Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Everything Apple Announced at Today's Educational Event in Under Three Minutes

JS3 said:
What a snoozer! Basically if u dont have kids or are educated already apple announced nothing!
Click to expand...

LOL!
[doublepost=1522194636][/doublepost]
Macaholic868 said:
Well I feel like an idiot. I bought a 9.7 Pro for the Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil two months before they announced the devices with larger screens. I knew they were coming but wanted the Smart Keyboard and Pencil. I would have spent 50% less had I waited. Oh well, I had no idea they’d release a cheaper iPad that supports the Apple Pencil.
Click to expand...

The new iPad doesn't support Smart Keyboards.
 
CrystalQuest76 said:
These new capabilities in iWork make me wish i was a student again. I could took a physics class in collage and i had to write up very detailed lab notes. Lots of sketches and advanced formulas. I used MS Word 4.0 with Equation editor and it took a long time to get them to look good.
Click to expand...
From an educators perspective, this sounds like a nightmare. Right now, people are forced to use proper software for the task as there is no alternative. Yes, it may seem like much more work than just drawing the formulae on your iPad, but in the end you learned how to do it. And that is what education is all about: Learning. Not just the things you need for the exam, but learning to get things done, properly. It may be enough for school, but on college level you shouldn't be able to get away with a lab report with hand-drawn figures and formulae. It's not acceptable.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Dorje Sylas and DevNull0
ThomasJL said:
No Mac Pro (which hasn’t seen an update since 2013) and no Mac Mini (which hasn’t seen an update since 2014). No iPhone SE (which hasn’t seen any update outside of a storage bump since 2016). No standalone display and no AirPort because those departments were shut down (by the richest company in the world).

But hey, we have new watch bands! That’s more important than all of the products mentioned above. Thanks, Tim! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
This guy gets it! ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: ThomasJL
Apple is not a software company.

Hardware is fine since years now ... but good software for educational institutions is rare.
They just want to make money by rebranding already established features that can be produced cheaper.

It would have been absolutely interesting if Apple would just take an (any) existing iPad and come up with an amazing software concept. But "iCloud" with all the separate functionality under the hood is not even close to useful.

Schools need local infrastructure to store and provision data. Just a few more API's is not a concept.
This was not only a unnecessary, but somehow detrimental to Apple.

If you would work in education, even trainings in corporate environments, you can see that this is far from enough.
Trying to sell these features to teachers responsible for children is even worse.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bacillus and Dorje Sylas
I was really happy with the updates to iWork. Numbers finally has proper filtering capabilities in all versions. A real quick filter. If we get pivot tables and text to column capability then I am in high cotton.

pages is starting to get all the features it had in the 09 version.

I think the iPad is starting to come into its own. With android tablets going the way of the dodo — Apple will own the tablet market.
[doublepost=1522198252][/doublepost]
madsci954 said:
An event presented as education based. Taking place at school. Seems pretty clear to me. People need to stop raising their expectations everytime Apple has any sort of presentation.
Click to expand...

The updates to iWork were more than expected - especially Numbers. So there was more than meets the eye.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hanser
Wow ... what a boring event ... but boring is not a problem, but how painfully much they were hyping their stuff, it just became stupid. I had the feeling that the speakers would get a $1000 bonus every time they say: amazing, creative, best in the world, innovative and easy!

I stopped watching at half of the presentation ... but I will buy the new ipad for my wife :)
 
Ok, I heard that the primary focus of this was on educational related hardware and software, and evidently it was. It wasn't advertised as a spring version of the fall product announcements, so no, there wasn't any news about computer upgrades or other hardware on the actual event. The watch bands were not announced at the events but via a separate news release.

You could quibble about the iPad being 'educational' but for the most part the software mostly fit, and as a cheap(er) device you could claim that an iPad, along with the software, was part of an educational package. I doubt most schools can afford the hardware, especially with budget cuts happening in almost every state, but that isn't Apples fault.

This is a long winded way of saying the event was more or less what it was advertised ahead of time to be. I didn't follow live coverage of it, I have no reason to watch it now, but expecting it to announce new Macs or Mac-mini's was unrealistic. WWDC is in a few months, and it has been used to announce new computers and other hardware in the past. If nothing is announced then about your favorite hardware then you have a reason to complain, but for an event that was accurately described ahead of time you don't.

By the way, Steve Jobs is dead, as in he isn't coming back. And there really isn't anyone at Google or Microsoft or Dell or any other hardware company who is shooting up the leadership charts by his dynamic personality and by promoting innovative design. Elon Musk already has 4 or 5 companies to take care of, and he is already stupid rich, so Apple can't make him an offer he can't refuse. Musk doesn't need their money. Apple is making a lot of decisions that I personally disagree with, but that's because I don't live in a state that has cheap high speed internet. If I did I doubt I would care that much, as the method of delivering music or video or other data wouldn't be as important to me. But on a purely business level the decisions that Apple is making in going wireless will make them lots of money, and other companies will be happy to follow suit for the same reason. It's cheaper, it ties you into an ecosystem, and it provides a product you can charge a customer for to keep using.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lyngo
A lot of NSW schools in Australia are moving to more and more iPads - this is going to make that move easier.

My wife is a Deputy Principal and we have been discussing for a while how she can better use her iPad Air at school - but the lack of pencil support was the kicker - now that is a non-problem and the price point means she will probably have one within a week and trade in her iPad Air.
 
4jasontv said:
The new iPad doesn't support Smart Keyboards.
Click to expand...

No but it does support Bluetooth keyboards like the one in the Logitech case they announced today which is good enough for me. The pencil was the primary reason I made the purchase. I viewed the Smart Keyboard cover as a nice addition versus the Bluetooth keyboard cases that were out there at the time but if I would’ve known I could get the pencil and a keyboard, even if it wasn’t as slick of a solution as the Smart Keyboard cover, for 50% less then I would’ve waited and saved a nice chunk of change.

Either way I’m glad they did this. The next time I upgrade I’ll keep the lower cost solution in mind.
 
Great idea Apple bringing a cheaper iPad on the market it now drops my second hand price on my iPad Pro. From now on I'll be buying cheap end products from Apple
[doublepost=1522203323][/doublepost]
s1m said:
A lot of NSW schools in Australia are moving to more and more iPads - this is going to make that move easier.

My wife is a Deputy Principal and we have been discussing for a while how she can better use her iPad Air at school - but the lack of pencil support was the kicker - now that is a non-problem and the price point means she will probably have one within a week and trade in her iPad Air.
Click to expand...
iPads are not the way to go for schools. MacBook Air or MacBook is as an iPad is still limited and frustrating. Apple needs to get its running system fixed.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mike2q
This is another example of how Apple isn't Apple anymore. Apple used to dominate the education market and now they're busy having self congratulatory press conferences where they think an iPad is what kids should be using. Never mind that we're taking about kids here and Apple is offering a device that shatters if dropped from desk height. Never mind that the kids will need to keep track of their $100 pencil. Never mind it doesn't come with a keyboard so any school task that involves writing papers or inputting complex math problems are out the window.
This is why Google is killing it in the education world. A Chrome Book has a keyboard, closes to protect the screen, is more durable, is easily configureable and doesn't require additional purchases before it can be used. It does all this while costing less. Apple used to succeed because they had amazing ideas. Now they succeed because they have a mountain of cash. Apple of 2018 is becoming Microsoft of the 90's.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ackmondual, Bacillus and mi7chy
pretty underwhelming event. a huge $30 discount for schools? ipad in case looks hideous and more bulkier than any chromebook.
 
According to Business Insider:
Apple’s new iPad is a total misfire that shows how out of touch the company is with schools and kids.

Apple is not only out of touch with school and kids, but out of touch with the entire customer based.
Computer upgrades are a joke...Still waiting for a Mac Pro, Mac Mini, etc...
 
  • Like
Reactions: toke lahti
chagla said:
pretty underwhelming event. a huge $30 discount for schools? ipad in case looks hideous and more bulkier than any chromebook.
Click to expand...
Why should they even shed a dime off the price when us poor schlub taxpayers are the customer? I'm surprised they didn't raise the price. But they can get more back by sunset-ing the device in a year or two.
 
ThomasJL said:
No Mac Pro (which hasn’t seen an update since 2013) and no Mac Mini (which hasn’t seen an update since 2014). No iPhone SE (which hasn’t seen any update outside of a storage bump since 2016). No standalone display and no AirPort because those departments were shut down (by the richest company in the world).

But hey, we have new watch bands! That’s more important than all of the products mentioned above. Thanks, Tim! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Touche! Well said!
 
CrystalQuest76 said:
These new capabilities in iWork make me wish i was a student again. I could took a physics class in collage and i had to write up very detailed lab notes. Lots of sketches and advanced formulas. I used MS Word 4.0 with Equation editor and it took a long time to get them to look good. The new Pages and built-in sketches feature would have made things much quicker. I read that Keynote has animation abilities and being able to build that into moving forces on a sketch could really have been fun.
I agree that Apple should bring back many of the features in past versions of iWork apps and iLife (I miss the built in special effects of iMovie that existed 11 years ago).
Click to expand...

This is an interesting point. When I was in college and certainly during most of my professional career, you really had to use Microsoft Office if you wanted to get any real work done. As someone who now works in higher education, I can definitely say, though, that this is changing. MS Office files (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) are still the default format (especially for file sharing), but I wonder how much of that is driven by the generational culture of administrators. In particular, I see younger employees embracing non-MS productivity options. Google's software suite, for instance, has become quite prevalent for lateral productivity (across the same rank), where the "formality" of Office isn't necessary. I've also noticed more students submitting work in Pages.

Hence, the new iPad, along with the changes to iWorks and cloud storage, seems like a really wise strategy. I imagine that the productivity landscape will look very different in 10 years when the current generation of secondary students are in the workplace. I suspect that, unlike our experience, it'll be a world of iWorks and Google Docs rather than MS Office.
 
sblemmy said:
This is an interesting point. When I was in college and certainly during most of my professional career, you really had to use Microsoft Office if you wanted to get any real work done. As someone who now works in higher education, I can definitely say, though, that this is changing. MS Office files (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) are still the default format (especially for file sharing), but I wonder how much of that is driven by the generational culture of administrators. In particular, I see younger employees embracing non-MS productivity options. Google's software suite, for instance, has become quite prevalent for lateral productivity (across the same rank), where the "formality" of Office isn't necessary. I've also noticed more students submitting work in Pages.
Click to expand...
My son submitted his last 3 college papers by exporting his google doc to pdf. Each google doc incorporated google sheet and google drawing via copy and paste. Much easier than MS Office and still MLA formatted!

But I still think Pages is wonderful, I like keynote, but Numbers - what a wreck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back