Unapologetically plastic
In theory, it could work. However, me thinks that even if they could bring the price down, it'll only be cheaper than their other fare. Not enough to bring things on parity with actual Chromebooks.
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Apple to Launch 'Low-Cost' MacBook Series Next Year to Rival Chromebooks
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Oh please NO plastic, recycled aluminum is more environment friendly! Plastic does not fit Apples quality standards.
I would never buy a windows laptop again for one reason: most of them are made of cheap plastic, which is unaesthetic for such a device.
They are all ugly as hell - with very few exceptions.
Honestly, an MB Air 13 is too big and too heavy for a school backpack.
12" is the ideal size for such a device, it is very light and the display is still big enough to work on.
And Apple wouldn't have to work on such a device, it already exists. That's why they don't need to announce it.
At the beginning of the year, Apple asked owners of the MacBook 12" questions about the device, something Apple only does if they intend to develop and offer such a device.
The only reason they will make it is to use it as an excuse to further push up the price of their best-seller, the MBA. We live in an era where for the first time consumer tech prices are going up over time. Similarly, those who think Vision Pro will come down in price are deluded.
Apple 2005 comparing to 2023 is two very different companies, don’t you think 🤔
If Apple would release a low cost portable Mac into the education market now, they would do so without too much sales interest in it. They surely can afford it. It would be an act of support of a different target group than their usual products.
They already have so much different products, that you could say eat into each purpose.
The difference in weight and size is not that big between 12" and 13" with same type of material. I’ve had both.
But Apple can surely work on it in particular to make a difference in more then one way with cheaper and lighter materials, and I’m sure it would attract more then the education public.
Just my own opinion here. But I wouldn't mind seeing a lower cost Macbook with say, an 11 or 12" screen. And pair with the M1 chip. It's small, portable and (hopefully) cheap enough to at least get people to consider buying them instead of Chromebooks. Plus with the M1 processor, it should be capable enough to be a lot more useful to students for a lot longer time than those weak powered Chromebooks.
Probably won't happen. But I'd definitely consider getting one they decided to make it.
Probably won't happen. But I'd definitely consider getting one they decided to make it.
If you're in a district where voters scrutinize the budget to keep it down, then the administration can have a difficult time planning for the future as they only get the ability to pay for the next year or two. If you're in a district where the voters give the administration carte blanche then they can do an overall return on investment analysis to determine the best product for the district.
Schools can get really squeezed on budgets and put kids in environments that their parents don't have to deal with in their own workplaces. It's 91 degrees in my area during the day and our school buses don't have AC. But I'd guess that most cars on the road today do have it for hot days. It's a lot hotter in the South and I suppose that most manage but it's something that a good chunk of adults don't have to deal with.
https://laptopvslaptop.com/compare/...-MacBook-Air-13”-2020-MWTJ2LLA/18152a/31018a/
Ah, well 300 g / 0,8 lb difference between them - more then my experience remembered.
I must have done good workouts to not been weighed down of the MBA 13" when I shifted 😉
Ah, well 300 g / 0,8 lb difference between them - more then my experience remembered.
I must have done good workouts to not been weighed down of the MBA 13" when I shifted 😉
Lol that's pretty much what my 11" MBA has (and it's still chugging along just fine after a decade)
Keynote and Pages should never be used in education. Non-standard, non-open formats. Software not available on other platforms, nor even, believe it or not, available to download on older macOS versions!!! Dead in the water. I have been a Mac user for over a decade, and point blank refuse to use Keynote or Pages.
FYI, I use either LibreOffice, or more and more these days, Google Docs/Sheets. Docs exports to .odt, .docx, .pdf, .html, .epub, etc; and Sheets to .ods, .xlsx., .pdf, .html, .csv, etc.
I use Numbers for most of my spreadsheets which are generally small. I use LibreOffice for complex spreadsheets. I have used Keynote for a presentation for our Town Planning Board but it's not something that I have to do very often. I use LibreOffice or LaTeX for word processing. You can run the Apple stuff on the web though it requires an internet connection to do.
We used to be all Microsoft Office at work but the company stopped paying for it so most people went with LibreOffice or Open Office.
Pages can read and write .docx files so you have some level of portability but formatting can get lost in translation.
The butterfly keyboard was a drag, but the form factor wasn't.
Let's see, the base M2 MBA with educational discount sells for $999 less $150 gift card.....so, effectively $850. This does not include quantity discounts that a school district might negotiate. I am wondering what Apple will charge for this less expensive MacBook, but I doubt it will be much less than $500 less a smaller gift card. Let's say half the price of the base M2 MBA. Then, you have to look at the useful life of the device, since replacement period will be important part of the economics.
Anyway, these "low-cost" might be attractive for K-12, but I doubt it will gain much traction in the college market. For my kids, their laptops (base MBAs) were the most important device in their college experience, and saving $400-$500 over the 4 year degree program would not be a worth it, since most people are going to spend at least $100K on their 4 year degrees. It's not the right place to skimp.....especially if you end up replacing the cheaper device because it does not hold-up over the entire degree program.
Anyway, these "low-cost" might be attractive for K-12, but I doubt it will gain much traction in the college market. For my kids, their laptops (base MBAs) were the most important device in their college experience, and saving $400-$500 over the 4 year degree program would not be a worth it, since most people are going to spend at least $100K on their 4 year degrees. It's not the right place to skimp.....especially if you end up replacing the cheaper device because it does not hold-up over the entire degree program.
Yes, however, there are also more premium offerings in that space.
Tho nobody buys those, at least not even close to what Apple would want to sell numbers wise.
This is true in my case. My first school computer was an Apple IIc, and my best friend had a Mac Plus... other than for work purposes, I haven't deviated.
Well I started with APL on an IBM 5100 and timesharing on an IBM 360. Well, APL to APpLe is a bit of a stretch but I guess you are kinda correct. 😁
To be a true Chromebook rival, close to Chromebook price, this would need to be accompanied by a fattened-up version of iCloud.com with the ability to run more apps on the cloud (which would be awesome). Actually hoping Apple launch a fully featured CloudMac product at some point (would be so awesome). Cloud Macs would also be an excellent synergy with Apple Vision Pro. Just through in a base spec CloudMac with an AppleOne subscription, please. Sorry, I digress.
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APL as in A Programming Language? I never coded in that. I did assembler and PL/I
Punched cards? My first computer was a Honeywell something or other. Second was a PDP-11/45. Several years later an IBM 360. First computer I owned was an HP-67 in high-school. I had fun programming that. It was like programming in assembler.
I use my iPad as a glorified gaming device. Specifically, for digital board games (e.g. Race for the Galaxy, Ticket To Ride, Yellow & Yangtze). Having been gifted a Switch, I spend more time gaming on there (I put in 160 hours into Hades, and 190 hours and counting into Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom). I also use it to browse the internet, but for convenience, I have my phone for that; and when I'm more set up, I have my own Chromebook for that. So I have 2 devices that beat the iPad at those respective functions. That said, I'll hold on to the iPad since it's easy to carry around.
I haven't checked in a long while, but as of a decade ago, Google ToS states that they do NOT track their users in the education sector. AFAIK, their angle is to get users used to the Google ecosystem. I wouldn't have believed it, but there were articles saying that kids just use Chromebooks for their walk of life. Never even bothering with Microsoft Office, nor Windows for that matter! I can see some getting into Windows for gaming, but they do have consoles for that.
I just had a look at Google's Privacy and Security FAQs and they are squirrelly. They state very specific things that they do not do but it would be more comfortable just stating that they don't collect stuff generally. They are also quite specific about individual products where there isn't tracking or ads but why not just have it apply to all of their products?
Then there's this that doesn't exactly give me warm and fuzzies over Google and privacy. When your own policy stands between you and more profits, what's the natural thing to do?
Pages exports and imports Word documents, and exports to pdf; which covers the 2 main standards. Given educational users are not likely exchanging large documents with complex formatting and animations, something LibreOffice also has challenges with, baased on my experience. There is nothing wrong overall with LibreOffice, other than perhaps a UI from the 70’s.And I have recommended to a number of users rather than buying Office; but Pages and Keynote are perfectly fine for the educational market targeted by Chromebooks.
Personally, I think the PKN suite is perfectly fine for many users who needs are that demanding and they have a much nicer UI than the OSS alternatives.
After a decade, but buying a computer with those specs for today is nuts, those specs won't last you more than a year or a few years top.
yeah but I’d much rather have an iPad than an iPhone
case and point, different strokes for different folks.
Apple is going to annihilate the game in the next decade. I think we should all invest some of our $ into some apples 🍎
I think they’re going to release essentially an 11 inch “iPad” but it’ll be complete with a keyboard and trackpad. It won’t be as powerful as the latest ipads it’ll probably use like an M2 when other iPads are already using M3 or M4 if you catch my drift. But it’ll be plenty powerful enough for competing with chromebooks and apple will save on the cost by keeping the CPU a few years behind.