The always-doubted sometimes-accurate Digitimes is reporting that Apple will release the long-rumored iPad Pro in mid November this year. The ‘iPad Pro’ is expected to feature a large 12.9 inch screen with stereo speakers and targeted at business and education uses. Digitimes says that Apple has asked suppliers to ramp up in late September which should mean a November debut, with manufacturing by Foxconn.
Apple’s iTunes U service, a resource for teachers to create and manage educational content for students on iPad, is today receiving a big update that brings a long list of highly requested features. Starting today, teachers and students using the platform will get access to new additions including 1-to-1 discussions, homework hand-in & grade book features, PDF annotations, and more.
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Following on from the Apple Watch native apps hack, Steve Troughton Smith has also found that the keyboard view in iOS 9 has much better adaptability support on Apple’s latest operating system. As shown by the screenshots, at larger resolutions, the iPad keyboard rearranges itself to make use of the space. Tab and Caps Lock keys are notably added onto to the left side as well as an entirely new top row of symbols.
This new row reflects the symbols normally found on hardware keyboards above the number keys: @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ +. Next to the ‘p’ on the first row, the keyboard also gains curly braces and a pipe symbol.
The Los Angeles Unified School District is exploring the possibility of litigation against Apple over the failed project intended to provide every student with an iPad, reports the LA Times.
The Los Angeles Unified School District is seeking to recoup millions of dollars from technology giant Apple over a problem-plagued curriculum that was provided with iPads intended to be given to every student, teacher and administrator.
The project ran into early problems when students figured out how to bypass the restrictions designed to ensure the devices could be used only for school work, shortly before the district was accused of having miscalculated the cost of the program. The program was suspended last year, and later abandoned after deciding iPads were the wrong device. This was far from the end of the story, however …
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A federal review of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s plan to give an iPad to every one of its 640,000 students concluded that it was plagued by problems right from the start, reports the LA Times.
The report criticizes the scheme for unclear goals, use of school construction bonds to fund the scheme, failure to consider cheaper options, lack of teacher training, failure to upgrade Internet connections, poor security and poor support for lesson-planning around the iPads. So, er, pretty much everything, really.
“Among the most significant gaps we identified was the absence of district-wide instructional technology leadership,” the report stated.
The first public glitch in the program was when students figured out how to bypass the security restrictions designed to limit the devices to educational use. Next it was suggested that the school district had gotten its sums wrong on the true cost of the scheme.
A subsequent review backtracked on the plan to standardize on iPads, before the program was suspended and then permanently closed as the FBI opened an investigation into whether any laws had been broken.
Apple remains strongly committed to the education sector, last October creating a microsite to highlight its support for the ConnectED program focused on bringing Internet access and technology to schools in need. Tim Cook said in July of last year that Apple has an 85% share of the tablet market within US education.
Earlier this year the Los Angeles Unified School District announced that it would be suspending its “iPad for All” program after it ran into an array of problems. Things started off optimistically in July 2013 when the district announced that it would give 640,000 students iPads for school.
A few crafty students figured out a way to bypass the built-in restrictions on the devices, then the district realized that it may have miscalculated the cost of the entire program. Eventually officials started to question if iPads really were the right tablets to hand out after all.
Now the LAUSD has decided to scrap the entire plan for good just as the Federal Bureau of Investigation has started taking a closer look at the deal.
Apple is today expanding its Device Enrollment Program, its service for business and education customers deploying and managing large fleets of iOS and Mac devices, to new countries. It’s also opening up the program to third-party resellers.
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The White House shared earlier this year that Apple is a participant in President Obama’s ConnectED education program focused on bringing Internet access and technology to schools in need, and today Apple has provided a micro site profiling its effort in the program.
While it was already known that Apple has pledged $100 million to provide iPads, MacBooks, and other products toward the program for schools across the United States, Apple has shared that Apple ConnectED grants are being received by a total of 114 different schools across the country with these schools spread out across 29 states. Apple added that “92% of students from our partner schools are of Hispanic, Black, Native American, Alaskan Native, or Asian heritage.”
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Update: Apple has posted two more $10K scholarship opportunities with one from its Internet Software & Services Engineering group and another from Apple Software Engineering.
Continuing a number of recent initiatives related to promoting diversity at the company, Apple is now offering a new Product Integrity Inclusion and Diversity Scholarship offering “women, black/African American, Hispanic, or Native American university students” an opportunity to win a $10,000 scholarship to help pay for their education in tech. The scholarship is named for Apple’s Product Integrity group that includes Hardware Reliability, Product Safety, Environmental Technologies, and Hardware and Software Test Engineering.
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Mac4Ever is reporting that Apple has confirmed that the Apple on Campus program, allowing students to buy significantly discounted Macs and accessories via their college, is no longer available in either Belgium or Switzerland. The confirmation was provided in a one-line response by Apple Switzerland.
Yes, Apple on Campus was stopped. However, the Apple Education Store discounts are obviously still valid …
Apple is about to roll out its Volume Purchase Program, which allows business and education customers to purchase and distribute iOS apps in bulk for deployed devices, into 16 new countries. Apple’s website for both the Volume Purchase Program for Business and for Education have been updated to announce the expansion and now list the following countries as coming soon to the program:
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The school district that attempted to rollout iPads to its students last year—only to scrap the entire plan when the students proved too smart for the technical limits placed on the devices—will once again try to place technology in the lives of its students. This time, however, the iPad won’t be an option.
Officials said that many of the students weren’t comfortable on the Apple tablet, citing the screen size difficulty the students had doing all of their typing on the touch screen as one of the factors. This year’s lineup of tech tools includes a number of Windows-based laptops from various manufacturers, and the Microsoft Surface tablet, which sports a detachable keyboard.
The program will cost the district no more than $40 million and will operate in 27 different high schools. The contract has not yet been finalized but is expected to be very soon. Once it is, students and educators will test five different laptops (and the Surface tablet) to determine which ones should be used in the future.
The story at NPR reads like an Apple ad, but it’s completely genuine:
Just what is it about a tablet, or the iPad in particular, that works so well with some students with disabilities and children on the autism spectrum? Educators believe there’s something about the combination of the big, bright, clear visual cues of some of the music apps, and the touchscreen that’s easy to use without creating a sensory or visual overload. Beyond that, many teachers and parents aren’t really sure. It’s still a bit of a mystery. “We have some really, really low-functioning students who I could never really involve in the music activities,” Goldberg says. “But the iPad has pretty much taken care of that. I can’t say I have 100 percent involvement. But it’s pretty close.” And educators say there’s another way the tablets are proving to be game changers for special ed. They’ve begun to make obsolete those large and costly learning devices, allowing a student with disabilities to look like every other student. “It has changed the way people look at people with disabilities,” says Karen Gorman, the director of Assistive Technology for New York City’s Public schools. For years, she said, many kids with severe autism, cerebral palsy or other serious challenges needed these large, clunky and expensive assistive-speaking devices. Some looked like small accordions, worn around students’ necks. Gorman says they looked a little odd, and screamed “disabled kid.” Now the iPad and other tablets, she says, have helped level the playing field socially. “Parents thought for the first time my child with disabilities is using something that looks very cool, and modern and current. And other kids will come over to them now and interact with them.” Once, Gorman says, other students tended to see only the disability: “Kid in a wheelchair, kid in a wheelchair,” she explains. “Kid in a wheelchair with an iPad? How interesting.”
If you’re eligible for education pricing, iGeneration noticed that the discounts available on Macs through the Apple Store for Education have now been extended to iPads. The discounts are modest, ranging from $20 to $30, but it all helps.
Education pricing is available to pretty much everyone working or studying in higher education: students, faculty, staff – even parents of students – as well as employees of K-12 schools.
Discounted iPad prices for the base spec 16GB wifi models are:
The discounts appear to be rolling out internationally, already available in some countries but not yet all.
If your college belongs to the Apple on Campus program, the same modest discounts on iPads appear to be available, in contrast to the significantly better discounts offered on Macs.
As always, we recommend tuning into 9to5Toys to find the absolute best prices on iPads and all other Apple gear. For example, we recently featured a 16GB iPad Air for $400 ($100 off), 16GB Retina iPad mini with LTE for $355 ($174 off), and a 64GB iPad mini (1st gen) for $349 (orig. $599).
A new product called MicrobeScope raising funds on Kickstarter is an iPhone-connected, pocket-sized 800x microscope that allows users to record and share video of what they are viewing.
The specimen is placed directly on the inverted lens, and the internal AAA size battery powered light source provides the illumination. The 800x magnification achieved by this simple device is unmatched by other small scopes and the phone mount is a game changer because of the ability to share real time video.
The company, 4D Optical, has been developing similar products for around 10 years and explained that advancements in iPhone camera tech in recent years have made MicrobeScope possible:
Before cell phone cameras became as good as they are now we were using standard video cameras. While this scope version produced excellent optical quality, it was not as small or as durable as we wanted. We also tried out a version that was pocket sized, but it did not have good video capture capabilities. When the iPhone 4S came out we realized that it was the perfect video camera, so we went back to the drawing board and came up with the MicrobeScope…
While the company notes that MicrobeScope is “a very powerful fixed focus instrument capable of viewing sub 1micron features of individual bacteria,” it’s also made it simple enough for kids to use and is taking donations to get MicrobeScope into schools.
The Kickstarter project has already raised well over its $10,000 goal and still has 25 days to go. A $125 pledge will get you a MicrobeScope when they are ready to ship in May or June. It also has a $10,000 or more pledge tier for professionals that will allow for a MicrobeScope customized with professional level optics.
Alongside the release of Apple’s supplier responsibility report today highlighting working conditions within its supply chain, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Operations Jeff Williams has also sent out a letter to employees. In the past, CEO Tim Cook has been known to send out an email to employees following the supplier report. In today’s letter, Williams went over some of the key points from the supplier responsibility report and noted, “to drive accountability, we are now publishing a quarterly list of the names, countries, and participation status of the smelters and refiners in our supply chain.” Williams also mentioned new education programs, the launch of the Apple Supplier Environment, Health, and Safety Academy, and more.
The full letter from Williams only accessible to employees is below:
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In an ongoing effort to equip more classrooms with tablets and computers, the Los Angeles Board of Education has green lighted a plan to distribute and integrate iPads in nearly 40 campuses throughout the school district, the Los Angeles Times reports. The deal which was approved allots $115 million for deploying between 40,000 and 70,000 tablets to classrooms for use by students and teachers used especially for spring-scheduled standardized testing.
Photo: businessadministrationinformation.com
The LA Times is reporting that the LA Unified School District program to equip every student with an iPad will cost $100 more per iPad than initially budgeted.
The district reported in its latest budget for the iPad program that although it is eligible for the lower price it previously cited, the discount kicks in only after it spends $400 million on iPads. That would buy 520,000 tablets. Thus far, the district has committed to paying $30 million for iPads at 47 schools …
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Apple’s current iOS-exclusive program
Apple has informed Mac developers that it is preparing to launch the ability for educational institutions and developers to purchase apps from the Mac App Store in volume for a discount. The upcoming feature was announced in an email:
We’re pleased to announce that Mac apps will soon be eligible to participate in the Volume Purchase Program for Business and Education. The Volume Purchase Program allows businesses or educational institutions to purchase multiple copies of your app at once.
You may also offer a discount to educational institutions for multiple purchases. If you choose to offer a volume discount for an app, institutions that purchase 20 or more copies of that app in a single order will receive a 50-percent discount.
Your existing Mac apps will not be automatically enrolled in the discount for educational institutions. If you would like to offer your existing Mac apps at a discount for the Educational Volume Purchase Program, check “Discount for Educational Institutions” in the Rights and Pricing section of the Manage Your Apps module on iTunes Connect.
For orders of 20 copies, a discount of 50% to the total order will be applied. This option will not be enabled for developers automatically, but the app sellers will need to enable the feature in iTunes Connect.
Apple launched volume purchase functionality for iOS applications in 2011.
The LA Times is reporting that the distribution of iPads to all 640,000 students in the LA school district may be temporarily halted after high school pupils worked out how to bypass the restrictions placed on the devices. Apple announced back in June that an initial start to the rollout was worth $30M.
While the school networks block apps such as facebook while at school, a personal profile was used to limit usage of the devices when taken home. Within a week, children at Theodore Roosevelt High School had worked out that deleting this profile removed the restrictions …
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In iOS 7, Apple has made it easier for parents to find great age-appropriate, kid-friendly educational apps by gathering them all in one location. It’s currently being featured on the Featured page. Also you can find it by pressing on the blue word Categories in the upper left hand corner of the screen and then scroll down until you see Kids or click here. (ages 5 & under, ages 6-8 and ages 9-11).
By pressing on the Kids category the apps are split up based off the kids age. They have sections for ages 5 & under, ages 6-8 and ages 9-11.
There are even categories that cover key learning concepts like creating, shapes, colors, discovering the world, reading, music, and interactive books. To see them all, just swipe right to left on the boxes to view them all.
So parents, the next time you give your device to your children, you can now have them play with apps that are truly developed with them in mind and that are educational!
Along with their major update to Apple TV, Apple announced today that it has been granted approval from the Los Angeles School Board of Education to begin a massive iPad program starting this fall. The news was earlier reported by the LA Times.
The program will equip students across the nation’s second biggest school district with iPads that include the Pearson Common Core System of Courses delivered via a new app as part of the integrated solution. Additionally, each iPad will come preloaded with Apple’s iWork (Pages, Keynote, Numbers) and iLife (iMovie, iPhoto, GarageBand) suites in addition to a range of educational third-party apps. Apple notes that the $30 million commitment is only the first phase of a larger roll out for Los Angeles Schools.
“Education is in Apple’s DNA and we’re thrilled to work with Los Angeles Unified public schools on this major initiative as they plan to roll out iPads to every student across 47 campuses this fall,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Schools around the world have embraced the engaging and interactive quality of iPad with nearly 10 million iPads already in schools today.”
For more details, check out the full press release below.
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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan has visited Apple, Google and Microsoft in the run-up to a tender for 10.6 million tablets for use in Turkish schools as part of a major modernization program in which textbooks will be replaced by tablets and chalkboards by electronic whiteboards …
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As noted by MacRumors, Apple has recently introduced a new model of the low-end 21.5-inch iMac to educational institutions that brings slightly downgraded specs and shaves $200 off the price of the entry-level iMac available to consumers.
Replacing the old $999 iMac for education option, the new $1,099 21.5-inch iMac (ME699LL/A) offers 4GB of RAM, Intel HD Graphics 4000, and a 500GB hard drive. That’s compared to the 8GB of RAM and 1TB hard drive Apple includes in the regular entry-level model. Apple is also including a 3.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i3 CPU in the machine instead of the usual 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5.
The new education model offers most of the usual built-to-order options, including the ability to upgrade to a 1TB Fusion Drive and up to 16GB of RAM.
Apple just recently dropped shipping times from 1 to 3 days down to “within 24 hours” for the new iMacs in its North American online stores, but the new iMac for education is shipping in 5 to 7 business days.
