+ kids to all be dictating to their devices. Software keyboards are fine for brief notes, but not for things like writing essays.
So physical keyboards are needed, and Chromebooks have them as standard. The iPad Pro aside, Apple doesn’t have its own keyboard for iPads (something I’ve always felt was a huge missed opportunity), meaning that third-party ones have to be bought at extra cost – and separately negotiated. At the very least, Apple needs to bundle keyboards with education iPads.
8. iPads ‘walk’
The final problem with iPads is one Apple should be pleased to have: kids love them. One of the problems experienced in the LAUSD program was that a number of them mysteriously disappeared.
Apple obviously shouldn’t do anything to make its hardware less desirable, but it does need to address point four to ensure that a stolen iPad is a useless iPad when it comes to using it away from school premises.
Do you think Apple needs to prioritize the education market, even if it makes little direct profit doing so? Or should it cede the market to Chromebooks and focus on the more profitable consumer and business markets? Take our poll, and share your thoughts in the comments.
The intro to this piece drew on historical research from Hack Edu.
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All smart companies attract the youth, that will eventually turn into life long customers…i.e. McDonald’s Happy Meals. All smart companies attract the elderly because they influence the youth. Apple needs to develop, specific “simplified cost effective versions” of iPads and iPhones, for youth and elderly. These groups do not need all the bells and whistles that current products offer. That is a market nobody seems to care about… “former marketing Art Director”.
Yes!!!
No matter what .. APPLE has to regain its top position in the education market. (Cloud education tools is a fantastic direction.)
Lack of doing so will have devistating effects down the line.
Kids mindshare is uber important….
Lose the kids , lose the future!
Between chrome at schools and windows a the preferred serious gaming platform…Apple is losing a huge portion of kids mindshare !
Noticed confernaces and starbuks , halls and rooms packed with macbooks and apple logos?
These are the effects of the Mac vs Pc marketing with the cool kid as the front for apple …….. And apples dominance in schools..
People effected through those campaigns are the people in those halls and rooms.
Lose that focus Apple…and those Halls and rooms will be filled with logos other than Apple !
Keep in mind that Apple never had much of an education presence and their product lines are selling quite well in comparison to the other manufacturers. For instance many 8 year olds playing with a Dell computers in class 10 years ago are likely carrying around iPhones now.
The elderly has had a major influence in the past but it’s just not true for technology. The biggest, and possibly even the only, influence comes from kids not the elderly.
Having a ipad air with a smart keyboard and apple pencil support at a education discount would be a instant buy for a lot schools and boost sales of the ipad rapidly.
Agreed. While this could potentially dramatically reverse the declining iPad sales, it wouldn’t directly lead to increased profits if Apple is offering them with a substantial discount. Having said that, I think they should. Education is important and Apple is missing a big opportunity to “do the right thing” by letting it slip through and focus on profits. Apple makes plenty of profits already, and I say that as an investor.
Let chromebooks be classroom tools, kids dont want to own their school supplies. Being a classroom tool has “loser” stigma associated to it anyways.
If you really wanna study, you don’t need any tools. And that’s the case in India
Really? Build a School in the Cloud
http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud
Huge mistake for Apple on that one. Of course they had to give at minimum profit (or no profit at all) its products, no matter iPads or macs. Imagine several millions soon-to-be-workers having the free opportunity to get, study, play or whatever other activity they can do. In just 3 to 5 years they would’ve sold x3 devices and services to these same several millions. The potential is lost. Or they lose it slowly.
It’s only because of cost.
1.) Has nothing to do with Apple. You can have the same issue with any other device/software you buy.
3.) Most schools just give students a shared login anyway to get on the devices. There’s a unique login to use on a website to track progress at home.
4.) Profiles can greatly limit an iPad (if configured correctly). If a school administrator can’t figure it out, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.
5.) Apps. That’s laughable. Chromebook’s are literally nothing more then browsers. Open Safari (or even Chrome) on an iPad and you’ve got yourself a Chromebook.
6.) This ties back to cost. It’s easy to buy as many iPads as you want via VARs (like CDW). You can order a thousand and have it overnighted. The problem is that they’re difficult to get decent pricing. Someone ordering a thousand iPads would expect to get some discount, especially if they agree to buy more or agree to a plan to swap them out for newer models every couple years.
7.) You can use any keyboard you want with an iPad.
8.) Well lets just stop getting nice things into any schools, people tend to want to steal them!?
I have to agree with you on most of these. I work in education and 90% of the reason that most schools go with CB’s is cost. The other 10% has to do with the ease in which you can lock them down. Like you said it is basically just a web browser so all you have to do is use the school content filler to lock down anything you don’t want them to see or use. Most schools don’t have the vision to think about the overall product and all of the things that teachers and students could possibly want to do with them. 90% of what schools use CB’s for is paper writing nothing else. The vision just isn’t their yet, for most schools.
Rather a depressing insight.
That doesn’t always work, though. In my city, the school had locked down all the Chromebooks in exactly that manner by using the online content filter. Parents then complained and tried to sue the schools because kids could access a few inappropriate sites on those computers if they “rented” them and took them home.
Apple would be very foolish to ignore the educational market. Kids who grow up with Apple products now will be the same ones wanting to continue purchasing and using those Apple products when they become adults. Same with Google and Microsoft. Ignoring the educational base now essentially ensures that your future customers are growing up with your competition. It’s a long term investment.
Not counting the original Apple IIs that I played around with in elementary school my first computer was a Sony VAIO I got going into high school (parents didn’t want to spend the premium Macs commandeered during those years, late 90s). My first actual interaction with a Mac was an eMac my first year of college. 15minutes was all it took. Bought a new 12″ PowerBook G4 and have got sucked into that eco-system since.
Google Apps is fantastic. And as anyone in education knows, getting iPod and iPads set up year after year is not a fun or easy thing. The new iOS 9.3 update goes a long way to solving that. I say use the best solution whatever the platform, and right now Google Apps is the best solution for a lot of reasons. Google has been working on that for years and it works fine. Icloud is getting beter and iOS 9.3 is getting there for education, but Google has been up and running fine for a while now.
Overall great article. As far as cost goes, no way Apple prices iPad close to Chromebook levels.
From my understanding, Chromebooks are winning, first and foremost, due to ease of management and great collaboration within Google Docs. iOS 9.3 addresses the former, and hopefully Apple executes well on this. To address the Google Docs situation, the rumored March event would be a great time to introduce a serious upgrade to iWork to vastly improve its collaboration capabilities.
iWork already does everything that GDocs does, including collab, but better.
As an English teacher who uses his own iPad for notes and lessons (for display purposes only), I really do hope that Apple gets its act together and comes up with a substantive education program. Last year, I went to a Digital Educator’s Conference, and while most teachers brought their personal MacBooks, they all were using Google and Microsoft services. I have seen schools that use iPad at the primary, elementary, and secondary levels, with moderate success, but most (if not all) of them use Google services (Docs/Drive, etc.) due to Google’s collaboration tools. Our school (a high school) uses Lenovo Yoga ThinkPads with Office 365 subscriptions, and while Microsoft still needs to make their products more education-focused, I have found the OneDrive/Office ecosystem to be quite user-friendly when it comes to student submission and teacher grading of work. Via OneDrive and Office, I can read and grade essays and assignments on my iPad with no problem at all. (The same held true for Google Drive when we used that, too.) As much as the problem is hardware affordability, it’s also about a lack of platform/software that rivals Google’s and Microsoft’s offerings. Apple should build out iCloud Drive and turn it into a legitimate competitor to Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive/OneDrive for Business.
I also agree that Apple should bundle keyboards and Pencils with every iPad purchased for education. Most of my students either handwrite or type their notes into OneNote notebooks, which (thanks to OneNote shared notebooks) I as a teacher can check to make sure they’re getting the information they need. The fact that the iPad Pro is the only iPad with an Apple-produced keyboard and stylus is mindboggling; the iPad Air (and even older iPads) is the perfect size for notes and readings, despite what Apple might lead us to believe. Sure, the iPad Pro makes app multitasking a breeze, but students can do that with the iPad Air 2 and – when it’s realized – version 3. They don’t need the huge screen size; all they need are keyboards and a stylus. Similar to Microsoft and its Surface, Apple should bundle the keyboard and Pencil with every educational iPad and offer a reasonable cost for the package.
Again, I love using Apple products, but I agree – time to step up its involvement in education.
Many thanks for sharing your experience in such detail, Matt – it’s always great to get an inside perspective.
No problem! If ever there was the need out there for a tech EDU blogger, I’d have plenty of experiences to share with folks. :-)
And thankyou Lovebenjoy for being so humble and accepting :D
“Sure, the iPad Pro makes app multitasking a breeze, but students can do that with the iPad Air 2 and – when it’s realized – version 3.”
That’s a great point that you bring up and it would be smart if Apple brought Pencil support to the iPad Air 3
Maybe, they are too embarrassed to do it now, since pencil is campared to a stylus and that’s the reason
It really is true on the insight u’ve revealed. Apple recently and mostly on the Mac is more focused on hardware than anything else even their own ecosystem like iWork. On MS Word I can easily use scientific formulas like Sin ‘theta’, power, lambda etc but with Pages it’s not possible even after hours of Google research.. u’ve to buy a third party app, decades old outside the MacApp store after some jailbreaking like work
Lack of dedication to iWork is probably my #1 sore spot with Apple. :(
Similar is the case of mine particularly when u’ve to convince u’r elders
You’ve been Googling for the Greek alphabet support in Pages and never once thought about adding the Greek keyboard to iOS or OSX?
Yes there’s a keyboard in iOS as well as calculator
Anyone intelligent knows the ideal future school has iPads and an apple pencil for every student. Is this possible now? Of course not, it’s far too expensive. The fact remains though, that ideally you have a single iPad and that iPad has all of the textbooks digitally on it, it is locked to only being able to use those textbooks and certain specific other actions, when the teacher wants them available. The Apple pencil will be pivotal for everything done, test taking to art class. And there will no longer be any carrying around of homework, books, backpacks, highlighters, pencils, pens, etc.. Everything will seamlessly go to a student’s Apple ID which could be a new special education Apple ID and be available at home where they have access to virtually everything they did at school.
The possibilities are great. It is the future.
I have to disagree with you on one thing. Completely locking down a device is not the answer. Teaching digital citizenship and responsibility is. Work with the student and make them feel a part of something. Don’t alienate them and make them feel like they are the enemy.
Kids aren’t responsible, the iPad is a tool until the teacher lets it be a toy. The respect is that it is a tool in the classroom and a toy out of the classroom.
100% correct, but people tend to not fully grasp the effect to which kids are not considered human beings here.
No, the kids are seen as human beings, hence why it’s understood that they can’t be allowed full access to the iPad. Then you’d have a bunch of kids on things they shouldn’t be on, and it would be a cascade of distraction for everyone. The respect is in knowing that these are kids and they are irresponsible and many aren’t interested in the school work. The key is to make the school work interesting enough to pull them into it and thus they’ll actually be interested enough to grasp some of the information you’re trying to imbed in their brains.
As a general rule of thumb people are too incompetent to know how to educate and teachers are mostly horrible at their jobs, that’s just a hard truth. I commend teachers on putting up with kids though.
I take offense to the comment about teachers being “mostly horrible at (our) jobs.” Are there teachers out there who probably shouldn’t be teaching? Absolutely. However, I’ve been teaching high school English for close to 12 years in private schools, and I do not consider myself “horrible at (my) job.” I’ve educated many students on how to analyze literature and how to compose strong essays, and I’ve used technology to enhance their learning, too – but without letting it overtake the learning itself. I’ve got the results to back up my claims, but it shouldn’t have to come to that. Back to our regularly-scheduled programming.
@Matt Sorry to offend, you’re probably great, but I think there should be a major changed to the curriculum and the entire approach to teaching. I’d love to see studies on how much information is retained by students. Sure, tests are taken and that tells you how well students are doing at memorizing things, but most of that information is quickly forgotten due to disinterest, and so much time is wasted on teaching things that will be forgotten by most, shortly thereafter.
The ideal future is, Apple commands their greed to the profits and instead focus on expanding in the market.
The thing that Sir Steve Jobs himself emphasised on his return to Apple during his conference on why Apple was on crisis
Until Apple beats the cost argument, none of the hardware, software or management changes will make a difference.
We’ve chosen to live in a society which values low, taxes, substandard service and mediocrity.
School Boards are increasingly mandated to not spend ANY money.
“Until Apple beats the cost argument..”
When pigs fly
Hard to expect an institution still in a Stone Age mindset by and large to successfully fit in something as decidedly non-average as iPads.
Shouldn’t kids be appreciated that they bypassed Apple’s system?
Education: little devils 😈
Apple wins by helping the Education Sector, but needs to act quickly:
1) If played correctly, Apple may be able to get a tax break by helping education.
2) The end result: Kids will ask their parents for “nothing less than an iPad, because that’s what they use at school”.
For the most part, I completely agree with this article. I do IT for a K-8 district that uses both Chromebooks and iPads in a shared (non-1to1) fashion. We use the JSS Casper Suite to manage the iPads, but have to do a LOT of extra work-arounds (creating a bunch of institutional Apple IDs, etc) just to get the shared thing working to some degree (hopefully 9.3 will help in the future). Google Admin for Chromebooks is a breeze, and the devices are tailored for sharing. As a result, we’ve purchased many more Chromebooks than iPads in the years I’ve been here. That being said, we still use iPads for lower grades because they are more tactile and have the apps, and we then start introducing Chromebooks in the upper grade school years.
Useful input, thanks.
Maybe I am missing something, but should it not say “double up on education” given the first option is “yes, even if it makes less direct profit”? Apologies if I missed something.
It just means to place a bigger bet.
A year ago, I wrote this : Time for Apple to Make an ePad: http://holtthink.tumblr.com/post/108107980880/
I still think that this is correct. Apple SAYS that education is in their DNA…however, it seems to be getting buried deeper and deeper…
As an Apple Investor I would like to see Apple lose a little bit of money in the education market. (Especially the K-12 schools.)
The more youth that grow up on the Apple ecosystem will stick with it and buy Apple products when they go to college, and after.
Apple has plenty of money in the bank. Lose a little bit of money on the K-12 market, so Apple can keep its great profit margins when selling to consumers and professionals.
I don’t even think it should be viewed as “losing money”. It’s an investment in the future. As you said, the kids would potentially grow up in the ecosystem. Ben said it pretty nicely. Apple knows consumers. That IBM relationship could be the ticket to getting a program done correctly.
Best solution is actually both. Chromebooks for ‘stuff’ and iPads for digital versions of books. Chromebooks stay in school, iPads goes with the student.
The Washington Post writes:
“But Google is also tracking what those students are doing on its services and using some of that information to sell targeted ads, according to a complaint filed with federal officials by a leading privacy advocacy group”
Chromebooks might seem cheaper but at the cost of your kids privacy! Somehow Google get away with monetizing students through ads.
http://9to5google.com/2015/12/03/google-denies-farming-student-data/
Sometimes you have to read beyond the headline. Excerpted from Ben’s link: “Seemingly, Google isn’t the only one who disagrees with EFF’s translation of the privacy pledge and the manner in which Google allegedly breaches it. Both the Future of Privacy Forum and The Software and Information Industry Association (two co-authors of the pledge) have joined Google in criticizing the EFF’s interpretation.”
1. How about develop an OS not designed for a phone!
2. Drop “iOS”, stupid desktop names, and move onto Mac OS, Phone OS, TV OS, watch OS, and Pad OS.
3. Give the school the ability to remove the App Store(plus other stock apps) and install all applications internally through an Xcode equipped Mac.
Removing app store and installing apps through a Mac can already be done, It is called Apple Configurator. Removing of Stock Apps is coming in iOS 9.3. Also Pad OS is just a bad name.
My daughter started HS in the fall. Here is a little background on her circle of friends. When they were 7-8 they all had Nintendo DS’. Then they all got an iPod Touch at 9-11. Now most of all of them have an iphone. Sure some go Android, but iphone is more likely.
Coming from Junior High, but daughter wanted a Mac. That is what she worked on mainly in school. (BTW, we have a PC laptop at home). But her HS gave every kid a Chromebook. My daughter knew it was coming and complained that she would rather have a Mac. Well after half the year she is content with a CB.
Here is the kicker. We have all heard cradle to grave marketing. You stay with a company your whole life. Well these kids were heavily leaning towards apple, but now they have been introduced to another option. Now they may look at something else. I have always planned on buying my daughter a nice laptop for college at HS graduation. The question is will she still want a Mac 3.5 years from now. Before the CB I would have said 100% yes, but now I am not sure.
Well she won’t want a CB because unfortunately that won’t cut the mustard in most Degree Fields in college. So when the time comes her choice will be PC or Mac and all the kids I deal with who have used CBs in High School still end up wanting a Mac for more than one reason.
This is an excellent analysis that identifies all of the key reasons why Apple is not competing well against Google. Great constructive criticism.
The education features of iOS 9.3 (currently in beta) appear to address many of the shortcomings identified here. The IBM angle may be the next shoe to drop. We’ll see.
Google’s Achilles heel in education is that it collects massive amounts of data on student use of its devices and services. School administrators don’t fully know what they do with that data and Google can’t/won’t tell them. That’s why the Google package is so cheap. Apple should press this point and solicit aid from privacy activists and government agencies charged with the task of protecting students and their families from such invasions of privacy.
The culpability of Pearson in the LAUSD fiasco cannot be exaggerated. Apple leadership is overly enamored of big name partners and that was a major error. Pearson took Apple for granted. Apple needs to hold entities like Pearson to the same high standards they insist on in dealing with their lesser partners. Apple customers deserve no less.
I think the biggest issue is the limitation iPads actually have in the classroom… iPad is not flash friendly – so that limits certain software and webpages that use flash (which a lot of teacher sites have)… There is also the issue of transferring and sharing data – you can’t simply save to a flash drive or SD card to hand over to a PC… iPads don’t alway play nice with windows and are best with other Apple products… Chrome books are more of a laptop with a built in keyboard and easy to put on a desk to work — unless you have a cover the iPad wont stand up, and unless you have a bluetooth keyboard you have to rely on the onscreen keyboard… doing serious studying on an iPad is problematic – being able to move a curser to select things and have multiple windows open helps.
I think the macbook air 11″ would have done better than most ipads.
I’m a fan of Apple, but i honestly don’t get the use of iPads – i feel they are either an e-reader, a large screen mobile gaming device or social, or something that only works great in certain specialist fields… it doesnt replace the need of a laptop, which i feel is more suited for students.
As a student i often had a minimised facebook window that flashed when i got a message, i had wiki and google in the back ground, my word doc open, and a book next too me — if mac had the book store back then, i would have had the book open in another window…i would be much happier having an all-in-one device that isnt much bigger or heavier than an ipad, than having to carry an iPad around plus find a PC to do ‘real’ work (office on iPad is not a great experience)
Finally – networking… i havent used an iPad on a large network like in a school where they are all competing for bandwidth BUT i do know that finding a printer with AirPrint is difficult, and with no usb port it is difficult to print from an iPad.
Great points here, and that makes me think of how there had been watercooler discussion of OSX for the iPad Pro and/or future iPads. Had Apple developed (or if Apple develops) an iPad version of OSX, we might have more to consider. Don’t get me wrong – I love my iPad Air for personal use, and I use Office and Google Docs for moderate document review and production, but I’m never going to bang out a 20 page paper on the iPad unless I have no alternative.
Apple is greedy. Plain and simple. Do we need a 3000 word essay to figure this out.
Apple should not even touch the education sector. It just looks bad when you take advantage of tax payers money.
My son’s small private school made us buy iPads when he was in 6th grade. Didn’t get any discount or extra support from Apple. There were minimal school apps for it back in 2011 and no security to it, found a video a friend of my son took of my son looking at bikini girls (thats my boy!) and in 8th grade a kid was caught taking up-skirt pictures (so much for private school morality right) of girls…… The school now requires iPads for grades 4 thru 8th grades but other than a glorified notepad and web research tool there still isn’t any support for school apps I know of. Flashback to the late 90’s when Apple released the iMac G3 my mother a teacher in public schools had them. Again nothing but a word processor and occasional web research tool. Those where the ones mentioned in this article that Apple supplied…. They didn’t last long and were replaced by Windows PC’s which had better support from the schools IT staff. I love Apple PC’s and mobile devices but its safe to say Apple has not shown much support for education IMHO and its a shame because they would be great at it.
LAUSD did not do there homework and did not correctly setup the iPads as directed by Apple. Other schools in many states use iPads without any of the drama of LAUSD. Because they followed Apple’s directions to set them up properly so as the students could not go out and go around the protections to keep the iPads with school only materials on them. The other issue is cost and most of the IT people will go for the cheapest crap they can find. So Chrome books win. Cheap crap that will fail before the school year is out and will cost more to fix or replace will give those cheap IT people something to think about when they go over budget with crappy cheap junk that fails instead of paying more for quality products that would have lasted at least 3 years or more.
Nice article Ben.
Schools are not just full of students.
How can the iPad benefit the teacher? Not just in teaching but also in marking, lesson planning and useful metadata about the semester, class, workload, student or material used.
First sell the iPad to the teacher and then the classroom will follow.
I work in a school technology department. We have Macs, Chromebooks, and iPads. Google has a done a good job of listening to school needs and adjusting things to help schools. Apple has been slow to adjust. However, it looks like the last year they have been adjusting and 9.3 is a step in the right direction. However, Apple needs to provide a better way to manage Apple devices. For a one time fee, Google provides management for the device for its lifetime. Apple’s management software can be used (but buggy). Many school districts feel more comfortable going with a third party management piece like Jamf. However, there is a yearly cost with third-party options which you have to put on top of a already more expensive device. Like someone else said, you can mange Apple device, it just take sometimes multiple management pieces to be successful.
Useful perspective, thanks!
Excellent analysis. You have hit on the major reasons whey schools have jumped into Chromebooks. It is unfortunate that all, despite its long history of success in education, has abandoned the market (if not officially, than certainly by way of ignoring the needs of the classroom)
I taught in a 1:1 iPad school but have sense completely jumped on board with Chromebooks. Using ipads with students is much slower and more cumbersome than using Chromebooks.
I’m such a big believer in Chromebooks that I spent the last year writing a book about them! You can snag a free copy here: chrmbook.com. I would love to hear your feedback!
Excellent book John! All looks good, and if I may nitpick I can only point out the following:
Page 13 has a leading space: Technical “stuff” (space) For…
On the 7th page the woman looks to be holding an …iPad. Seems odd, in a book about Chromebooks
Nearly every concern voiced in this article has been addressed by Apple except the keyboard. The LAUSD program had many faults that could have been overcome, but there had to have been problems both with the advice Apple provided and/or follow through by the district. Cost is relative to the functionality of the device. The iPad is a much more powerful and robust architecture as compared to chrome books. The app universe is light years beyond Chromebooks right now although Google is attempted to remedy this (early analysis is not good). Multiuser support and school control has been addressed nicely by Apple. The pre bundling of a bunch of apps that teachers/students may or may not want is ridiculous. One of the biggest draws of the iPad is it begs for creativity in how they are used. Teachers and students need to be given the freedom to use the apps they want to use. They need to be able to explore and find new solutions. In the latest Apple universe this is possible. In the mean time Chromebooks still have the same pros/cons. They are cheap. Essentially they are modern dumb terminals. They typically need access to the cloud OR it takes work, sometimes considerable work, to figure out what needs to be added to do basic things. The only time action really takes place is when you are connected to the internet. In a recent article in The Journal, many of the reasons schools went with Chromebooks were disturbing. Cost. Familiarity with tried and true tech like keyboards. Many of the failed technology initiatives over the past two decades have resulted from thinking “inside the box” rather than thinking of the possibilities. These require rethinking how our classrooms work and how instruction takes place. This is the real guidance that’s missing.
I’m the IT department. let me tell you that not having to deal with cracked screens, which were taking a large chunk of my day, is awesome. Chromebooks get vandalized but not at the same degree as IPads. Even with a big hardy case, kids just break them. 30 percent plus replaced in the first two years out of nearly 4 thousand. cant wait for their extended coverage to expire.I wont be sorry to see the last one die, and I am fervently pushing to have them replaced with Chromebooks. If anyone here can actually give me a valid reason for an Ipad, id love to hear it. I have not heard a good one yet. For every teacher that has resisted going from IPads to Chromebooks, I have a convert. After the first week of not having problems they are sold. Work goes up way up. About the only kids that I see that need them are PreK and K kids. If you are just an Apple fan, do what I do, think of the children…. and me.