I could care less about iPads in classrooms but hell, this feature has been sorely missed in families where you can't afford an iPad for every family member.
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New Education Features in iOS 9.3 Include Shared iPads, New Classroom App and Improved Apple ID Management
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Not sure what you got from my quote, but nowhere in that quote did I imply iPad sales were declining because there is no multi-user. What I did say is multi-user is a feature that could make the iPad more attractive, thus leading to a sale where there otherwise might not have been one.
in my school district, we have a number of Chromebooks. They're cheap. Cheap as in low cost, and also as in poorly constructed. They break easily, the power cords get easily bent, etc. While that's to be expected to some extent in a K-8 district, the iPads we have hold up much better. iPads may not have physical keyboards builtin, but there are a lot more apps we can use with the iPads. I'd like to see a Chromebook try to handle an iMovie-like app.
I suppose you're against inoculations as well?
Spreading germs at school is one of the best ways to build our children's immune systems that we have left.
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When kids start bringing home these iPads, and parents discover this feature, there's going to be some noise made if Apple doesn't enable this for the home user. Heck I wouldn't mind this for the iPhone as well.
What if you business didn't provide them, or couldn't afford them? Would you refuse a shared iPad? Our company has a strict policy against issuing corporate iPads. And we were only able to get approved one MacBook for our entire department. If it weren't for sharing, and the ability to log in under numerous profiles, we'd be screwed. We could buy our own iPad for use in the department, but since it couldn't be personalized for each user it would have limited purpose.
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This sounds really like an unfair advantage here...
We must sit with the 90-day lock with 1 Apple ID tired to 1 device and while it can be traffered o another your locked in after., while "shared iPad's" feature get all the benefiet personal users actually want ? Apple doesn't think kids would do the same thing "we" do ?
To boot... younger kids get a "simpler way to log in" (ok give the big kids Touch ID or what or, but those young kids)
Good idea..
We must sit with the 90-day lock with 1 Apple ID tired to 1 device and while it can be traffered o another your locked in after., while "shared iPad's" feature get all the benefiet personal users actually want ? Apple doesn't think kids would do the same thing "we" do ?
To boot... younger kids get a "simpler way to log in" (ok give the big kids Touch ID or what or, but those young kids)
Good idea..
While this is true, I believe the post you replied was also referring to the cost per unit.
Retail (dunno in volume, so just apply your own filters here)...
Chromebook (CB) = $185+
Ipad = $380+
Depending on what you use these for, keyboard may be optional or required. For the Ipad, add another $75 to $100 per unit if you need a physical keyboard. It was a double whammy since before multiple profiles, not only are the CBs roughly half as much as the Ipads, but you could get away way having fewer of them too, making the savings even more. Multiple user profiles goes a long way towards reducing costs, but the cost per unit is still an issue.
Some have mentioned Apple won't ruin their margins just to get more Ipads into the educational sector, and that may be fine. For all we know, their goal may not be to dethrone the CB in that market. If they can increase their marketshare another 10%, that may be all they're seeking. However, one concern I'd be wary of is kids being more exposed to Chromebooks and Google technologies may retain more of them into that ecosystem otherwise.
Back in my day, they suggested we buy our own graphing calculators for various math class. There was a deal offered to students for the TI-83. I already had on hand a TI-85. No biggie, it still got the job done. They also didn't cost as much as Ipads today (inflation wasn't factored in though), so there may be hurdles to overcome there.
You know that today, 30 years later, TI hasn't adjusted their prices? They're all still the exact same prices that they were at release. They have no incentive to change the price (or release new products), most standardized tests explicitly require TI calculators with exact feature sets. Most require you to bring a T-82, T-83, or T-84. Anything else is banned, because it's capable of doing too much work for you. (They seem to ignore the fact that the calculators are turing machines, so really, you can program them to do anything that newer models can do.)
How will they know if you use it in school or not?
Guided access was also an education feature but was available for everyone. I use it all the time for my kids.
Perhaps only certain apps will be compatible with the caching method it uses or that sort of thing. Educational apps, perhaps, will get all the modifications necessary, but others won't?
Also it uses a new type of Apple ID, it says. Maybe you'll only be able to create them with school credentials?
I haven't tried the beta yet, but maybe the IT departments in the schools have to register the iPads through their DEP/MDM? Has anyone who tried the MDM confirm?
I'm now retired after spending the last 15 years as the Tech Coordinator in a small school district. We began rolling out iPad 1's to classrooms on carts of 30 in 2011. It was immediately obvious the Apple account strategy was a train wreck for schools and other organizations. It required each building librarian to learn a whole new skill set and allocate a significant portion of their day ridding herd on these things. Apple's educational support staff who would actually come to your site were unable to offer much help withe count issues or strategies for managing them. When I groused about the lack of account management foresight those same reps explained that Steve Jobs vision was all apple iOS devices were "personal" and a single layer account structure was all that's necessary, period. Only since he's been gone and replacement orders for educational iPads have dwindled, has Apple apparently rethought that philosophy. My District has since abandoned iPads and moved on to Chromebooks and othe options.
i wouldn't consider getting an iPad until multiple users are supported. I've had one in the past, but could'nt justify the ipad and iphone together, so i traded it for an older macbook(used for drumming software) I could see getting one if there was account for my wife , the baby and me. Her work provided chromebook (elementary teacher) has proved very useful and there is nothing i could do on an ipad that i cant do on the chromebook.
Now what would really be great would be a way to lock the screen while watching a video so my 9 month old can slap the screen at will without affecting what she is watching.
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we deploy one ipad per team to many groups in our precinct. We have to create a group email for these teams ex: parkmaitenance@blah.com , but it would be extremely helpful to have the ability for them to sign in and handle their business.
We gave them all their own ipad in the past, but they really dont use them that often.
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It would be useful in your comments about classroom manager and apple ID manager to ensure readers know that it is only available in the United States. This is sad as in New Zealand, Apple has missed the boat with the whole online classroom approach with great tools such as pages and keynote as most schools have gone with google classroom. They use all the google apps on their ipads and use chrome on desktops and so miss out on the great apple tools we have been using for years. This is from 35 years as the IT leader in my school taking it from 1 apple II to 100s of iMacs, Macbooks and iPads.