Apple Offers to Replace iPads With MacBooks in Maine Classrooms
According to a report in the Lewiston-Auburn Sun Journal, schools in Auburn and other districts in Maine are set to benefit from the “Refresh” swap, following surveys of students and teachers across grades 7 through 12, which revealed that 88.5 percent of teachers and 74 percent of students preferred laptops over iPads.
iPads were perceived to have poor educational value in the classroom and were often used to play games in class, while laptops allowed students better opportunities for school work. The preference gap widened even more when it came to older students, who saw laptops as better devices for coding and programming tasks.
Google’s low-cost Chromebooks outsold Apple’s range of Macs for the first time in the US recently. While IDC doesn’t typically break out Windows vs. Chromebook sales, IDC analyst Linn Huang confirmed the milestone to The Verge. “Chrome OS overtook Mac OS in the US in terms of shipments for the first time in 1Q16,” says Huang. “Chromebooks are still largely a US K-12 story.”
IDC estimates Apple’s US Mac shipments to be around 1.76 million in the latest quarter, meaning Dell, HP, and Lenovo sold nearly 2 million Chromebooks in Q1 combined. Chromebooks have been extremely popular in US schools, and it’s clear from IDC’s comments the demand is driving US shipments.
Update (2016-05-25): Matt Novak (via Adam Chandler):
But something happened about a year ago when my Macbook Air was running on fumes. I looked at the Macs and gave my brain a half-second to entertain other options. I owned a functioning Mac desktop, which is my primary machine for heavy lifting. But I started to wonder why I wasn’t entertaining other options for my mobile machine.
The biggest consideration was price. When all was said and done, even the cheapest Mac laptop was going to set me back about $1,300 after taxes and AppleCare. And the siren song of a computer under $200 was calling my name. I got the Acer Chromebook with 2GB of RAM and a 16GB drive. It cost a shockingly low $173. And
9 Comments RSS · Twitter
One of my favorite quotes applies here:
“I think if you’re looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?”, asks Tim Cook...
.. just 4 months ago in: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/01/21/apples-tim-cook-declares-the-end-of-the-pc-and-hints-at-new-medi/
The sad thing is that we *could* be living in a post-PC era right now, if only Apple hadn't screwed up the iPad's third-party software and hardware ecosystems so badly.
Why on Earth would Maine schools want to move away from a productivity device in favor of an obsolete device? It just baffles the mind.
"The sad thing is that we *could* be living in a post-PC era right now, if only Apple hadn't screwed up the iPad's third-party software and hardware ecosystems so badly."
I don't believe this to be true. Sure the iOS software foundation could be made somewhat better for productive purposes, but still, form factor remains destiny to a certain degree.
And if you start screwing with the iPad form factor enough to make it lots like a MacBook, you end up with a device that it neither optimal for content consumption or productivity. (And I'm including Surface kinds of modular accessories in this statement.)
iPads are great, (and could be made better). Laptops are great. There's no reason one has to obsolete the other. They serve different purposes.
"The sad thing is that we *could* be living in a post-PC era right now, if only Apple hadn't screwed up the iPad's third-party software and hardware ecosystems so badly."
Actually, they have screwed the OS too. On an iPad Air, with iOS 9.something, just typing text is painful because of the super slowness of it.
Oh, yeah, I'm not saying that laptops should disappear. I'm saying that what most people do on their computers could work better on an iPad than a device with a desktop OS, if only Apple hadn't screwed this up so badly. The iPad could have been this decade's iBook.
Also, I have a Surface Book, and I wish my MacBook was more like it.
"I'm saying that what most people do on their computers could work better on an iPad than a device with a desktop OS, if only Apple hadn't screwed this up so badly. The iPad could have been this decade's iBook."
Lukas, if I strawmanned you in my exuberance, I'm sorry. I did understand this was all you were trying to say.
But I still disagree in ways. Let's take the classroom as our example, since it is here. And compared to an optimally designed iPad, I still think the laptop form factor, and all that entails, makes more sense. Doesn't matter if it's a MacBook or a ChromeBook. In situations where certain forms of productivity are called for, there is no rational post-PC era we could be living in.
You still want a tractor on your farm. You still want a truck to haul goods.
I think the classroom is a good example. Just talking about the hardware, doesn't something like an iPad make more sense? You can attach a keyboard to it when you're sitting in class, but when you go out (say, to find some plants, or whatever kids do nowadays), just take the tablet with you. You can carry it with you easily, and you can take pictures, take movies, take notes, draw on it, use it while standing or walking, etc.
