Apple’s share of the K-12 education market has been eroding since at least 2017, when cheap Windows computers and Google Chromebooks began to take over the market. These days, Chromebooks dominate in schools, according to market-research firm Canalys.
Business Insider columnist Michael Gartenberg talked to several school principals and superintendents who told him that Google’s support for collaboration and Chromebooks’ multiuser capabilities make it the clear choice for institutions that are already under budget constraints.
Michael Gartenberg for Business Insider:
Apple once worked hard to position the iPad as its offering for education… But as one principal of a relatively affluent private school pointed out to me, the cost of an iPad — along with a Magic Keyboard (cover folio keyboards did not meet their needs), plus an Apple pencil — was the equivalent of at least three comparable Chromebooks that could be used by more than one student. Chromebooks are also much easier to repair or replace and log back in. There’s no need for the complex restore process that Apple uses, particularly for iOS devices.
Chromebooks’ affordability, classroom-specific features, and compatibility with Google’s suite of educational tools make them an ideal choice for institutions looking for a device that can meet the specific needs of the classroom.
But maybe more importantly, Google now owns the K-12 market because Apple appears to be uninterested in it.
MacDailyNews Take: The problem isn’t Apple, it’s the U.S. public education system. In general, it focuses on test-taking. So, Google makes cheap test-taking netbooks to cater to that market. Apple doesn’t make cheap test-taking netbooks.
What U.S. public schools have been prioritizing, test-taking over creative solutions for learning, is wrong. Generating a bunch of people adept at memorization, but unable to think creatively and who can learn in myriad ways, is a recipe for failure. – MacDailyNews, March 28, 2018
See also:
• Apple CEO Steve Jobs blasts teacher unions, says US schools are ‘unionized in the worst possible way’ – February 16, 2007
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Naw, Apple has to take some ownership for its own demise in the education market. Schoolwork and Homework apps for school seem half-baked, it nixed iTunes U even after it actually started getting traction and never created a compelling product that would complete with Google in this space. Its efforts just seemed discombobulated, almost like a Google mole was heading the business initiative.
Absolutely this. MDN’s take about testing isn’t wrong, but Apple has never made any real effort at getting iPads into K-12. Other than simply offering to sell them. Administering them is a pain. Lack of a physical keyboard is a pain. And glass and metal is just a non-starter for the abuse these devices take in school. If Apple ever offers an polycarbonate iPad with an attached keyboard, I’ll believe they are interested in K-12. I think there just isn’t enough profit in K-12 for Apple to bother.
Apple is wrong and should be providing steeper discounts for the education market. The iPad is not an acceptable solution for schools either.
Nope it’s cost. It has nothing to do with test-taking. Chromebooks are pennies on the dollar compared to an iPad. My child has been using Chromebooks throughout elementary school. They’re garbage but the school is buying them by the hundreds, so the cost savings add up very fast.
The time required to get a replacement device set up for a student to get back to work is nothing to sneeze at either.
They didn’t “lose” the K-12 market, they gave it away…
Apple uses the same components and no reason to charge what they do for RAM, etc. They make their own processors and stuff now, you’d think it would be cheaper now! They sell a 13″ laptop, with 8GB of ram and 128GB for $800. That is a $200 laptop! That is why they lost the education market! Just because it has an Apple on it doesn’t make everything in it magically worth more!
But… it’s “magical”. A prophet in a black turtleneck told me so!
It’s pretty damn difficult to make an argument for Apple over Google at this point. One other thing that somehow went completely unmentioned is Google Classroom. Zoom gets all the credit for right place, right time during the Covid days, but Google Classroom was THE thing that made doing school at home possible. No, no students thrived during the shutdown, but Google had the only thing that made ANY sort learning possible at all. Whether schools had fallen in with Chromebooks yet at that time or not, you can be sure most every district got in once the doors were closed. Now, even the districts still using Windows, or even Mac are just about universally also utilizing Google Classroom in some capacity.
Apple’s eye is on making movies and TV shows…it’s apparent. “Services” was 25% of rev…half of iPh. True, “productions” aren’t 100% of the Services sector, but it’s growing and increasingly impt. Hardware = meh.
What Apple used to know well, but has forgotten, is that having their products in the schools is a phenomenal long-term marketing tool.
Apple’s shortsightedness in this nascent market is frankly magically stupid, and mind-blowing.
Getting these fledglings used to, and comfortable with, a brand is THE KEY to their future purchases, after they are ejaculated from their primary education.
A real world and analogous example: Freshmen in US dental schools are required to buy a standardized kit of instruments and supplies.
One of the instruments includes a couple of costly high speed handpieces, the whining drills most teeth-bearing humans are familiar with. Good quality high speed handpieces can be quite expensive.
In most dental schools the chosen manufacturer offers handpieces to the students at a HUGE discount, something like a 75% discount. And since there are several matching accessories, the students will buy those too.
By the time the students graduate, they have a collection of these necessary and expensive instruments – which they are intimately comfortable with. So when it comes time to set up an office, it is almost a given that they will expand their collection with this same brand handpiece.
This is investing in the future; and it works. Are you listening, Tim?
No, the three trillion bean counter is NOT listening and could not care less. I agree Apple totally forgot and botched high quality branding to young people in schools while focusing on iPhone profits instead.
They once offered many computer models for schools starting in the early 1980s until 2009. A look back:
https://www.wired.com/gallery/how-apples-education-devices-changed-through-the-years/
Apple and MDN its mainly about COST, education software, rapid deployment and upgradability than in some past underpowered e-computers and overly EXPENSIVE Apple models with pitiful back up support and software. How many stories have you read where teachers are buying pencils and school supplies for their students. So, how can they afford a high priced Apple computer for inner city schools?
Apple has the funds, R&D, tech dominance — but lost the WILL. This one is on Steve sad to say, since he is my tech idol…
Besides all the excellent comments, (yes to the restoration time, yes to the price, yes to the lack of multi-user, yes to the repair costs and inevitability) Apple products are simply too unmanageable across a large network. Google’s administration is a total strong utility that Apple has never had nor cared to integrate. Probably all forking off of their attitude and avoidance of the corporate channel.
Apple didn’t “lose” the market to Google, they tacitly agreed not to step on their toes, same with Microsoft and their Office suite. Let’s not forget that Apple and the rest of these behemoths had all agreed not to poach each other’s top employees, were caught and fined for it. The big tech companies are the mafia/monopoly, not any one.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/apple-google-others-settle-anti-poaching-lawsuit-for-415-million/
Just making sure I understand what you mean. So you’re saying Apple is agreeing to not step on Google’s toes by avoiding development of competing educational services for K-12 and promoting Google Classroom on Apple products?
Very interesting exploration of this topic. Thanks!