The Chromebook market is considered a buyer’s market; if school district purchasers don’t like a price from one vendor, they can try another. That’s all part of Google’s strategy to get into as many classrooms as possible. The company has held down the overall cost of Chromebooks, too, and schools have jumped at the opportunity to buy the devices at low prices.
Everything Apple produces, on the other hand, is proprietary. Many district officials say they are willing to pay more for what they call higher-quality devices that have greater functionality, last longer and have resale value even years later. But, with very limited exceptions, school districts must purchase Apple products directly from the company — the issue Ohio’s Miller ran up against. That policy, the rationale for which Apple officials would not discuss, ensures that Apple will not have to compete with others to make bulk sales to schools.
Simply put, Apple can roll out whatever hardware it wants, but its devices will likely be used with G Suite and Google Classroom or education flavors of Office 365. There are instances where Apple's app-centric approach works well for school district, but the cost of Chromebooks and G Suite are hard to beat.
In this Google education world, the likes of Apple have to compete with $40 a year for a student to take home a Chromebook and get a new one every three years or until you wreck the device before that time period. Suddenly Apple devices look like a luxury that's not needed.
Apple has started some temporary construction works at the Lane Technical College Prep High School ahead of its education focused event on Tuesday, March 27. Apple appears to be setting up some kind of stage/demo area outside the main buildings.
Infosec found that it is easy to fool the reader such that it displays one URL but visits a different one. The site demonstrates this with a QR code which asks you if you want to open facebook.com in Safari, but in fact sends you to its own website.
“I think that this certain situation is so dire and has become so large that probably some well-crafted regulation is necessary,” Cook said after being asked if the use of data should be restricted in light of the Facebook incident. “The ability of anyone to know what you’ve been browsing about for years, who your contacts are, who their contacts are, things you like and dislike and every intimate detail of your life -- from my own point of view it shouldn’t exist.”
Producers and entertainment executives who have met recently with Apple executives said the company has been leaning toward programming in keeping with its bright, optimistic brand identity. In other words, it seems possible that Apple will shy away from projects that are gratuitously dark or heavy on social issues. They added that the company was targeting somewhere between March 2019 and the summer of that year to roll out its slate of new programming.
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As Apple moves deeper into Act One of its foray into entertainment, it is pinning its hopes on Mr. Van Amburg and Mr. Erlicht, who made their names at Sony despite being saddled with budgets significantly smaller than those of their rivals.
It seems that we don't have too much expectations of Apple's education event tomorrow.
For one thing, that last education event gave us a re-invention of the textbook, and we all know how things turn out. For another, the rumor sites are more-or-less in agreement: cheaper iPad, but not too cheap, no Macs, maybe a facelift of an old e-book app, maybe a spruce-up of some classroom management stuff.
Of course, once upon a time, the rumor sites were more-or-less in agreement that Apple was unveiling a new tablet PC, and it was going to cost more than a thousand dollars. Maybe Apple will still surprise us?
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How do I want to be surprised?
1) Updated iBook Author, where you can publish to either the iBook Store, iTunes U, or Texture
2) Hypercard for iOS, where you can publish to the App Store
3) Xcode for iOS. Finally.
I don't think I will be surprised by these, though.
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Imagine in 1992, eight years after the introduction of Macintosh, and you still need to get a Lisa and use Lisa Workshop to create programs for the Mac...
We are now coming to eight years since the first iPad shipped.
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Thanks for reading.