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Chromebooks Overtake iPads In US Education Market
SmartAboutThings writes In Q3 2014, IDC notes that Google shipped 715,500 Chromebooks to U.S. schools while Apple shipped 702,000 iPads. Thus, Apple's iPad has lost its lead over Google's line of Chromebook laptops in the U.S. education market as Google shipped more devices to schools last quarter. While analysts say [registration required] that this advantage for Google's Chromebooks can be attributed to their low cost, the presence of a physical keyboard has also been seen as an important factor.
When you have a device that lasts maybe 5 years of use, adding about $100 per child per year just for the device really starts to add up.
I suppose chromebooks could be used for some entry CS-like education and obviously word processing, but I have no idea what educational aid an iPad contains besides maybe text books, but if that was the case, I'd rather have schools endorsing an epaper solution being far cheaper, energy efficient, and probably better on those poor kid's eyes (staring at screens for 8 class hours and how many home hours?).
Bye!
My nephew has one. It does everything he needs it to do for school, which is all one should expect out of a machine offered to kids through school.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
And good riddance to it. It can go on the ash heap next to the network computer, Windows RT and .NET everywhere.
The tablet itself is not, and never was, a fad. The fad was the really bizarre belief that tablets could and would replace PCs nearly everywhere. So in that way it is very different than the other examples you listed--in my opinion they were all true fads. But then again, what is a ChromeBook if it's not the current version of the network computer???
I love my iPad but if I had to use it as my primary tool for completing schoolwork and taking lessons, I would lose my mind.
This one is a bit of a no-brainer. There is the keyboard, the trackpad, the cost, and the screen-size. Also many sites require such niceties such as right clicking, or click and dragging.
But what is even more silly is when Microsoft pathetically tries to strongarm a school system into using its wayyyyy expensive surface technology. It is not only expensive on a per unit basis but is used by Microsoft to engage their whole licensing nightmare engine with one upsell after another of enterprise crap.
So while any school system that gets iPads is just wasting its money, any school people who get the surface should be fired for wasteful incompetence.
Right out of the gate, Chromebooks are easier to administer at an "enterprise" level. Yes, the school district needs to "sell its soul to get the management console (domain control and device management.) Google has been helpful with support for any needs we have. Getting in touch with and help from apple for issues is near impossible.
Chromebooks come with some good tools for using existing infrastructure without too much of a learning curve. Getting teachers to open and use a spreadsheet on an ipad is a lot more tricky than opening the same file on a chromebook.
Bottom line, if you are dealing with more than 5 devices, chromebooks save a ton of time and energy.
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"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
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Can parents opt out their children of these big brother data gathering devices?
Sure, homeschool. It's legal in all 50 states, to varying degrees.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
On the flip side, I'm really seeing a move towards Google Apps for my middle schooler. Virtually all his projects are done as part of a group, and they work from online documents. He doesn't need the high end features of Word or Excel: he needs a way to have multiple people work on something over two weeks. It's easy for the teacher as well- just send them the link and you're done, no papers to lose.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
pieces of crap that break constantly due to horribly cheap parts
That is just as meaningless a statement about Chromebooks as it is about Android phones. . . What specific company hardware are you talking about (e.g. I have had a very good experience with Samsung and HP Chromebooks)?
/. that has not bothered to really look into chromebooks before hating them. . .
Regarding your "featureless" statement, have you heard of Crouton? Also, were you aware that an increasing number of Android apps are coming to Chromebooks? Your post seems to represent the segment of
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Most kids do the following:
1- write reports
2- make presentations
3- do research on the web
4- read books
Tablets stink for #1 and #2. Even for #3, things like cutting-and-pasting text for note taking is a PITA on a tablet. The only conceivable thing tablets are better for is reading books - but (at least at my kids school) they already have most of the books they use yearly in print.
In addition, everything on the chromebook is stored on line. When a kid can start something at school, work on it at home on the family PC, then continue on mom's laptop when we need the PC for something else, you really see how convenient it is, and finally turn it in by sending a link to the teacher. Yes, there are drawbacks (the internet being down, less privacy, dependence on one company), but it is so damn convenient for all parties involved. It is a case of technology making things easier.
We've had great success with our Chromebook deployment. For most computing tasks, they are cheap and easy. They boot quickly and management is a snap.
Microsoft is now trying to duplicate this success. They are giving away Office 365 E1 subscriptions to schools and non-profits. I will grant MS this, their online versions of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are quite good and closely mimic the desktop versions.
Now for the bad:
1. Microsoft's "version" of a chromebook is something like the HP Stream 14. It's about the same price and about the same quality. Unfortunately, these do not run a locked-down/hardened version of windows. They run the same desktop OS everything else does. This means you need AV, imaging tools....etc to mass deploy these things. Chromebooks don't need any of that stuff.
2. The OS that ships in the cheapy laptops cannot be joined to a traditional domain. User management and policies for these devices cannot be centrally managed. Google's management tools are fantastic.
3. Logins everywhere. To login to these cheapy windows devices, you need to either have local accounts, or a "live" or "microsoft account". This means you need a "live" login to get past the login screen, and an Office 365 login to do any work - it's madness.
In-short, Microsoft is jumping into cloud computing and chasing the incumbents in a half-assed way. Situation normal over at Microsoft.
The Chromebooks aren't going to last more than a few months. Ever try any of these pieces of junk at BestBuy?
No, I haven't. But I did buy a Samsung Chromebook and I have been carrying it around and using it.
It seems no more fragile than my old Atom-based laptop, which is still in perfect working order.
They are equipped with dim TN LED-lit panels, low resolution, and the keyboards are the most uncomfortable things ever.
Huh, which model in particular are you thinking about? Because IMHO my Samsung Chromebook is kind of like a Mac laptop, only less expensive. Both use similar "chiclet" keyboards, both have multi-touch touchpads (and both *use* the multitouch gestures). The Chromebook costs less, weighs less, and has long battery life; and it is adequate for the things I usually want to do when I'm out and about.
The screen doesn't have a "wow" factor but neither am I suffering when I use it. The 1366x768 resolution is pretty common for a device that size.
You make it sound horrible, but so far I love the thing. It's far better than my old Atom-based laptop (which struggles even to play a YouTube video).
But I digress, I've always hated the "chiclet keyboard" that all the laptop vendors have switched to.
You can thank Apple for that one. They did it first and then everyone else followed.
It does allow for a thinner laptop but I wish there were more laptops still made that have more ergonomic keys.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I've been using a Chromebook for a while. I am a web developer. This particular machine does not have Crouton or a standard Linux distribution on it, just the stock OS. I would probably have opted for one of those, but this machine has a broken power button, which prevents it from being put into developer mode. So far I have not run into any insurmountable problems, and I think overall that it has been an improvement in my workflow.
Chrome OS has a number of useful features. The longest part of rebooting or updating the machine is waiting for your browser tabs to reload. You may say that this is uncommon and that you don't care how long it takes, but on the other hand no one will miss that wait time either. Having files backed up automatically is quite pleasant. If and when you are in the unfortunate position of having a machine die on you, sitting down to any Chromebook and typing in your password will restore your files, bookmarks, browser history, desktop background, and all installed programs in a couple minutes. The biggest downside is printing; it's possible if you have another computer or a Cloud Print ready printer (yeah right), but it's not fun under any circumstances.
Tips:
Either Google Docs or Office Online do a pretty good job of handling office tasks, with one exception: neither will open a password-protected excel spreadsheet. For that I have been using RollApp, which does exactly what it says on the tin but is a bit slow. For web development, Chrome OS includes an SSH client. You don't need more than a VPS and vim, do you? You do? Well, in that case, you should be more than happy with Cloud9 Web-based IDE (Chrome Store link). You get your own little linux environment for each workspace, already set up for various development tasks. The editor is pretty similar to Sublime Text, and cloning projects from GitHub is fast and easy. You can also connect to a private VPS and do whatever crazy things you like there. Loading up a workspace restores all opened files and terminal windows, including any terminal programs/output. Run your tests, close the window, come back a week later, and the test output is still there. If you happened to be exploring something using a CLI interactive interpreter, that will still be running when you get back to it. Also, the workspaces are separate instances: developing locally I would always have to set up a new user, add it to the www-data group, set up its own fcgi pool, add an entry in /etc/hosts, and so on and so forth. Setting up lxc or nspawn containers makes this marginally easier. Letting your IDE handle it for you is brilliant.
Using a Chromebook does not mean giving up your ability to use (or create) complex software, but you will have to change your workflow. There is probably a fair amount of software that is not available on the web or even via SSH, but I think that most people's needs would be satisfied. I left my other Chromebook lying around the house for the roomies to use, and I don't think any of them noticed that it wasn't running Windows -- probably never used it for anything but web browsing. Your IT professional may need a XAMP stack, but he doesn't necessarily need it on a local machine, and there are some real advantages to not doing so, even if you skip the cloud-based IDE and just do a VM.
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