California has lots of money for iPads. And water.
Did someone tell you California can’t afford water? 🤣🤣🤣
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Apple and T-Mobile to Supply 1 Million iPads to California Students
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Did someone tell you California can’t afford water? 🤣🤣🤣
I have kids, I wonder if you’re generalizing? But I am interested, what do they all hate about them?
I bet Apple and Verizon went to their excess inventory and refurbed closets and grabbed out a bunch of items to donate. They could not sell them, so they will give them away and take a full retail value tax write off. Plus get their foot further in their door in their attempts to drive Chromebooks out of schools.
Pay? Nothing in the article said anything about paying for them. Likely donations from Apple and Verizon. Unsold inventory with a full value tax write-off.
I always thought that raising taxes was a bad thing, I mean, it's pumped at us in the news etc all the time, but now that you point it out, I'm actually a bit blown away. Maybe you are right, raising taxes might actually be the best way to keep an economy strong, wow, you just rocked one of my very core beliefs!
It doesn’t work this way. You don’t get stepped up basis on inventory donation. This isn’t a donation either. I agree that it’s a good way to shift stale inventory (if it is in fact) and get a propaganda benefit.
So did California conveniently forget what a disaster this was the last time LA Unified tried it? Tens of millions wasted on an initiative that eventually ended up providing a way for teens to more easily sext each other. Yeah, great use of resources there. Just give the kids some Chromebooks if you’re serious about them actually using them to learn.
Other districts are being smart by offering iPads for consistency 🤷♂️
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As long as *every* student has one that should be workable, if not with its own drawbacks like anything else.
However , besides the benefits described by others, chrome is almost exactly the same on all computers. There are many scenarios where this is beneficial- for example, if you have multiple kids and say you already own just one windows PC, it’s easy for parents and teachers to pass on the district subsidy for at least one machine, and use the windows machine in conjunction, because of having chrome as the common platform.
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Some districts use Chromebooks, some use iPad. If a district is already using Chromebooks, I wouldn’t recommend switching to iPad just because they’re discounted.
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My kid’s school has been using ipads for years, which made the “remote learning” scenario less abrupt (they just sent the ipads home). Probably helps that Eddie Cue sends his kid to the same school. They do use google docs on there for things like presentations, though the kids are free to use other apps if they prefer.
I’ve never really used chromebooks myself, but my wife was assigned one for work. She’s not particularly technically savvy, and she hates it. I don’t recall all the problems she had, but some of it may be more related to google docs than anything else. She reverted to using a 12” macbook, and I act as her I.T. Dept. to configure it to be able to access the network resources she needs.
I agree - but the key is that *everyone* needs to have them.
The primary benefit of chromebooks are not just the costs of the units and accessories - the key benefit is that they can be just be distributed/subsidized for people who don’t otherwise have computers available and still work in substantially the same manner.
Apple is best for the well heeled, or if there are $$$ constraints for those who otherwise aren't comfortable using other equipment.
but I believe it’s the wrong tool when digital accessibility is a problem. It’s great for Apple to innovate and charge accordingly, but the digital divide is not going to be closed much by Apple, other than as third hand innovators.
No they should just not BUY the wrong tool for the job even if it’s subsidized to some unknown degree (also hope they subsidize those $20 lightning cables when the wee ones try and use their iPad and the cable breaks - and don’t lose that $$$ power adapter)
That’s true - but they may have other non Apple cables? they are still are paying royalties I believe if they do have to buy? They also may inadvertently buy from Apple directly too. Not a huge deal and point taken
But it appears the ecosystem is targeted towards enthusiasts and affluent.
To your point, could Apple be selling MacBook 12 with the specs your spouse has in her machine has for $500?
would it cannibalize sells of $999 macs to sell $500 macs with older specs that would run decently? Would margins be sufficient?
It’s hard to be all things, Apple is closer than it has been at other times with iPhone SE - but as far as making the world a better place the $99 android phone appears to be a much more important tool.
Mere bag of shells compared to the national debt of $24,000,000,000,000.
Bingo!
I fear although this is a great gesture at helping out education for students within the state of California, not to mention sticking it back to Google and their ChromeOS and Chromebook team, that this may miss many students without a solid broadband internet connection.
Then again that's what T-MobileUS' partnership in this is for. I wonder if they'll throttle their LTE network basestation data traffic to just the educational networks and limited browsing. T-Mobile tried limiting the classic HP iPad H6340 Windows PocketPC device with GGSN data plan which crippled AirCards, S60's and other Windows PocketPC or Smartphone PC devices from getting a data connection upon it's release. Those of us working in Tier II/III support knew it would occur weeks prior. So I'm hopeful nobody at T-Mobile would be dumb enough to do such a thing again after so many years (19).
I actually considered buying an iPad for my daughter to do her virtual learning, but instead settled on a 2-in-1 11.6 inch HP laptop with 3 years of Geek squad, for around the same price as an iPad. She need chrome in order to access Google classroom for her assignments, so we think this was a better buy.
I wonder what the other 84% of CA students think, and what the other 49 states filled with students think.