Oh.
There was an earlier poster who ditched their Chromebooks for WFH and I thought that a 5k iMac for $200 would make for a cheap Mac solution. Especially with the 5k monitor, 1080p camera, dual 20 watt speakers and microphone.
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Apple to Launch 'Low-Cost' MacBook Series Next Year to Rival Chromebooks
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Oh.
There was an earlier poster who ditched their Chromebooks for WFH and I thought that a 5k iMac for $200 would make for a cheap Mac solution. Especially with the 5k monitor, 1080p camera, dual 20 watt speakers and microphone.
Totally - people should consider used more often, especially if they are on a tight budget
Hopefully Apple's version of the Chromebook will be more durable and be supported for longer.
A lot of people do. I answer a lot of questions about used equipment on r/Mac. It's often just posting the Geekbench 5 scores of two Macs so that they can get a comparison of the CPU capabilities of a system. There are lots of folks out there with budgets of $100, $200, $500 looking for a desktop or notebook Mac and there are specific models and configurations that are perfectly usable today.
I like the idea, but wonder which processor they will use. With the M4 waiting in the wings next spring it may look to the M1 or M2 for a "lower priced" MacBook. Memory is cheap and a 13" display would be the final nail. And the M1 or 2 would be significantly cheaper for Apple to acquire.
Such a new offering would allow Apple to deliver a lower end computer compared to the Air, which is probably what Apple is looking for. First it needs to continue with the same MacOS that Apple is working on for the future. It also provides an "easier to afford" alternative to the Airs, which is important to a lot of folks. Toss in Apple provided software, including Swift, and Apple can make it attractive. How many 3rd party apps are available for education.
And the biggest hit for the current competition? It will have a RISC processor, blowing the competition out of the water.
Such a new offering would allow Apple to deliver a lower end computer compared to the Air, which is probably what Apple is looking for. First it needs to continue with the same MacOS that Apple is working on for the future. It also provides an "easier to afford" alternative to the Airs, which is important to a lot of folks. Toss in Apple provided software, including Swift, and Apple can make it attractive. How many 3rd party apps are available for education.
And the biggest hit for the current competition? It will have a RISC processor, blowing the competition out of the water.
Chromebooks are terrible for school districts. What I mean is, they are underpowered AND usually have low quality materials. A school district buys 1000 of them, but after 2 years most of them have to be replaced do to hardware problems. Chromebook manufacturers love this because it's almost like a subscription model. The districts keep coming back to order more every year.
It's bad for schools though because they're spending more money for an inferior product, and their IT departments have to spend more time cataloging and setting up all these hundreds and hundreds of Chromebooks.
Having said that, I feel like competing against Chromebooks is a race to the bottom. Apple won't be able to compete with them on price, and the whole endeavor will cheapen Apple's brand image.
I'm confused as to why Apple just wouldn't promote their iPads in education instead of making an all-new MacBook. All my students use iPads and they work quite well. There are Bluetooth keyboards available, but most of my students just use the touchscreen and Apple Pencil to do most of their work. iPads work flawlessly with Google Education Suite or whatever they're calling it these days.
It's bad for schools though because they're spending more money for an inferior product, and their IT departments have to spend more time cataloging and setting up all these hundreds and hundreds of Chromebooks.
Having said that, I feel like competing against Chromebooks is a race to the bottom. Apple won't be able to compete with them on price, and the whole endeavor will cheapen Apple's brand image.
I'm confused as to why Apple just wouldn't promote their iPads in education instead of making an all-new MacBook. All my students use iPads and they work quite well. There are Bluetooth keyboards available, but most of my students just use the touchscreen and Apple Pencil to do most of their work. iPads work flawlessly with Google Education Suite or whatever they're calling it these days.
Low-cost Chromebook-competitor laptop running full macOS? That would be pretty surprising to me. I kind of think instead it would be a clamshell touchscreen running iPadOS. Maybe convertible, maybe Pencil support.
How does iPadOS compare to Chrome OS as far as ease of use and productivity anyway? If it’s on par, I don’t think Apple would put macOS on a laptop for that cheap.
How does iPadOS compare to Chrome OS as far as ease of use and productivity anyway? If it’s on par, I don’t think Apple would put macOS on a laptop for that cheap.
Honestly, the COGS on a base MBA or 13” MBP really isn’t the issue. Given Apple’s corporate avg margin of around 40%, Apple could likely sell those for 30% off and still make a profit. They just have to make them unattractive enough for the typical consumer to want one. The eMac more or less had the same hardware as an iMac G4, but housed in a case that (I’m assuming) was designed to let ppl know you were the cheap one.
My bet is that if this were a real product, we’d get a rehash of the last years of the 2nd gen MBA - take an old chassis, update it just enough, drop the price. Wasn’t that the only Apple laptop with USB-A and Thunderbolt 2 still being sold in 2018?
So… I say MacBook SE, based on the M1 MBA. Give it a binned M3 SE chip (there are bound to be plenty of binned chips on a new process, and this lets Apple say that they’re getting a modern machine), maybe even a non-retina TN display. Trade the ultra fast storage for whatever’s used in an SD card (hey, it’s what the Chromebooks are using). Use the same battery that an iPad uses (25WHr means they can still claim a full school day’s worth of battery life). With USB-C charging, Apple won’t even have to include a charging brick. $599 when purchased by the dozen.
And remember, these don’t have to replace every Chromebook - if Apple thinks they can do that, then they’re pretty deluded. But the special A/V or filmmaker’s laptop cart, or the school newspaper and yearbook groups would probably look at something like this as an upgrade, especially if dedicated computer labs are being repurposed as more classroom space.
My bet is that if this were a real product, we’d get a rehash of the last years of the 2nd gen MBA - take an old chassis, update it just enough, drop the price. Wasn’t that the only Apple laptop with USB-A and Thunderbolt 2 still being sold in 2018?
So… I say MacBook SE, based on the M1 MBA. Give it a binned M3 SE chip (there are bound to be plenty of binned chips on a new process, and this lets Apple say that they’re getting a modern machine), maybe even a non-retina TN display. Trade the ultra fast storage for whatever’s used in an SD card (hey, it’s what the Chromebooks are using). Use the same battery that an iPad uses (25WHr means they can still claim a full school day’s worth of battery life). With USB-C charging, Apple won’t even have to include a charging brick. $599 when purchased by the dozen.
And remember, these don’t have to replace every Chromebook - if Apple thinks they can do that, then they’re pretty deluded. But the special A/V or filmmaker’s laptop cart, or the school newspaper and yearbook groups would probably look at something like this as an upgrade, especially if dedicated computer labs are being repurposed as more classroom space.
As others have pointed out, Digitimes has a poor track record. Plus I can't imagine they'd want to compete at Chromebook prices (~$300).
At the same time, it is plausible that they would launch some form of Macbook that is smaller than the Air* and priced somewhat less than it (say a $799 base), since:
(a) They've had them before.
(b) With the M-series chips they can, for the first time, make a no-compromise ultrabook (at least when it comes to single-core CPU performance).
(c) Getting students into the Mac ecosystem is essential to their future.
*Eyeballing the space on either side of the Air's KB, it looks like the minimum diagonal would be 12".
At the same time, it is plausible that they would launch some form of Macbook that is smaller than the Air* and priced somewhat less than it (say a $799 base), since:
(a) They've had them before.
(b) With the M-series chips they can, for the first time, make a no-compromise ultrabook (at least when it comes to single-core CPU performance).
(c) Getting students into the Mac ecosystem is essential to their future.
*Eyeballing the space on either side of the Air's KB, it looks like the minimum diagonal would be 12".
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Not sure it was mentioned, only on page 3. But there was just an article about chromebooks and the piles of dead ones, and they haven’t panned out to be a great longevity item.
apple.news
Chromebooks Were Once a Good Deal for Schools. Now They’re Becoming E-Waste. — The Wall Street Journal
Before buying a Chromebook, check the expiration date
Only if they could make them using a bio-plastic, not made from petroleum products. We hardly need more plastic in the world. But I would love to see something lighter and cheaper, using novel materials.
Good point about the search engine, and search is a super valuable educational tool. It's also a sort of "Dual-Use" feature, that can be an ordinary benefit, or converted to a weapon. And if Google gets too uppity, Microsoft has one Apple can have if they're prepared for some upheaval. Bidnez iz bidnez, and all, but Apple (Jobs' ghost, anyway) hates Google.
As for Apple's efforts at education market penetration... Well, maybe the shorties in the room are too young to remember, but Apple made significant (costly) efforts at education before there even WAS a Google to speak of. they failed, tried a couple more time, failed and failed. There were teachable moments, and we niche, monday-morning quarterbacks in here might never hear about all of them.
As for class management software - that's not a strategic platform, that's a tactical application - something you choose to do with a platform. Apple owns FileMakerPro, which I consider to be one of the most powerful RDBMS in the industry (apart from their intractable, confounding refusal to build in their own calendar grid views for date-centric records 😖. Absolutely ridiculous. For Pete's sake, FileMaker, even friggin' SharePoint has calendar grid views. Come on!).
You have to be an industrial-scale masochist to service education. Education lacks the capitalization of industry, but is at least 23.27 frigzillion times whinier. The entire market is unapologetically abusive by nature. Students can be callous destructive animals. Teachers can be hapless deer in headlights. Parents can be self-entitled blame generators. School IT staff can be overworked, underfunded butchers. School administration can be politically polarized hacks.
Education was never Apple's kind of market, and things are way worse today. Apple would have to spend several millions to purchase politicians - state and federal - and get an arm up the Secretary of Education's butt to work the mouth bones.
Ok Apple will dump computers to the market to flood PC market, and dev would develop apps for M1 and 4GB Of RAM only. Good luck getting many application tailored to M4 then, with the exception of specialised programs.
Apple can manage to serve device specific resources to its user base when it comes to OS updates. Can’t apps be the same?
That said, which “apps” would education and current Chromebook customers use on a Chromebook that a recent Mac couldn’t handle? Could they simply build a better Chromebook that runs Google web apps and then some?
Education customer only plastic or aluminum shell, 4 year old M1, headphone jack, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth for AirDrop from teacher. USB-A port with limits for students, low/slow local storage. 4-8GB RAM. Massive group plans for iCloud storage/profit.
Don't know how much cheaper Apple will make it. Also possible for Apple to simply reduce the price of M1 Air
My opinion:
It's probably true in some form, and would be sold for education only. Apple did release the eMac, a cheaper model to the lamppost LCD Mac before (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMac). That eMac was basically leftover iMac G3 parts resold for the education sector.
Could Apple be doing like this for the iMac/MacBook Air? Perhaps, and it wouldn't surprise me. This could also be related to the "Laptop like iPad" as well. Like the eMac, I expect Apple to eventually allow the general public to purchase this machine.
It's probably true in some form, and would be sold for education only. Apple did release the eMac, a cheaper model to the lamppost LCD Mac before (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMac). That eMac was basically leftover iMac G3 parts resold for the education sector.
Could Apple be doing like this for the iMac/MacBook Air? Perhaps, and it wouldn't surprise me. This could also be related to the "Laptop like iPad" as well. Like the eMac, I expect Apple to eventually allow the general public to purchase this machine.
I have the feeling Apple will be releasing a new eMac. If you look at the eMac 2005 and the iMac 2005, the eMac was about $500 USD cheaper (at the time).
I think this rumor is true, but I think this will only be sold to the education market. It might be in an iMac form factor, where it's a desktop. I wouldn't be too surprised if the specs are something like 16" display, M1 processor 8 RAM / 128 storage. It shouldn't be too expensive, I'm guessing around $500 USD, and it'll use the leftover displays, processors, and RAM.
That makes sense.
I wonder if the built-in obsolescence (I found this article linked by another user about Chromebooks bought during covid) combined with Apple possibly introducing their own management system like Google's would lead to an opportunity for Apple to enter the market.
Apple might have missed the boat years ago, but there could be a way to catch up in this scenario. Apple also has the benefit of a streamlined supply chain and minimal SKU's, so repairs could be made easier for schools if Apple is willing to support them.
Apple just needs to focus on the student management side of things. I'm not entirely familiar with what they've done with iPads (I know some schools that bought their entire student body the $329 iPad) but perhaps whatever software they used is transferable to the Mac?
Most app developers don’t have much resources at their disposal. They target one platform and try to do as little work as they can to support as many people as they can. That’s just how things go.
And for education apps, I don’t have personal insight. What I want to say is, as stated above, devs want to reach as many people as they can. If their application works on even 4GB RAM M1 Mac, surely it will work everywhere else, including M4/M5 or future processors, bars significant under-the-hood changes On Apple’s side.
This means, lower spec Chromebook-alike MacBook lowers the bar of other potential applications as the lowest denominator is no longer M1 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM and 256GB NVMe SSD storage.
What software program for education, or for most general computing use, would require 8GB of Ram?
I suspect Apple has very comprehensive in-house iPhone/iPad/Mac management solutions but they refuse to release it for commercial use. Their Apple Store POS iPad/iPhone is locked down to a level that even third party solutions pale to compare (yet, still doesn’t ban pointless software update).