Apple grants iPads, Macs, Apple TVs, more to 114 US schools in ConnectED initiative

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  • Reply 41 of 54
    relicrelic Posts: 4,735member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by waterrockets View Post

     

     

    You can do offline stuff, but it's an online machine. Not enough for me either, although if you watched any of Google I/O, things are going in an interesting direction, as you can develop in Chrome, so on a Chromebook (this video starts at that point).

     

    image 


     

    There is very little you can't do on a ChromeBook now. Even if they didn't exsist I personally would still use cloud apps in the same capacity. I have moved a lot of my programming to online IDE's, I don't know if you are a programmer or not but sometimes I run into a wall, instead of creating hundreds of lines of sloppy spaghetti code to hack my way out, all I have to do is go to my favorite coding forum, ask the members to assist me in figuring out the problem by logging into my Cloud IDE using a guest credential, where I have already setup a cloned public workspace where here the community can work, chat and help me with my problems in almost real time. This approach in community assisted programming has redefined the way I work, we all do it now, we all learn from each other and not only create better code, more stable applications but quicker as well. It's simply awesome. Now you don't need a ChromeBook to accomplish this, any none mobile web browser would do but it's defiantly worth a look see, especially for students. Not only online IDE's either, Office apps, graphics, Photoshop is available online now and it's awesome, if you don't want to pay for a service, try Pixrl. Do you like creating music, than boy do I have the web app for you, www.audiotool.com/app , just a brilliant app. What's neat about the ChromeBook is however, it's connects you to this world without having to pay a fortune. If I only had a budget of say 500 bucks, I would buy a either a ChromeBook or a Nokia 2520 which I use as a ChromeBook and the iPad Air Mini for $250 in a heart beat. The Air get's you an Apple ID, in which you can log into iCloud via the ChromeBook or Nokia and use all of those wonderful Apple web apps. Though I personally prefer Office online where I get Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, it doesn't matter because you have access to all of them. Have you ever actually checked out some of these web apps outside of iCloud that is, there friggen awesome, people are just to set in there old traditional ways of installing applications, explore the cloud, your mind will be blown.

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  • Reply 42 of 54
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    canukstorm wrote: »
    I'm not convinced Craig Federighi is CEO material.  Scott Forstall OTOH....
    Scott Forstall? What on earth would make him CEO material?
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  • Reply 43 of 54
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member

    So these schools are mostly made up of minority, poor people.

    Seems to me these schools should be using pencil and paper.

    Moral of the story: under Tim Cook's new, discriminatory regime, if you want free Apple gear, marry a poor, minority person.
    And make sure it's someone of the same sex.
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  • Reply 44 of 54
    Apple has always had a special affection for education at all levels but specially K-12. It hasn't always executed that intention well but few lovers of anything do.
    We should't forget that the many folks at Apple who really want to assist the teaching and learning process have to always deal with the bean counters. This filter distorts a lot of the altruism at Apple, including education.
    Be thankful that it is there at all. Were the bean counters all powerful, nothing like this would happen.
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  • Reply 45 of 54
    relicrelic Posts: 4,735member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gangster View Post

     

    Technology alone is not enough to improve the education system.  The problems with the education system go beyond technology.




    In the U.S., please don't mix the rest of the world into that mess you call your educational system. Here in Switzerland your finished with school basically at the age of 16, some 17 depending on their performance, where by than you start an apprenticeship program, kind of a junior college for a chosen trade, after which you can choose to pursue this trade as your career in life, choose another apprenticeship program though it's rare to see this as not many want to repeat the process over again or choose higher education like university, though if your marks are decent enough you can go directly to the university at 16. My daughter is in such a program now and will hopefully be going to Zurich ETH next year. So the US is basically two years behind us and mind you most students at 16 are taking Calculus and their expected to know at least 2 languages besides their own if you were thinking our education program was lacking in anyway. 

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  • Reply 46 of 54
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member

    Problem is, Scott is so superficially similar to Jobs, that he would forever invite unfavourable comparison. Craig is sufficiently different that he would cast a new palette.

    I've never understood why people think Scott Forstall would be CEO material. Why? After he was let go there were rumors claiming he was emailing members of his team begging them for ideas on what to do next with iOS. We have zero evidence that Forstall had some grand vision of where Apple should go and how it should evolve. There is more to being CEO than being a good stage presenter. And quite honestly he never felt genuine to me on stage the way Craig and Eddy do.

    Ben Thomson, who was once an Apple intern and now runs the site Stratechery, summed up Forstall best. He said all interns get to meet with the executive team. He said Tim Cook was the most impressive, even more impressive than Steve Jobs. He also said Scott Forstall came across someone who knows they're the smartest person in the room and wants you to know that they know. There don't appear to be any egos on the current executive team. They seem to all get along well and none of them seem to be angling for Cook's job. That's the way I prefer it.
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  • Reply 47 of 54
    relicrelic Posts: 4,735member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post





    And make sure it's someone of the same sex.



    Oooohhhh and handicapped, a poor, handicapped, gay, minority and than your pretty much guaranteed a Mac Pro with all the goodies.

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  • Reply 48 of 54
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Relic View Post

     

     

    There is very little you can't do on a ChromeBook now. Even if they didn't exsist I personally would still use cloud apps in the same capacity. I have moved a lot of my programming to online IDE's, I don't know if you are a programmer or not but sometimes I run into a wall, instead of creating hundreds of lines of sloppy spaghetti code to hack my way out, all I have to do is go to my favorite coding forum, ask the members to assist me in figuring out the problem by logging into my Cloud IDE using a guest credential, where I have already setup a cloned public workspace where here the community can work, chat and help me with my problems in almost real time. This approach in community assisted programming has redefined the way I work, we all do it now, we all learn from each other and not only create better code, more stable applications but quicker as well. It's simply awesome. Now you don't need a ChromeBook to accomplish this, any none mobile web browser would do but it's defiantly worth a look see, especially for students. Not only online IDE's either, Office apps, graphics, Photoshop is available online now and it's awesome, if you don't want to pay for a service, try Pixrl. Do you like creating music, than boy do I have the web app for you, www.audiotool.com/app , just a brilliant app. What's neat about the ChromeBook is however, it's connects you to this world without having to pay a fortune. If I only had a budget of say 500 bucks, I would buy a either a ChromeBook or a Nokia 2520 which I use as a ChromeBook and the iPad Air Mini for $250 in a heart beat. The Air get's you an Apple ID, in which you can log into iCloud via the ChromeBook or Nokia and use all of those wonderful Apple web apps. Though I personally prefer Office online where I get Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, it doesn't matter because you have access to all of them. Have you ever actually checked out some of these web apps outside of iCloud that is, there friggen awesome, people are just to set in there old traditional ways of installing applications, explore the cloud, your mind will be blown.


     

    Yep, it's getting better fast. I am a developer, but this year it's been all C++ on defense projects. No options to do any of this on the cloud for me. That said, I'm working on a side project at home to support my side business (photography), and I'm doing all of this with online IDEs. Really cool stuff.

     

    Unfortunately, we're another couple of years away from me being able to run my photo processing in the browser. I come home with 3000 images from shooting a swim team, and spend 20 hours in Lightroom beating that into a sweet set of 600 images that I can sell to the clients. Just no way right now to handle the processing and bandwidth needed through a browser.

     

    For the development though, that's coming along much faster. Interestingly though, I don't believe there's an online Android sdk and tools. Well, other than Android App Inventor anyway :)

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  • Reply 49 of 54
    shsfshsf Posts: 302member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post





    Scott Forstall? What on earth would make him CEO material?

     

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post





    I've never understood why people think Scott Forstall would be CEO material. Why? After he was let go there were rumors claiming he was emailing members of his team begging them for ideas on what to do next with iOS. We have zero evidence that Forstall had some grand vision of where Apple should go and how it should evolve. There is more to being CEO than being a good stage presenter. And quite honestly he never felt genuine to me on stage the way Craig and Eddy do.



    Ben Thomson, who was once an Apple intern and now runs the site Stratechery, summed up Forstall best. He said all interns get to meet with the executive team. He said Tim Cook was the most impressive, even more impressive than Steve Jobs. He also said Scott Forstall came across someone who knows they're the smartest person in the room and wants you to know that they know. There don't appear to be any egos on the current executive team. They seem to all get along well and none of them seem to be angling for Cook's job. That's the way I prefer it.

     

    Agree to a t. I want to add that Forstall seemed to be one of those extremely arrogant software guys who are also extremely shortsighted and incredibly oblivious to the fact that anyone else might have a better idea than theirs. He is nowhere near what Steve stood for. Plus he made a right mess of iOS, maps and got into petty politics instead of team work. He's best forgotten. Anything he did without Steve overseeing him was horrible for the company and end users. The fact that he was also full of himself whilst effing up so badly makes him in my eyes rather ridiculous too. 

     

    I don't think there are more than a handful of people on the globe, let alone within the ranks of apple that can run apple better than Tim Cook. I hope in time, some people will realise that Tim Cook has reached Steve Job's stature as much as anyone possibly could. There are a ton of things that could have gone awry after Steve's demise and he's managed ideally.

     

    Restructuring apple with Ive as lead software and hardware designer was a great move, and the reason why macs and ios devices have regained their UI and UX sense of balance and taste. There's really no comparison between the current state of affairs and the atrocities of Lion and iOS 5 (or 6 was it?). He made an incorrect choice with the Dixon's guy, but I think he's put some real talent now with the Burberries exec. Greg Federighi overseeing a unified ios/os x team was also a great idea. He's curbed the urge for over litigation. Managed to get over the collusion debacle swiftly. Beat's acquisition was a great idea, and we 'll be impressed by it in a short while, as is the alliance with IBM.

     

    He's kept the product line extremely focused, building on the core strengths of each product. He's kept well clear of hounds like Carl Ichan types. He's put active interest and transparency in working conditions for apple's manufacturers, plus he's extremely effective and knowledgeable on pretty much everything an apple CEO should be knowledgeable about. Hat's off to him. No matter how much money you have you are still human, and he says he goes by the Kennedy motto "to whom much is given much is expected" I wholeheartedly believe him. And I really think everyone should at least start cutting him some slack. 

     

    Plus since quite some time ago apple is no longer the underdog, and a lot of people on the tech side of things as well as on the consumer side of things are very eager to see them fail if they are not consistently great, or even if they are consistently great, or because they are consistently great. Instead I see some really mighty competitors tripping over their continued mistakes and apple overcoming each obstacle with class and panache. Anyone who's done anything is well aware that success and failure have very close ties indeed, and nothing's guaranteed, even more so when apple caters to so many different types of markets and segments of the population. 

     

    Steve's left the best possible heir to his legacy at apple, period. To even put Forestahl's name in the same sentence as Tim Cook is laughable. 

     

     

    P.s. Stratechery seems like quite an interesting website and I am definitely going to be watching it out,  but here ( http://stratechery.com/2014/diminished-ipad/ ) he's clearly talking out of his behind I m afraid, not uncommon in the blogosphere. 

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  • Reply 50 of 54
    auxioauxio Posts: 2,794member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Relic View Post

     

    I have moved a lot of my programming to online IDE's, I don't know if you are a programmer or not but sometimes I run into a wall, instead of creating hundreds of lines of sloppy spaghetti code to hack my way out, all I have to do is go to my favorite coding forum, ask the members to assist me in figuring out the problem by logging into my Cloud IDE using a guest credential, where I have already setup a cloned public workspace where here the community can work, chat and help me with my problems in almost real time. This approach in community assisted programming has redefined the way I work, we all do it now, we all learn from each other and not only create better code, more stable applications but quicker as well. It's simply awesome.


     

    Programmers have generally done this for a long time now via IRC (I remember learning object-oriented programming on IRC in the mid 1990s).  And it's not realtime, but stackoverflow is a similar resource for all programming languages.

     

    It's not web applications I dislike, it's the ugliness of having to program in JavaScript.  For example:

     

    http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3390396/how-to-check-for-undefined-in-javascript/

     

    So there's undefined, which may not actually be undefined if someone defined it (?!).  Then there's null, which isn't the same as undefined.  There's both == and === for comparing things.  At what point does one actually convince themselves that this is a sane programming language?

     

    Beyond that, there's the performance issues waterrockets mentions.  In my case, think realtime, low-latency interaction with content on 4K displays.  Not possible in a web browser (though WebGL is getting better).

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  • Reply 51 of 54
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post

     
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TheWhiteFalcon View Post





    This is where I can say "Steve never would have done that" and be accurate. And TBH, Cook shouldn't be involved either, unless he wants to fly out and hand out leaflets himself. Apple has no business in this.




    Agreed I'd like Cook to stay out of politics. And I'd say the same if it was something I supported.



    I agree -- especially as Apple is attached to it whether that is his intention or not. The fact of the matter is that there are very strong feelings about race, religion, sexual orientation, involvement in wars, etc... I don't want Apple being tied to political issues that have the potential to influence sales of products and maintaining the pre-eminent lead in technology and design. Apple shouldn't be associated with the left or right or anywhere else other than producing the best. Now helping out with education is fine as is help with health issues but these are things that Apple has the right and the ability to lead on in assisting with feeding the starving and world health care supporting HIV/AIDS research in "(product) RED™" and like refugee camps when called from. I support "(product) RED™" and have since accessories for iPhone and IPad became available and for the devices themselves. 

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  • Reply 52 of 54
    apple ][ wrote: »
    I naturally oppose such initiatives.

    The $100 million could be better spent elsewhere (add it on to the stock buyback amount for example), and this program seems quite discriminatory and racist, though that doesn't surprise me one bit, given the name that is attached to this program.

    On the other hand, as long as it is done voluntarily by companies and you must realize that these students are potential future Apple customers. Because I used an Apple II+ (or Apple III) way back in my school days I followed Apple my whole life.
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  • Reply 53 of 54
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post



    On the other hand, as long as it is done voluntarily by companies and you must realize that these students are potential future Apple customers. Because I used an Apple II+ way back in my school days I followed Apple my whole life.

     

    I'm not going to disagree with that. I also used an Apple ][ back in my school days, and it was the first computer that I ever had exposure to. There was one machine for a class of about 35-40.

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  • Reply 54 of 54
    "I know for a fact lots of schools, when they reach a certain threshold, just give free lunch to everyone."

    Your facts are off. The free-reduced lunch number is based on the family income. When schools apply for grants, etc. the 'official' number of free/reduced lunch students is used. That official number is not dependent on whether the school is providing 100% of its students with free lunch.
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