Apple event 2018: all the latest news from the Education keynote – The Verge

Teachers weigh in on Apple’s push for more iPads in school

2018-03-30T10:25:01-04:00

This week, Apple held its education event to introduce a new iPad with stylus support aimed at teachers and students, hoping to take on the popularity of Chromebooks in classrooms over the past few years. As of 2017, Apple is third behind Google and Microsoft in terms of laptops, tablets, and other mobile devices shipped to schools, with sales to schools steadily declining since 2013.

To combat this drop, Apple showed off an "affordable" iPad this week at an event held at Lane Tech College Prep, a public high school in Chicago. "We price things as low as we can," Apple CEO Tim Cook told Recode's Kara Swisher in a post-event interview. "We t …

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How to choose between Apple’s iPad and iPad Pro

2018-03-28T07:30:02-04:00

If you look at an iPad and an iPad Pro side by side, you won't notice much of a difference. The Pro is a little bigger, it has slightly thinner bezels, there are some metal dots on one edge - and that's about it.

With Apple's update to the entry-level iPad on Tuesday, the two full-sized tablets are surprisingly close together in both appearance and spec sheet. There are some notable differences between them, but if you're planning to buy one for casual use - or for a student, like Apple hopes - there's not a ton you're missing out on by getting the $329 iPad instead of the $649 iPad Pro.

Seriously, if you want an iPad (or really, any table …

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It’s really easy to get Apple’s education discount on the new iPad

2018-03-27T14:24:58-04:00

Apple's education pricing, which usually knocks around 10 percent off the price of most Apple products, is available to the following people:

Current and newly accepted college students and their parents.
Faculty and staff of all grade levels.
Homeschool teachers.

If you're one of those people, you can get Apple's new iPad for $309, instead of the $329 list price. The special $299 price Apple announced today is for schools, not individual buyers.

It's fairly easy to prove if you're in college, or work for a college: you probably have a student ID and / or a college email address. If you're a K-12 teacher, I'm sure you have something equivalen …

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Logitech’s new rugged case for the iPad has its own smart keyboard connector

2018-03-27T14:19:17-04:00

Logitech's Rugged Combo 2 keyboard case for the iPad is not likely to be something you'll want to buy. It's just too big for most. It's very, very rugged, surrounding the device in a huge plastic block that feels like it could protect the glass inside from nearly anything. (Logitech says it's good for up to a four-foot drop, but I bet it could handle more.) You won't really be able to buy it anyway; it's designed for the education market.

But I am here to tell you that it is fascinating. The spill-proof keyboard doesn't connect via Bluetooth, but instead via a custom smart connector Logitech developed, which passes through to the Lightning …

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The Logitech Crayon is great, but it’s limited to the education market

2018-03-27T14:14:18-04:00

We just got a look at the new iPad accessories Logitech announced today: the $49 Crayon and the $99 Rugged Case. They are really nice, but they are not for you. Both accessories are specifically designed to sell to the education market and will not hit general retail.

Let's start with the Crayon because it's fascinating. It's half the price of the Apple Pencil and works a little bit differently. It does not need to be paired via Bluetooth. Instead, any Crayon can work with any iPad. Apple says that's so a teacher can walk around with it and use it with student devices. Since it doesn't pair via Bluetooth, it can't do pressure sensitivity. H …

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Apple’s less powerful iPad mini 4 is $70 more expensive than the new iPad

2018-03-27T13:04:09-04:00

Today, Apple refreshed its iPad lineup with a new 9.7-inch iPad with Pencil support that comes with a student-focused $30 discount. The device is designed to replace last year's $329 base model iPad, and it sells for that same price to regular consumers. Apple's race to beat Google in the classroom is a good thing for everyone, resulting in cheaper price points and more options. However, one product category that still remains stubbornly unaffordable in Apple's new education and accessibility-focused iPad roadmap is the iPad mini 4.

The company's web store was updated this morning, and the 7.9-inch iPad mini, which came out back in Septembe …

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The 5 biggest announcements from the Apple education event

2018-03-27T12:52:15-04:00

Apple took its annual spring event out of California and hosted it at a high school in Chicago this year, promising to focus its newest products toward the education market that's been dominated by Google and Microsoft. The keynote was condensed into just one hour, most of which revolved around all the things you can do with a newly announced iPad. Here's a look at all the biggest news today.

An "Education" iPad

The star of today's announcement was the new "affordable" iPad with stylus support. Affordable is in quotations because it costs $299 for schools, but $329 for everyone else - the same price as iPad's 9.7-inch tablet announced last s …

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Apple’s Schoolwork app lets teachers dole out digital assignments to students

2018-03-27T11:55:11-04:00

Apple is making a big push into education, and part of that is through apps. At its event today, the company announced a tool called Schoolwork, which will allow teachers to assign digital handouts to students - Apple compared it to writing an email: teachers will be able to write notes, send PDFs, and include links to the web. And since this is all on an iPad, they'll even be able to assign students activities that live inside of other apps.

One of Apple's big selling points here is that Schoolwork will keep all student data private - only teachers will be able to see it; it will also allow them to monitor students' progress to see how far …

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Apple and Logitech announce $49 Crayon stylus and keyboard case that work with the iPad

2018-03-27T11:44:11-04:00

Apple today announced a cheaper, Logitech-made stylus for its iPad family of devices called Crayon. The device, announced onstage at Apple's iPad-focused education event in Chicago this morning, will cost $49 and join the $99 Pencil in Apple's current stylus lineup. Alongside the stylus, Apple also announced a new rugged Logitech iPad case and keyboard combo. Logitech says the case will cost $99.99, and both devices will be available this summer in the US and only through Apple's online education channel. The Verge has confirmed with Apple that the devices are not available to the general public and are for schools only.

Apple's education e …

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Apple’s bringing digital book creations to the Pages app on the iPad

2018-03-27T11:36:33-04:00

Apple's education event today is focused on the new $299 iPad, designed as its most "affordable" device with Apple Pencil support. It's also updating its Pages app to bring a new digital book creation tool to let educators and students make books together, including the use of handwritten notes and drawings. Previously, a similar feature on the Mac was the iBooks Author app.

Instead of calling it iBooks Author, however, Apple is now calling it Digital Books. Students can make a book for a group project and these "books" can include photos, videos, or even Apple Pencil illustrations. Users will be able to create books from pre-made templates …

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