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Schools Won't Like How Difficult the New iPad Is To Repair (ifixit.com)
Last week, Apple introduced a refreshed 9.7-inch iPad with Apple Pencil support. iFixit has published its teardown of the device this morning, and as The Verge points out, schools won't like how difficult it is to repair. From the report: The takeaway from all this is that the new iPad isn't going to be any easier to repair than prior generations, which were already borderline unrepairable. If an iPad breaks, there's almost no chance that a district will be able to repair it in-house; whereas on cheaper Chromebooks, there's a possibility an IT team could open them up to make some basic fixes. It's a weak point that it's hard to see Apple ever addressing. And since schools aren't exactly forgiving environments for a lent-out device, how well the iPad holds up to drops and dings, and how expensive it is to fix, are bound to be factors in a school's decision on which devices to adopt. Mac Rumors highlights the key findings from iFixit's teardown: The new iPad's lack of waterproofing, non-replaceable charging port, zero upgradeability, and use of glue throughout the internals added up to a "repair nightmare." iFixit then pointed towards the HP Elite x2 1012 G1 tablet, which got a perfect repairability score of 10 out of 10, summarizing that "Apple's 'education' iPad is still a case of won't -- not can't." One of the iPad's advantages in terms of repairability comes in the form of its digitizer panel easily separating from the display. iFixit pointed out that in the event that either component should break, repair will be easier for schools and educators. The sixth-gen iPad has the same battery as the previous model, with 32.9 Wh capacity. iFixit noted that while this allows Apple to reuse existing manufacturing lines to reduce waste, the battery is still locked behind a "repair-impeding adhesive" that greatly reduced the iPad's repairability score. Apple has provided easy battery removal before, in the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, but iFixit hasn't seen anything like it since. Ultimately, iFixit gave the 2018 iPad a repairability score of 2 out of 10, favoring the fairly easy repair options of its air-gapped, non-fused display and digitizer glass, but taking marks off for its heavy use of adhesive and sticky tape.
I do. I'm also on the Parents and Citizens Committee for my kids' school. Have a guess how many iPads we've had to replace of the 800-odd currently lent out to students in the past two and a half years?
Two. One got dropped off down the bus stairs and the screen cracked. Apple replaced the screen under warranty. The other mysteriously died during an update. Again, Apple replaced under warranty.
I have had a second generation iPad since 2012, and it has worked well for five years. In fact, it still works very well, because I gave mine to my brother at the end of last year when I bought a new iPad Pro. I just needed more memory, and wanted to use the Apple Pencil when lecturing, which is not supported on the older iPads. Having had two of them already, the iPad is very well made and I have not had the need to repair it. It would be nice if the battery was easily replaceable, but even after five years of use, the battery in my old iPad works reasonably well, and if you're watching a movie close to an outlet, not an issue. Since I use my iPad Pro for lecturing, I would like to see the capability to record while connected to a projector. iOS has screen recording capability built into the OS, but it does not work while connected to a projector.
How should we look at this problem? Do we look at it as:
We have now reached the era where students, when appropriate for their age and learning needs, now have access to equipment that's:
- more computationally capable than they ever had before,
- squeezed into a package smaller and longer lasting than ever before,
- available at a price undreamt of years ago,
- able to be connected to more resources than ever before?
Or is it just, "why is this thing so hard to fix?"
Now, whether they're appropriate for kids at a certain age of school is for a separate discussion.
I'm the lead tech at a K-8 public school district in Illinois and can confirm that none of the districts that I collaborate with care about the iPad's repairability. We all do the same thing... We get our ACiT and ship the things off to be replaced by Apple under Apple Care. I personally replace 10-15 of these every week from our fleet of 3,000+ iPads. At our district specifically, the cost of repair is passed on to the student and their parents. We don't care how easy it is to repair. Only that it can be quickly put back into stock to be made available for a student that needs one.
Have a guess how many iPads we've had to replace of the 800-odd currently lent out to students in the past two and a half years? Two
Congrats. Out of 1200 students at my wife's school every 3 years they replaced 1200. But if you count breakage we get another 10% that don't last the 3 year life expectancy. But it's not an issue because parents pay for them.
Not that it matters. They were horrible education tools. The students have Chromebooks now and can do all that complicated crap like ... write assignments and draw graphs that the iPads were incapable of outside of a very narrowly defined and curated "experience"