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Comment by phmagic | Hacker News Reader

I think Chromebooks will still dominate because:

1. Chromebooks have a much better web browsing experience than iPads. The web is where a lot of classroom exercises and materials are distributed. It also provides a lot of flexibility in terms of loading new applications.

2. Physical keyboard means that there's more room to display content. Imagine typing up a book report on an on screen keyboard, or creating a presentation.

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Chromebooks will still dominate in education because this new iPad isn’t practically different than the outgoing model. It’s the same price, the same materials (e.g. no increased durability), has no built-in or included keyboard, and while Pencil support is nice, I don’t see many schools shelling $100 (1/3 the cost of the iPad itself) for each student to get one. I just don’t see how this changes anything when it comes to iPad’s appeal in education.

As someone that uses his iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard frequently, I'd say the bigger issue is lack of mouse support in iOS.

It's terrible to have to keep reaching up and pawing at the screen.

This. My wife uses a iPad + keyboard as her sole computer, and lack of a mouse is her only complaint.

I wonder why this hasn't been added yet. I haven't used my iPad2 in a couple of years but back when I got it (due to the lack of any reasonably comparable devices running Android or Windows at the time) I remember jailbreaking it as soon as possible.

I installed a few things from the Cydia store to overcome what I saw as missing functionality--stuff like adding a number row to the keyboard so I didn't have to keep toggling between letters and numbers, improving notifications, forcing resized phone apps to use a higher resolution, etc.

One major app allowed me to connect a bluetooth mouse and use that for typical mousy stuff. In the years since I was tinkering with that iPad, I've seen so many of my initial complaints fixed so I'm surprised that mouse support isn't on the list yet.

My kids have school-issued iPads and type reports with the on-screen keyboard filling half the screen. They're totally used to it. They seem to prefer the iPad to using a chromebook.

> kids have school-issued iPads [..] They seem to prefer the iPad to using a chromebook.

So they have school issued Chromebooks too? Or is that just supposition?

iPad === status++. Of course they're going to prefer it regardless of rational merits either way.

iPad === status++

Still? Maybe it's because I live in a nice upper middle class area and have nice upper middle class friends, but I don't think anybody, at any age, sees the iPad as a status symbol.

Conduct an experiment and see how your upper middle class kids respond when their iWant is replaced with a downmarket Google product.

Understand that the kids with Chromebooks are learning how to use Linux while they improve their typing skills.

...they are learning how to use Linux? Not one bit.

I bought my kids cheap low-end chromebooks, and they also get chromebooks issued to them during certain classes. There's zero linux learning going on there. They can't go into developer mode. There's no more linux learning there than there is BSD learning on an iPad.

They are only learning the Google Docs ecosystem. It's awesome if indoctrination in software ecosystem lock-in is your thing.

"But let the kids go with their preference so they can be dumb wage slaves" -- Nice. Thanks for the implication that I'm a bad parent for letting them complete their schoolwork on the iPad as they are required by their teachers.

*Chromebooks with Developer Mode

https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/poking-around-your-chro...

iOS has nothing like this.

It's been a while since I was a student, but assuming that schools' attitude towards technology is still the same you'd probably get detention and your school-issued Chromebook confiscated if you tried to enable developer mode.

developer mode is locked out of school chromebooks. for obvious reasons.

this is only going to make kids want developer mode more, even if obtaining it requires dropping $200 on a personal chromebook.

The vast, vast majority of kids don't know it exists and have no idea what they'd do with it even if it did.

Yeah, I'm sure there's the one kid who loves tech in the class that wants to use it, but they'd be just as interested in Linux/tech stuff whether or not the school handed them a Chromebook.

any kid interested in getting around the barriers imposed by the school is going to wind up learning about developer mode.

My 10yo has a Dell laptop with Linux, and she's not learning Linux.

Good point. Desktop environments effectively remove the educational value from linux.

The pencil is a game changer for many things.

For students, doing math/physics/thinking spatially anything that isn't fundamentally "typing".

For teachers -- grading/marking up assignments.

> The pencil is a game changer for many things.

The pencil support is nice to have. Game changer? I'm not so sure.

Have you tried it? I think "game changer" is entirely appropriate. It fundamentally transforms the user interface in a way that better reflects the needs of education environments.

I own two iPad Pros, both with pencil support and have two Apple Pencils. I still don't regard it to be "game changing" for education, at least not in its current form.

> It fundamentally transforms the user interface in a way that better reflects the needs of education environments.

Until we see software that reflects this, this hasn't happened. Hardware support is only half the story here. The iPad user experience is still fundamentally largely the same regardless of using the pencil or not.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to have and I can see why kids will love drawing with it. I just don't subscribe to the idea it's somehow a game changer yet.

As someone who's used many styluses over the years - they're all way too heavy, and the feel of pen or pencil on paper, is still far superior to any stylus to screen that I've experienced.

My younger brother wanted an iPad to do school notes on in University - that lasted about one week, and it wasn't the software, it's just clunky compared to pen and paper still.

When they get the weight down (of both the iPad and the pencil), the screen has texture, and the responsiveness improves by 2-5x, then it'll be a game changer.

For now, it's a useful tool in very narrow scenarios (artists mostly)

Well, as a comparison point I've completely eliminated paper for note taking in classes and general math/engineering work. The iPad with a quality Pencil-aware application (GoodNotes is nice) is better than paper, and doesn't feel any different to me in terms of weight and handling. The added benefit of, for example, being able to lasso and rearrange ink on paper as you work puts it over the top.

> The pencil is a game changer for many things.

Sure, having a pressure sensitive stylus opens up new options, but it's not a unique iPad feature compared to Chromebooks; as well as high-end models from Google and Samsung, the $349 (regular retail price, not an education/volume discount) Acer Chromebook Spin 11 (2-in-1 form factor) also comes with one.

> Sure, having a pressure sensitive stylus opens up new options, but it's not a unique iPad feature compared to ...

Isn't this kind of an Apple specialty? Something exists but isn't used. They release a version that is good and is actually used.

I love my gadgets so I’ve owned lots of smart phone, tablets, tablet pencils, and Wacom devices—even a couple of high end Wacom video graphic tablets. I think Apple did a good job with their pencil. However, I rarely use any of them outside of electronic art projects.

I completed my Math degree and Engineering degrees in 1974 so I’ve solved my fair share of problems and taken thousands of pages of technical notes; my opinion is that no electronic drawing device beats a ream of typing paper and a good pen or pencil. (I don’t even use a calculator very often. Once I’m ready to handle numbers I use a computer.)

I'm a theoretical physicist, and the iPad Pro with pencil definitely beats paper for me: I can my move things around, copy and modify an equation, and correct mistakes much more easily. Also, I don't lose notes and I can organize them much more easily (virtual notebooks don't take up space)

This is so interesting to me. I own a large iPad Pro and pencil and didn’t feel that I could write subscripts very easily, kind of like writing with a Crayon. The zooming in and out also caused me to be unable to visualize as well where I wrote something down.

Your comment makes me think I should give it another try. Is there some special note taking App you prefer?

I'm using GoodNotes

Plus, you can get a 2-in-1 Chromebook that converts from laptop to tent to chunky tablet for $50 less than the cost of the iPad even with the $29 educational discount.

We're talking about kids here. Chromebooks have a short lifespan in the hands of kids. If they fall apart and slow down after a year, then what's the point?

The iPad is a more decent product for the price, lasts longer, and has the backing of the Apple ecosystem. It's a more durable product. Not to mention, Apple has AppleCare which should expedite repairs and replacements.

Apple provides a better overall ecosystem.

Why would a Chromebook slow down after a year? They're not Windows computers and don't have magnetic drives.

I doubt an iPad without a case is more durable in the hands of children. Plenty of vendors selling Chromebooks offer warranties, at least to institutions, that are longer and better than AppleCare. AppleCare for iPads is limited to two years, not two additional years as it is for Macs, two years total [0]. If a kid breaks a Chromebook, they turn it in, get another that they can immediately use just by logging in, and the school's IT can get it repaired or even replaced under warranty.

If by "ecosystem" you mean "App Store," sure it's better but Chromebooks are mainly used on the web, no store required. The Chromebook management ecosystem is decidedly better than the one for iPads. You can make management better for iPads by paying for a 3rd party MDM like Jamf but that significantly adds to the total cost of ownership.

I generally like Apple and Apple products but I also think keyboard skills are important and what Google has made with Chromebooks, G-Suite, and the hardware management are really nice and have room for a variety of hardware designs and price points.

[0] https://www.apple.com/support/products/ipad.html

I don't agree that an iPad is more durable for kids than the education focused Chromebooks, like the new lenovos that came out with drop resistance and spill proof keyboards: https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/lenovo-n-series...

Disclosure: I work at Google but not remotely on chromebooks.

I've slowly moved most of my mobile experience back to browser (safari) due to storage savings for things like images/music/tv shows. Same with my laptop.

Modern browsers and web apps can mimic computing environments while outsourcing the storage problem. I see the future moving in this direction as well.

Why can’t you just use a Bluetooth keyboard?

You can. More money. More things to configure. More things to break. More things to lose.

How can you lose a keyboard?

You don't have kids, do you?

I do... my 10 year old son lost a brand new pair of Under Armor shoes two weeks ago. Gone. Poof.

It was maddening as hell, but then I realized that I have lost bigger more expensive things as well. Also, I was a kid too... So I took a deep breath and he used his birthday money to buy himeself a new pair. I didn't have to raise my voice... he just "knew" not to test on this.

Yeah I do.

Issues that are trivial at the level of the individual become logistics headaches when you scale out to thousands or tens of thousands of individuals.

True. That said, if a school is spending 300 per student on an iPad, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to spend another 40 on a keyboard.

it doesn’t seem unreasonable to spend another 40 on a keyboard.

You have obviously never been involved in purchasing decisions at large public institutions. "Reasonable" never features into it.

It may not be unreasonable, but it's more money.

Chromebooks domination is specific to US, they are hardly seen anywhere else.

Chromebooks are dominant in schools down here in NZ.

Here in Europe they are largely ignored at a corner in most consumer chains, being sold at increasing discounts until someone takes them.

You can watch this effect, by finding a shop with one and then visiting it regularly afterwards.

Most parents just get a regular notebook.

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