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Comment by ploggingdev | Hacker News Reader

> “At the end of the day, I can get three Chromebooks for each of the Mac devices I would have purchased,” said Steve Splichal, the superintendent of Eudora Public Schools.

Not choosing a Mac for school students should have always been a no brainer because, as mentioned a) cost, b)what benefit do Macs provide over say Windows laptops or chromebooks for high school students?

Apple did a real good job marketing their products to schools all over the country though.

I imagine high school students require a device to do basic coding, assignments, office applications (presentation, word), browsing and maybe basic image editing. Sure, in professional settings I can understand people choosing Macs, but but for high school students it just seems overkill for their use case.

Anyway I'm glad to see schools coming to their senses and move away from apple devices...into another (cheaper) walled garden.

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Macs definitely have less downtime, shorter startup time and better battery life than windows machines. Windows has certainly gotten better over the last few years, but 5 years ago it would be taking a minute or two for windows to wake up and log in between each class. Mac is pretty much instant (Chromebooks are fast too). Before you say that a minute isn't much, consider that you have 25 teenagers in the classroom, with a minute of boredom.

Also, build quality, effective lack of malware and other system problems mean students (and teachers) don't have to deal with broken computers nearly as often.

It's only the last couple of years that windows has come close, and for hardware the compares in terms of durability, you'll be paying as much as Apple anyway (which schools are hesitant to do as they are underfunded)

I speak from years of experience as a teacher and IT manager, and as an apple hater.

No malware on the Windows PCs I manage because I authorize every executable that can run.

Wake up times depend on sleep state mostly, not going to take more than 10 seconds anyway. Login times can be improved/made terrible by the IT department.

Build quality just depends on how much you spend, same with battery life.

Main problem with Apple is cost/lack of choice/ability to fix hardware.

> 5 years ago it would be taking a minute or two for windows to wake up and log in

OS boot time depends mostly on storage speed, not just the OS itself. My 2012 MBP takes 90s to boot before I upgraded it to SSD.

I'm not talking about boot time - I'm talking opening the lid of a suspended-state laptop. Which is something a highschool student has to do at least 5 (but probably more) times a day. Windows is better now (my shiny new Windows laptop takes around 5 or 10 seconds) but Mac is pretty much instant.

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