Apple Losing Out To Microsoft and Google in US Classrooms (macrumors.com)

Apple is losing its grip on American classrooms, which technology companies have long used to hook students on their brands for life. From a report on MacRumors: According to research company Futuresource Consulting, in 2016 the number of devices in American classrooms that run iOS and macOS fell to third place behind both Google-powered laptops and Windows devices. Out of 12.6 million mobile devices shipped to primary and secondary schools in the U.S., Chromebooks accounted for 58 percent of the market, up from 50 percent in 2015. Meanwhile, school shipments of iPads and Mac laptops fell to 19 percent, from about 25 percent, over the same period, while Microsoft Windows laptops and tablets stayed relatively stable at about 22 percent.

Comments

6 chromebooks for the price of a macbook

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the feeling price may be a factor here.

Re:6 chromebooks for the price of a macbook

[Anonymous Coward]

I am on the team that decides the tech our schools use. I guarantee you that the price comparison between iPads and Chromebooks is not 1:1. Apple and their consultants may provide discounts, but they are no where near the level as those on Chromebooks. We buy replacement XE303c12 for about $80 all-in from our vendor and are thinking about upgrading to XE500s for $130 each. Chromebooks (at least the ones we use) are way more robust, actually serviceable, way easier to manage, and supported far longer. We've literally had Apple stuff go EOL on us while still covered by AppleCare; hardware bug == free replacement, software bug == screw you no updates! We are now phasing them out for different tablets we can actually patch security holes in, but for now they are on a separate VLAN so they don't accidentally infect everything when they get hit by a student.

Chromebooks! And it's not just the price....

[The Relentless]

Chromebooks are so much easier to manage and maintain from the get-go, without having to purchase any other management software. Just using the G-Suite admin console lets us keep tens of thousands of these devices up to date, and with the necessary apps pushed out. Windows was a nightmare. We didn't even bother with Apple.

This should surprise no one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the 80s Apple pioneered mainstream computing in classrooms. They had very active educational programs and, most importantly, did the accounting, training, and political legwork that made it easy for schools to adapt apple hardware.

A smart sales rep would sell the program to your board or state education department. You could send your teachers to training where they got their own computer to train on and take home.

They worked closely with the legendary MECC to help create those early educational titles of legend all kids of the 80s remember (some fondly)

Apple, now, doesn't do any of that stuff. Why? Who knows. Probably because they don't think it's worth their time and effort.

Google and Microsoft, on the other hand, are aggressively making it easy for Schools to acquire and manage cloud based services. Google in particular is a DREAM for a school IT department to manage thousands of Chromebooks through easy web based utilities.

Re:This should surprise no one.

[TWX]

The entire model from the eighties is gone.

As a child that grew up in that era, computers in schools were single-taskers. You got your boot floppy with Number Munchers or the like, put it in the computer, turned the computer on, and played the educational game. When you were done, you turned the computer off, took the floppy out, and returned it to where you got it. You couldn't really do anything else with that computer beyond what you were assigned to do.

This model even managed to perpetuate into the GUI era, the earliest Macintoshes like the Mac Plus models my school had lacked internal storage, You still had to boot up with a floppy and then could only do what you were provided with. Granted, there was that puzzle game, but it was difficult to get off-task with the use of the computer.

That started to change when internal storage became the norm, as suddenly programs were loaded that gave the student options. Then networks were introduced, and if there were network shares mapped for the student then one could access whatever was on those. Then the Internet came and now there were thousands of things that one could do, only one of which was the assigned task.

We need computers for students to be limited-purpose machines again, at least in many applications. Children usually have even more trouble than adults making good decisions, and in the case of educational computing, if the entire system can be structured to simply not make that an option then it probably should be structured that way.

Re:No school should accept to be vendor locked-in

[bobbied]

Never tried to manage a bunch of devices on a network I see.. Remember, that IT guy is a cost center, not a profit maker in nearly all companies.

There are really good reasons to only have one flavor of device on your IT system, but it mostly boils down to being able to manage it with the least effort and staff.

Re:No school should accept to be vendor locked-in

[chispito]

No school should accept to be vendor locked-in. Making all students to buy a device from a single vendor, buying (and maybe even developing) applications for that platform, and not being able to switch easily to another hardware provider is dumb.

Said the guy that has never had to provide technical services for a school.

Good. They haven't made an effort.

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally in IT and we have chromebooks (10k almost), iPads and PCs. Ipads by far are the hardest to manage and I think have the least instructional value.

-We can't afford an MDM like Casper or Meraki so I use Apple's half-baked profile manager software which is pretty terrible. I know it's more of less free, but if they cared about getting education market share they might want to come up with something a little better. Chromebook management model is an extra $35 for a lifetime license fee which is baked-in and much easier for the purchasers to swallow. Oh yea, free google apps as well and the google admin console is a DREAM. It also integrates with Active Directory via Google Apps Directory Sync and I have SSO set up with SimpleSamlPHP. It's awesome.
-Because I have a MDM that I'm constantly scared is going to crash (I've had to rebuild it twice trying to get app deployment to work, ultimately it didn't and couldn't get apple to figure out why) I don't trust using the Device Enrollment Program so you NEED a mac to use the configurator for initial setup. I would say Chromebooks are an order of magnitude faster to deploy.
-iPads don't have keyboards. Chromebooks are cheaper and have a keyboard so you can do ACTUAL WORK.
-Apple constantly has trouble getting us on-site repairs

Apple makes shiny single-user devices and I'm glad they missed the boat on education. I only hope I can get people to stop buying the products because "We can't use photoshop on a PC!", just get a bigger monitor and you'll save hundreds!

Rant over. That felt great.