Apple dominant in elementary schools with room to grow, as just 25% use iPads

During Apple's fourth quarter earnings call earlier this week, Chief Executive Tim Cook called the iPad's education market share "unheard of" and said he had "never seen a market share that high before" —  but there is plenty of headroom for even more expansion, says the developer of popular iOS education app PocketPhonics.

The survey of 374 parents and 160 teachers throughout the U.S. found near-unanimous agreement among teachers that tablets would soon make their way into the balance of elementary schools and preschools that do not currently employ the technology, with 83 percent of parents saying they would support the move.

Even more damning for the future of non-iPad tablets in education may be the lack of availability of educational content. In addition to Apple's iBooks Textbooks initiative, the developer notes that only one of the ten most popular educational apps cited by parents in the survey were available for Google's Android, the other major tablet operating system.

"The fact that the iPad is so strong in education makes it difficult to justify developing for any other platform," said John Friend, managing director of PocketPhonics developer Apps in My Pocket.

"I would love to find new markets for the PocketPhonics app. But with such a small slice of the education pie, the Android market is currently too small to support the costs of developing an app," he continued.