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Apple Announces New $299 iPad With Pencil Support For Schools (theverge.com)
At its education event in Chicago today, Apple introduced a refreshed 9.7-inch iPad with Apple Pencil support. "The updated iPad will be available in Apple stores today, in silver, space gray, and a new gold finish," reports The Verge. "The tablet will include Touch ID, an HD FaceTime camera, 10 hours of battery life, an 8-megapixel rear camera, LTE option, and Apple's A10 Fusion chip." From the report: Apple previously lowered the price of its 9.7-inch iPad last year, with a base model starting at $329, but today it's going a step further for students. Apple is offering the new iPad to schools priced at $299 and to consumers for $329. The optional Apple Pencil will be priced at $89 for schools and the regular $99 price for consumers. This is obviously not the $259 budget iPad pricing that was rumored, but it does make it a little more affordable to students and teachers. This new iPad will be a key addition to Apple's lineup as it seeks to fight back against Google's Chromebooks. Apple's iPads and Mac laptops reigned supreme in U.S. classrooms only five years ago, accounting for half of all mobile devices shipped to schools in 2013. Apple has now slipped behind both Google and Microsoft in U.S. schools, and Chromebooks are dominating classrooms with nearly 60 percent of shipments in the U.S. Apple had some other non-hardware, education-themed announcements at its event today. "Apple demonstrated Smart Annotation, which allows teachers to mark up reports in Pages directly, and the company promised new versions of its iWork apps like Pages, Numbers, and Keynote that support the Apple Pencil," reports The Verge. "Teachers will also be able to use Macs to create digital books for their classrooms, and Apple is building a books creator into the Pages app." The company also announced a new augmented reality app called Froggipedia that lets students virtually dissect frogs using an Apple Pencil. The free iCloud offering for students has also been bumped up from 5GB to 200GB.
$89 for the Apple Pencil? If a student uses it, how easy is this thing to lose?
My daughter's school already switched from having a few iPads to issuing literally every student in the school their own Chromebook. Google's web-based office tools are okay, and probably the only option on something with only 32G of memory.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The free iCloud offering for students has also been bumped up from 5GB to 200GB.
How about you get with the times and give that to everyone, Apple?
"If you see a stylus, they blew it.” - Steve Jobs, 2010
Schools should not invest in an eco system with a single vendor for both hardware and software while there are more open alternatives. This is especially true for public schools, which shouldn't be allowed to enter such a high level of vendor lock-in.
...there still being no update to their 2014 Mac Mini is not. *grumble*
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Besides that, a $90 stylus that (unless apple forgot to announce it) has no way to attach to the ipad is overpriced and far too easily lost. How well do they really think that will go over? Once again, they ensure no one will use it.
Yeah I have several problems it the Apple Pencil.
1) Round so it easily rolls off tables if you set it down. They made it pretty instead of functional.
2) The iPad isn't designed with a place to store it when not in use rendering it clumsy to transport
3) Unless you are a fairly specific kind of artist (I'm not) the app support SUCKS. I'm an engineer and I can conceive of lots of uses for something like this but Apple isn't making it easy.
4) Far too expensive for something that is easy to loose and can't be stored easily
5) Did I mention the apps SUCK. Even for note taking which should be the most obvious thing in the world.
I also have beef with the iPads for similar reasons
1) Why are the icons stored in the same spacing as on an iPhone with WAY too much space in between
2) The apps are either redundant to my iPhone or SUCK for anything more useful like taking notes or doing engineering.
3) The cases are annoying and by and large suck. I really don't like the most common cases and Apple clearly thinks of cases and keyboards as an afterthought at best.
I'd love to get something like an iPad but they simply haven't bothered to work on anything that is a viable use case for me. They just supersized my iPhone and didn't really bother to take advantage of the larger form factor in any serious way.