ad where two high schoolers use their iPads to compete for class president?)
But as one principal of a relatively affluent private school pointed out to me, the cost of an iPad — along with a Magic Keyboard , plus an Apple pencil — was the equivalent of at least three comparable Chromebooks that could be used by more than one student. Chromebooks are also much easier to repair or replace and log back in. There's no need for the complex restore process that Apple uses, particularly for iOS devices.
One of Apple's biggest pushes to make the iPad the standard device used in K-12 schools was back in 2013 when the Los Angeles school system signed a contract to purchase $1 billion worth of devices. I worked at Apple at the time, and that contract was viewed as a huge win and was expected to be the first of many deals that would propel iPads into classrooms across the country. Unfortunately, it didn't quite turn out that way.
The initial $30 million contract was expected to expand to about $500 million as the project rolled out over the following year. An additional $500 million was to be used to expand internet access and other infrastructure issues at schools. Costs rose quickly as the need for peripherals such as keyboards became apparent, and critics noted that the iPad model the district agreed to buy was already superseded by newer, more capable devices sold at retail stores.
Apple's somewhat confusing product line is part of the problem. Is the iPad really a computer suited for productivity, as Apple often claims? Or do the iMac and MacBook belong in the classroom? These are questions Apple hasn't successfully answered at the basic consumer level, even at a time when both