macxpress

robin huber said:

Why is she taking on outside work when there is so much left undone at Apple? The stores are a mess. Very stylish, yes, but within that visually zen-like shell chaos reigns. In one corner a class is being conducted with the instructor shouting to be heard. Right next to that are a dozen people sitting on cubes waiting for or being helped by geniuses. Everywhere else team members are conversing loudly with customers while others loiter, waiting for their chance to get help. The din is mind numbing. I can’t wait to conclude my business and get out into the relative serenity of the mall. Driving customers out is not a good result. Sound deadening materials are needed badly to counteract all the hard reflective surfaces. A separate theatre is needed for classes. Some visual cues are needed for folks to understand where they should be for purpose for which they came. Come on Angela, do your homework before you go out to play with Ralph. 

By this thinking no company would have a Board of Directors. Did you know that Tim Cook sits on the Board of Directors for Nike and the National Football Foundation, is a Trustee of Duke University? 

airnerd said:

Can they go a step further and have a toggle that prevents any data connection via USB?   I'm not a power user, but I can't remember the last time I connected my phone to anything to transfer data.  Everything is cloud based (backup, sync, etc), AirDrop,  or just email/imessaged as far as I know.  

Then again I have nothing of interest to law enforcement.  

Were not quite there yet. Yes, a lot of things are in the cloud, but there are situations where it doesn't work and you need to plug in. I for example have a 2012 Mac Pro and AirDrop is not supported so I have to plug in and I don't store every single photo in iCloud. We still have people out there with these types of situations. 

That being said, I see a day where Apple removes the Lightning jack completely. The internet will probably explode when it happens (literally stop working), but its bound to happen eventually.

lorin schultz said:

cgWerks said:

I don't think people should have to buy a MacBook Pro to get some of that, though. Maybe the 16 GB or RAM or *discrete* GPU, but there should be a non-pro machine with a good screen and good-enough GPU.

My wife's MacBook Pro is getting pretty old so today I went to Apple's site to see what a new one costs. I was genuinely shocked to discover that I can't buy a 15" Apple laptop with a TB of storage for less than CAD$4000 (USD$3000). With AppleCare, taxes, and a few adaptors to accommodate the USB-C connectors, we're looking at just shy of CAD$5000.

Looks like her existing MacBook Pro is going to get even older. WAAAY older, at this pace.

Lately a few things have had me thinking about how committed I am to staying with an all-Apple setup -- loads of software glitches, troublesome iPhones, disappointment in the 4K Apple TV -- so just for giggles I'd like to check how green the grass is on the other side of the fence. Anyone have suggestions of high-quality Wintel laptops you would actually consider buying for yourself?

Look to see if there's refurbs available on Apple's website. Sometimes you can get pretty good deals and they're just as good as a new Mac and you can still get AppleCare for it as well. If not, it still retains the 1yr warranty. 

gmgravytrain said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

foregoneconclusion said:

The cost to schools isn't just the hardware. It's also the support and upkeep. That's not any different than in the corporate world, where cheaper hardware isn't necessarily the best choice from a financial perspective.

Sure.

But, when a school gets a quote from Acer that says $312 per seat, and one from Apple that says $499 a seat, including support, which is going to get picked?

$312 wins by a landslide when multiplied by a hundred(s) students/devices. Clearly, Apple isn't playing to win the market. Apple is only hoping to appeal to some smaller niche market which doesn't have low cost as the main priority. I do believe some school systems will choose the iPad but it will be very few. Maybe Apple is happy with that because they won't have to take a large financial hit. I think most of this world is made up of Chromebook users who aren't looking to be inspired. They'd rather just get the job done and call it a day. I get it. Maybe Apple also gets it. Apple could just be satisfied with even a half-hearted attempt at trying to reach those students and teachers who want to be inspired. Apple is saying that if you want to learn the Apple way, you have to pay extra. That's just how it is in this life. You always stand a better chance with deeper pockets.

Apple will never compete on price. It never has and never will. It didn't really compete on price before when it was #1 in education. They've always been more expensive and for good reason. You obviously aren't an educator and have no idea what you're talking about in this area. Education is a completely different area to work in. It requires TONS of effort, training and yes, creativity. If you don't engage students they won't be apt to learn anything. Maybe schools in your area don't get this so this is what you see and think all schools are like. You can't just have students read and write papers all day long. They will get bored, they will get frustrated and in the end, simply won't care anymore. Crapbooks provide no creativity at all, but rather just reading and writing tools. Schools need more than just reading and writing tools. They need creativity tools. 

If beancounters administrators in school districts want to buy Crapbooks because they think they're saving a dime, then they can go ahead. I have a feeling it will end up costing them more in the end and not just financially either. 

seanismorris said:

PabloTresUnoSeis said:

My kid uses Chromebooks at his school. My take on it is it’s a device to do assignments, projects, school work, and that’s about it. It doesn’t foster and inspire creativity the way the iPad does that my kid uses at home.

What I’m hearing is the main knock again Apple’s in schools is MDM (managing them), that’s still a work in progress with an in-house offering coming soon.  

When I was in school they didn’t really care about “inspiring creativity”.  They didn’t really even care about education, it was moving you (students) forward through the system.  If you understood the material that was a happy bonus...

It was a modified day care center of busy work.

MDM support for Apple devices (Macs and iOS) is out there and probably the best one is provided by Jamf. Apple certainly doesn't do much in the space even though they do have Profile Manager built into Server. Jamf Pro will do everything you need it to do and so much more and its really easy to use. Yes, of course there is a cost, but the Google Admin side isn't free either.