Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Live Coverage of Apple's Education Event in Chicago
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The hardware may be underwhelming from a pricing standpoint, but they do have other education-specific stuff to announce. If they did this at an SJ Theater event we'd all be complaining how it was irrelevant, so might as well hold it at a school where it is relevant.
apple is playing catch up to google in the classroom. my kids school district has pretty much adopted google classroom (with docs, etc) as their standard. feels like apple is late to the game with "classroom". of course there is the question (which may be answered somewhere, so I apologize if I haven't looked for it yet) of whether classroom will only work with apple devices/ipads or will be cross platform. more choice is always good for the consumer (and in this case education), but it seems like the ship has sailed for some schools/districts unless the google suite fails miserably and they look to change.
It’s discounted already ($299 is for schools only). It would depend on the structure of the school district, how its financed, and which procurement contracts are in place, and (if in Texas) if a minority or a woman owns the business or not.
Thus far I find it quite aggravating that Apple showed LTE and GPS support alongside "base" features of the new iPad, without clarifying that they ARE, or ARE NOT going to be an add-on option. If this $329 iPad supports both Apple Pencil AND LTE/GPS, this will be HUGE. If LTE/GPS is another $130, it will be quite disappointing. Happy to see Pencil support, finally, but a continued lack of GPS (when compared to Android tablets, which typically have GPS built-in) would suck. The LTE chipset and associated parts/antennae are only about $10 in cost to Apple now; not having them in every iPad is just stupid.
No. It's 2017's iPad 9.7, except for the chip and pencil support. iPad Pros have other differences, like the screen, thickness, keyboard connector, etc.
If they offered a $199 iPad with an Apple Pencil then we’d be talking.
Exactly. The reality is that schools are often cross-platform and using Apple's management is next to useless if you've got Windows, MacOS, Chrome, and iOS. Google makes it so much easier.
"million virtual badges earned"... Achievement.... Next up pay to win loot boxes...
So to get an iPad with keyboard and pencil is basically $500. Google must be laughing right now.
I completely understand your point. I’m just saying there’s not much to this at all. I don’t see schools running in droves to annotate iWork documents and check on students’ assignment completions. Could’ve just updated the App Store to reflect the changes at this point lol $30 discount isn’t all that special when the districts are expected to purchase in bulk.
And the physical size of the display is also bigger.
With an iPad like this priced so low, it makes you wonder if Apple is either going to drop the price of the Pro or further differentiate it with significant upgrades and new features. I'm hoping for the latter.
Will the multi-ID feature only be for schools? If so, that blows.
While you are correct that many districts are using Google, and Google definitely has a strong foothold on education right now, Google Classroom is nowhere near as extensive as what Apple is showing here. What Apple is showing is far more advanced as best I can tell from the presentation.
When has apple touted a price point with everything thrown in at that low price point? Oh, please. This is apple.
Yes because it’s handled by Apple Classroom, not by iOS itself.
In other news, schools continue to buy Chromebooks instead of this new iPad that doesn't include a keyboard.
meh announcement. Just a 9.7" that has the pencil operations installed. Everything else is the same. A10 will be two years old in September. 2GB of LPDDR3 too! This is truly a budget iPad!