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Apple Tries to Win Back Students and Teachers with Low-Cost iPad

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Re: Apple Tries to Win Back Students and Teachers with Low-Cost iPad

#21

A low cost pencil, paper, and a book is all you really need.

Yea? Are they going to teach programming with pencil and paper?

Are they really going to teach programming on an iPad? For sure they have the beginner puzzle stuff you find on Code.org, but to really learn code you can't use an iPad or a Chromebook for that matter.

Re: Apple Tries to Win Back Students and Teachers with Low-Cost iPad

#22
post #9
post #2

With budget constraints I don’t see how the iPad can compete with cheaper alternatives. The only real advantage I see for the iPad over Chromebook in the education market is that one can digitally markup documents on the iPad and take handwritten notes on it. I use an iPad Pro to grade math homework for my online students. I wish they all had iPad Pros (or Surface Pros) but I can’t force them to buy an iPad for one c…

You can do digital pen markup on any number of stylus equipped Chromebooks using any of the excellent Android or Chrome apps for note taking and markup. Check out Keep, Squid, Google Classroom for Android, MyScript. There's even a handwiring mode on the soft keyboard that comes up if you flip them around to tablet mode. The feature is not just on the Pixel book. It's also in the $400 Samsung Chromebook Plus or Asus C…

I did not know this. Thank you for pointing this out. When my current iPad Pro dies I’ll look into a Chromebook option. I had considered the Surface Pro but I hate the Windows operating system.

Re: Apple Tries to Win Back Students and Teachers with Low-Cost iPad

#23

A low cost pencil, paper, and a book is all you really need.

Yea? Are they going to teach programming with pencil and paper?

Since you brought up programming, iPads don’t seem like the best tool for writing code.

Even if you get a physical keyboard, are there any mature apps for writing and executing code on the device?

Re: Apple Tries to Win Back Students and Teachers with Low-Cost iPad

#24

A low cost pencil, paper, and a book is all you really need.

Yea? Are they going to teach programming with pencil and paper?

Neither is an iPad, frankly.

Yes, yes, I know, Swift Playgrounds. Not convinced.

Re: Apple Tries to Win Back Students and Teachers with Low-Cost iPad

#25
post #19

Seems to be a lot of Chromebook comments. Has anyone actually seen one used in the real world? I contract at a bunch of different places and I've never seen anyone use one in a business setting. I'm not sure just learning how to use an iPad is better but I definitely see those being used.

I’m in the IT industry in Australia, loosely related to education. Within my job I see an even split between iPads and Surfaces, with MacBook Airs in third place.

The closest I’ve come to a Chromebook is when Google offered our company one if we evaluated GCP.

Re: Apple Tries to Win Back Students and Teachers with Low-Cost iPad

#26

My kids have now had both iPads and Chromebooks, and the Chromebooks were obvious winners in every single way. The teachers and kids both like them, they're clearly better for actual school work and learning, everything is just better. It's just a nice bonus that they're way cheaper.

But what about using them offline?

The local storage of a cheap Chromebook is comparable with what you get in a low end iPad e.g. 32 GB.

Re: Apple Tries to Win Back Students and Teachers with Low-Cost iPad

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea? Are they going to teach programming with pencil and paper?

How do you teach programming without pencil and paper ?

On laptops?

You do know they have the ability to keep notes, right?

Re: Apple Tries to Win Back Students and Teachers with Low-Cost iPad

#29
The Apple Pencil should be a key strategic advantage for the iPads and should be compatible with every model if not included in the box outright. Instead Apple restricts the Pencil to the Pro models. Microsoft won the Business world by owning the document format. Apple could win the education world by owning the handwritten notes format [1] if Pencils were standard

What is Tim Cook's vision for education? Nobody fucking knows. One year Apple is trying to sell iPads claiming it's "whole new kind of computer" then a few months later they are wondering "what's a computer". Without a compelling vision the iPad will continue to flounder.

p.s. I want a 7.9" iPad Pro

[1] there is no open source .txt equivalent for hand written notes. We'll need one if OneNote/Apple Notes ever takes off

Re: Apple Tries to Win Back Students and Teachers with Low-Cost iPad

#30

I will never understand why they don't just rebrand the Macbook Air as just the Macbook... The new Macbooks look ridiculous to me. They look more like something that could be called the Macbook Air instead. They should swap the names. And if they did that and THEN got rid of the Macbook Airs (currently the Macbooks) I would not be bothered by that. I think Macbooks are hideus compared to how nice they used to look be…

I love the 12 inch MacBook. It's super small and light and I can carry it in just a sleeve, and the battery still holds for many hours. Granted, it's not a powerhouse and I mainly use it for presentations and very light coding, but there's the Pro model if you need more. Each tool has a purpose, and the 12" is great for my needs.

The current Air is larger for no particular reason and has a lower res display, so it's obviously the budget version.

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