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Chromebooks Are Outselling iPads In Schools

Posted by Unknown on from the keyboards-still-useful dept.

Nate the greatest (2261802) writes Apple thrilled investors earlier this week when they revealed that they had sold 13 million iPads to schools and claimed 85% of the educational tablet market, but that wasn't the whole story. It turns out that Apple has only sold 5 million iPads to schools since February 2013, or an average of less than a million tablets a quarter over 6 quarters. It turns out that instead of buying iPads, schools are buying Chromebooks. Google reported that a million Chromebooks were sold to schools last quarter, well over half of the 1.8 million units sold in the second quarter. With Android tablets getting better, Apple is losing market share in the consumer tablet market, and now it looks Apple is also losing the educational market to Google. Analysts are predicting that 5 million Chromebooks will be sold by the end of the year; how many of those will be sold to schools, do you think?

2 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What do I think? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When I was at school I wasted vast amounts of time being forced to write stuff out in draft form and then re-write it neatly. Fortunately now we have computers that allow editing. This is progress - I can write a report and edit it without endless copying out by hand.

    Kids should have access to computers. Not all families can afford them. By giving all the students the same computers it is easier for the teacher to teach without getting bogged down in technical differences, and allows the school to administer and manage them.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. Re:Good by Albanach · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can the students even install and use a proper compiler or something like AutoCAD? Photoshop?

    How many school kids have a daily need for AutoCAD or Photoshop? I'd imagine only a tiny percentage. So why should a school district equip elementary and middle school kids with a computer powerful enough for tasks that only a small minority of their high-school students need? Would it not be better to give something more powerful (and much more expensive) to just those with the specialist need for something more powerful?

    As for a compiler, they could use something like Cloud 9 for cloud based developing.