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I remember the huge push when the iPad came out and all the talk about how it would replace textbooks and exercise books. It could only be because school admin

I remember the huge push when the iPad came out and all the talk about how it would replace textbooks and exercise books. It could only be because school administrators were won-over by the engaging user-experience - completely overlooking practicalities - back in 2010 even into 2014 iOS lacked decent enterprise-management tools that would enable staff to lock devices down as they're obvious distraction devices - things are made worse by Apple's decision to not have multiple user-profiles on the iPad and confusion with how Apple IDs work. I understand they've gone some way to address those issues - but other concerns still apply, such as the vision of a wide range of high-quality (and interactive, no-less!) iBooks to replace textbooks - simply hasn't happened due to massive cost of authoring even a single iBook. But the main blocker I feel is that staff (both teachers and school district IT folks) just don't want to have to manage them. I know an IT contractor who resigned his job at a private school after having to deal with setting up hundreds of iPad Mini devices for every student - he just simply hated the work involved. As Apple is neglecting the desktop market, they're just as well neglecting the education market: remember when Apple had massive education market penetration in the late-1980s? Now there's not even an equivalent of the old eMac unless you count the now 3-years-old Mac Mini models.

paulddraper 10y ago
As a middle-school student in the early 2000s, I helped part-time with IT at a Mac-only school. Macintoshes, iMacs, eMacs. People were less familiar with Macs than PCs, but from an IT perspective, it was heaven. There were only a few models, they were reliable, and everything "just worked" together. The most common snag was attempting to get floppies to work with people's PCs from home. Sad to see the Apple desktops gone.
- simonh 10y ago
  >Sad to see the Apple desktops gone. Nobody goes to the Apple Stores anymore, they're too crowded.
  - christoph 10y ago
    Apple need to take a long hard look at the nose dive their customer service has taken in the last few years. I love Apple kit, I really do, but Apple the company are starting to become increasingly difficult to like and do any sort of business with. I have many personal data points on this, but below is the worst i've encountered in any retail store in my life: I went into an Apple Store to purchase 3 (yes, 3) Macbook Pro's (old style, they were in stock at the time) in early December (for some new staff that were starting), knowing exactly the model I needed. I was told I would need to make an appointment and come back in 90mins. Really? A customer comes into your shop, looking at spending over £7k without hesitation and you say go away?!? I said to the store member that I thought this was unacceptable, it would take someone literally 2 minutes to go into the storeroom, pull them off the shelf and swipe my card. The response was that it was now the lead up to Christmas and they were very busy and there was nothing they could do about it. My response was that they need to tell their boss(es) to hire more staff for busy periods. I walked out without purchasing and didn't return.
    - nicky0 10y ago
      I like this story, I like the part where you walked in thinking buying THREE laptops they would fall to their knees in joy. So did you buy online or.... ? ;)
      - christoph 10y ago
        TBH, the fact it was three doesn't alter my perception of the situation. I didn't expect them to fall at my knees because of the quantity. If I had walked in sure of the fact I wanted to buy 1 iPod touch or 1 Apple Watch and knew the model, I would have found the same level of frustration with their inability to just sell me what I want. In fact, the frustration might have even been amplified. I get they have a lot of people who need help making a decision around a purchase and they want to assist those people, but they have to realise some people just want to walk into a retail store, pay, and get out as quick as possible. I don't have 90+ minutes to hang around waiting in a shopping centre on a week day afternoon just to buy something. I'm unaware of any other standard retail store where you would need to book an appointment to make a purchase, even high end jewellery & fashion. To answer you & the sister comment - we didn't. We purchased some Dell laptops instead - cheaper, worse build quality, etc. but the staff are largely desk based and use Windows anyway. Performance is as good. We've since started buying less (almost no) Apple hardware as we are happy with the quality / price compromise in most instances. We would generally spend £50k a year with Apple, this year it will be more like £10k.
adventurer 10y ago
The neglect of markets where they've had record sales the past year or two? Not to mention, the massive increase in mobile devices weighing into the equation. It seems a little off to me.
- DaiPlusPlus 10y ago
  Apple doesn't have that many engineers - they have a chronic shortage, I'm told - a friend of mine at Apple worked on a major built-in iOS app and said his team was only "8 people, including PMs" - and given iOS devices alone are the majority of Apple's revenue it makes sense for them to allocate resources where they're needed to maintain cashflow, which necessarily means neglecting less-popular lines (namely the MacPro). ...which is further evidence of the amazing foresight Apple had in basing macOS on an open-source core (BSD): it means Apple doesn't need to expend resources on maintaining critical functionality that isn't central to their profit strategy (e.g. BSD userland) (and it's why I believe the open-sourcing of key parts of the NT kernel and userland will happen eventually)
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    > which is further evidence of the amazing foresight Apple had in basing macOS on an open-source core (BSD): NeXT did it, not Apple. And the goal of the time was just to help bring UNIX software into NeXTSTEP as they were competing against the likes of Solaris for market share. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGhfB-NICzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGhfB-NICzg The whole NeXT architecture has very little UNIX on it. http://osxbook.com/ http://osxbook.com/ http://www.nextop.de/NeXTstep_3.3_Developer_Documentation/ http://www.nextop.de/NeXTstep_3.3_Developer_Documentation/
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Merad 10y ago
It blows my mind that Apple has basically put no effort at all into supporting the multi user business/education market. Our company rolled out our first LOB mobile app last year. Only six devices are involved, but they're basically in use 24/7 and are handed off at shift changes. The amount of hoops we had to jump through were absurd both in terms of device management setup and adding some features to the app to make it feel more "multi user". There's supposed to be an intrinsically safe iPad Mini case available later this year (IIRC), and our manufacturing areas are salivating over the possibilities... But we might have to disappoint them, because the overhead of trying to manage hundreds of iPads would be truly insane.
- 2arrs2ells 10y ago
  Have you been able to try the multiple user features launched in iOS 9.3? https://appadvice.com/appnn/2016/01/apples-ios-9-3-features-multi-user-support-for-ipads-in-schools https://appadvice.com/appnn/2016/01/apples-ios-9-3-features-...
  - Merad 10y ago
    No, unfortunately it is only for schools. When it was announced I was really hopeful that it meant general multi user support would be in iOS 10, but...
- masterleep 10y ago
  It really is absurd, isn't it? Multi user iPads would be incredibly useful in the home as well.
  - usrusr 10y ago
    Would it help making households buy a second iPad? Even if it is not the main reason, it sure helps keeping the priority low. But the iPad is an offshot of a phone and those are so personal (the real personal computers, just think of the place where people water-damage their phones) that it would be questionable wether spending "UI bandwidth" on user switching would be worth it even if implementation was free.
skookumchuck 10y ago
Schools are always looking for ways that teachers can teach without doing work and students can learn without doing work, and computers are the magic tool that promises to do that. It's like using a forklift to raise the barbell. Sure, the barbell goes up, but you don't get any stronger.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  Yes. However, if your goal is to learn to lift up large masses, learning to operate a forklift is a good thing to do. (I cannot write about a "forklift operator" without asking if you have seen this German "educational" film. It starts slowly, but... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oB6DN5dYWo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oB6DN5dYWo )
  - andrewflnr 10y ago
    ... but gets gory. I mean, just-above-Monty-Python level gore, but still maybe not what you're expecting.
    - ptaipale 10y ago
      Well, you spoiled it, but that's it, the tone change from dull German workplace education film to a full Monty-Pythonesque parody creeps in so that you don't really know when it exactly set in.
  - kriro 10y ago
    No need to put the educational in "". It was originally a parody of the edu-videos (the narrator is famous for doing "Der 7. Sinn" which is a serious edu-series) but is actually used quite often as an introduction to the safety stuff for a fork lift license. It's not an official video or anything but in practice you have ab out a 50% shot of watching that movie from anecdotal evidence.
    - ptaipale 10y ago
      So, it started out as a parody of educational videos, and became an actual educational video? Anyway, I appreciate it. Who said the Germans don't have a sense of humour?

paulddraper 10y ago

As a middle-school student in the early 2000s, I helped part-time with IT at a Mac-only school. Macintoshes, iMacs, eMacs. People were less familiar with Macs than PCs, but from an IT perspective, it was heaven. There were only a few models, they were reliable, and everything "just worked" together. The most common snag was attempting to get floppies to work with people's PCs from home. Sad to see the Apple desktops gone.

simonh 10y ago
>Sad to see the Apple desktops gone. Nobody goes to the Apple Stores anymore, they're too crowded.
- christoph 10y ago
  Apple need to take a long hard look at the nose dive their customer service has taken in the last few years. I love Apple kit, I really do, but Apple the company are starting to become increasingly difficult to like and do any sort of business with. I have many personal data points on this, but below is the worst i've encountered in any retail store in my life: I went into an Apple Store to purchase 3 (yes, 3) Macbook Pro's (old style, they were in stock at the time) in early December (for some new staff that were starting), knowing exactly the model I needed. I was told I would need to make an appointment and come back in 90mins. Really? A customer comes into your shop, looking at spending over £7k without hesitation and you say go away?!? I said to the store member that I thought this was unacceptable, it would take someone literally 2 minutes to go into the storeroom, pull them off the shelf and swipe my card. The response was that it was now the lead up to Christmas and they were very busy and there was nothing they could do about it. My response was that they need to tell their boss(es) to hire more staff for busy periods. I walked out without purchasing and didn't return.
  - nicky0 10y ago
    I like this story, I like the part where you walked in thinking buying THREE laptops they would fall to their knees in joy. So did you buy online or.... ? ;)
    - christoph 10y ago
      TBH, the fact it was three doesn't alter my perception of the situation. I didn't expect them to fall at my knees because of the quantity. If I had walked in sure of the fact I wanted to buy 1 iPod touch or 1 Apple Watch and knew the model, I would have found the same level of frustration with their inability to just sell me what I want. In fact, the frustration might have even been amplified. I get they have a lot of people who need help making a decision around a purchase and they want to assist those people, but they have to realise some people just want to walk into a retail store, pay, and get out as quick as possible. I don't have 90+ minutes to hang around waiting in a shopping centre on a week day afternoon just to buy something. I'm unaware of any other standard retail store where you would need to book an appointment to make a purchase, even high end jewellery & fashion. To answer you & the sister comment - we didn't. We purchased some Dell laptops instead - cheaper, worse build quality, etc. but the staff are largely desk based and use Windows anyway. Performance is as good. We've since started buying less (almost no) Apple hardware as we are happy with the quality / price compromise in most instances. We would generally spend £50k a year with Apple, this year it will be more like £10k.

adventurer 10y ago

The neglect of markets where they've had record sales the past year or two? Not to mention, the massive increase in mobile devices weighing into the equation. It seems a little off to me.

DaiPlusPlus 10y ago
Apple doesn't have that many engineers - they have a chronic shortage, I'm told - a friend of mine at Apple worked on a major built-in iOS app and said his team was only "8 people, including PMs" - and given iOS devices alone are the majority of Apple's revenue it makes sense for them to allocate resources where they're needed to maintain cashflow, which necessarily means neglecting less-popular lines (namely the MacPro). ...which is further evidence of the amazing foresight Apple had in basing macOS on an open-source core (BSD): it means Apple doesn't need to expend resources on maintaining critical functionality that isn't central to their profit strategy (e.g. BSD userland) (and it's why I believe the open-sourcing of key parts of the NT kernel and userland will happen eventually)
- pjmlp 10y ago
  > which is further evidence of the amazing foresight Apple had in basing macOS on an open-source core (BSD): NeXT did it, not Apple. And the goal of the time was just to help bring UNIX software into NeXTSTEP as they were competing against the likes of Solaris for market share. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGhfB-NICzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGhfB-NICzg The whole NeXT architecture has very little UNIX on it. http://osxbook.com/ http://osxbook.com/ http://www.nextop.de/NeXTstep_3.3_Developer_Documentation/ http://www.nextop.de/NeXTstep_3.3_Developer_Documentation/

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Merad 10y ago

It blows my mind that Apple has basically put no effort at all into supporting the multi user business/education market. Our company rolled out our first LOB mobile app last year. Only six devices are involved, but they're basically in use 24/7 and are handed off at shift changes. The amount of hoops we had to jump through were absurd both in terms of device management setup and adding some features to the app to make it feel more "multi user". There's supposed to be an intrinsically safe iPad Mini case available later this year (IIRC), and our manufacturing areas are salivating over the possibilities... But we might have to disappoint them, because the overhead of trying to manage hundreds of iPads would be truly insane.

2arrs2ells 10y ago
Have you been able to try the multiple user features launched in iOS 9.3? https://appadvice.com/appnn/2016/01/apples-ios-9-3-features-multi-user-support-for-ipads-in-schools https://appadvice.com/appnn/2016/01/apples-ios-9-3-features-...
- Merad 10y ago
  No, unfortunately it is only for schools. When it was announced I was really hopeful that it meant general multi user support would be in iOS 10, but...
masterleep 10y ago
It really is absurd, isn't it? Multi user iPads would be incredibly useful in the home as well.
- usrusr 10y ago
  Would it help making households buy a second iPad? Even if it is not the main reason, it sure helps keeping the priority low. But the iPad is an offshot of a phone and those are so personal (the real personal computers, just think of the place where people water-damage their phones) that it would be questionable wether spending "UI bandwidth" on user switching would be worth it even if implementation was free.

skookumchuck 10y ago

Schools are always looking for ways that teachers can teach without doing work and students can learn without doing work, and computers are the magic tool that promises to do that. It's like using a forklift to raise the barbell. Sure, the barbell goes up, but you don't get any stronger.

ptaipale 10y ago
Yes. However, if your goal is to learn to lift up large masses, learning to operate a forklift is a good thing to do. (I cannot write about a "forklift operator" without asking if you have seen this German "educational" film. It starts slowly, but... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oB6DN5dYWo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oB6DN5dYWo )
- andrewflnr 10y ago
  ... but gets gory. I mean, just-above-Monty-Python level gore, but still maybe not what you're expecting.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    Well, you spoiled it, but that's it, the tone change from dull German workplace education film to a full Monty-Pythonesque parody creeps in so that you don't really know when it exactly set in.
- kriro 10y ago
  No need to put the educational in "". It was originally a parody of the edu-videos (the narrator is famous for doing "Der 7. Sinn" which is a serious edu-series) but is actually used quite often as an introduction to the safety stuff for a fork lift license. It's not an official video or anything but in practice you have ab out a 50% shot of watching that movie from anecdotal evidence.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    So, it started out as a parody of educational videos, and became an actual educational video? Anyway, I appreciate it. Who said the Germans don't have a sense of humour?