firelock

We supplied my daughter with a MacBook and iPad mini. Most universities today handle class work through web portals. You usually get your assignments and turn them in through these portals. They are frequently poorly built and barely work right on a PC or Mac, nevertheless an iPad. Just accessing the school’s student portal (so I can pay the bills, check on registration, sign up for dorm rooms) on my iPad Pro was an huge exercise in frustration as the frames didn’t work right. Students also frequently have to put files on flash drives so they can use them on a school computer or give to a friend who has a PC when they are working on group projects. MAYBE you could consider an iPad Pro after iPad OS comes out with it’s desktop class browser and the ability to use external drives, but until that proves itself a Mac laptop is the only way to go in my opinion. YMMV

EDIT: Another thing I just thought of. My daughter had to complete some projects in InDesign for a technical marketing class. They had a school computer lab setup with Adobe CC that they could use so she didn’t need it on her laptop. However one weekend we wanted her to come home for a family event, but she said she had to stay on campus to use the school lab to complete her InDesign project. Since I have a CC subscription I told her that I would install it on her MacBook, and she could complete the work at home. Obviously not possible on an iPad.

macplusplus said:

hammeroftruth said:

Apple never showed it any love though. In its last few months of life, it was priced higher than the new MacBook Air, thus nobody bought it. 

Because of 256 SSD.

That is the main reason why I chose the MacBook over the MacBook Pro for my daughter, actually. She needed the extra storage for music and movies, and while a MacBook Pro 13” was about the same price, it had less storage.

I bought my daughter a 2016 rose gold MacBook her sophomore year at college, after her old MacBook Air’s HD died. (I replaced the Air’s drive and gave it to my wife.) She just graduated and it got her through all of her years at college and she uses it everyday now. Never had any keyboard problems and she uses it a lot. She loves the color and has gotten a lot of compliments on it. As other have mentioned, lack of ports has never been a problem. Between Dropbox, email, iMessage, and Airdrop she has never had to use a flash drive for any reason. Now as the guy who wrote the check, there is absolutely no doubt that this laptop was way overpriced. I think it was something like $1,300 retail, and with tax and Apple Care it came to around $1,600 out of pocket! That said she loves it and it works great. The lightness was a huge help with her having to schlep it and a bunch of books around campus.

Robert Baum said:

I honestly don’t understand why on an Apple website we all too often get reviews of and comparisons to Windows or Android. I read Apple news for Apple news.  There are plenty of blogs and reviews sites for the other products. If I want to learn about those products I know where to look. 

It’s hard to evaluate any system or device in isolation. As a part-time historian I liken it to trying to evaluate US tanks from WW2 without comparing it to tanks from other countries like Germany and the USSR. It’s not possible to understand how good or bad the Sherman is without comparing its strengths and weaknesses to a Panzer IV or T-34.

I run a corporate video department. We have reference monitors, etc. so I get who the new Apple monitor is aimed at why it costs what it does. However, I agree with the other posters that Apple should have come out with a range of monitors that included the new high-end one, but also a reintroduction of their 24” and 27” displays that are aimed at business users (as well as home users and prosumers) that don’t need the very best monitor, but still need something reliable with great color and Apple’s design and build quality.

I know the question becomes “why don’t you buy a good third-party monitor”? Well obviously that is what we have been doing since Apple discontinued their monitors, and the results have been pretty mixed to unsatisfactory. Despite researching reviews and specs, we have had difficulty getting the same color calibration results that we achieved with Apple’s Cinema and Thunderbolt displays, and still achieve easily with the built-in iMac/iMac Pro displays. In addition, nearly all of our users have two monitors. It used to be a no-brained to order an iMac and an Apple display to go with it as a second-monitor and easily match color across the span. Now this is a huge problem.