Apple's Macs and iPads fall to third place in US classroom use

Apple's Macs and iPads have lost significant ground in the U.S. educational market during the last three years, in 2016 slipping to third place behind Chromebooks and Windows devices, according to new research.

Versus 2015, Macs fell a percentage point to just 5 percent of devices in the American K-12 segment, while iPads shrank five points to 14 percent, Futuresource Consulting said on Thursday. Apple's combined 19 percent put it below Windows' 22 percent, and well distant of the 58 percent owned by Chromebooks.

The market was more evenly distributed in 2014, with Chromebooks taking 38 percent, Apple 34 percent, and Windows 25 percent.

Google's Chromebook platform has proven popular with schools for a number of reasons, among them up-front price — Chromebooks can sometimes cost less than $200. Maintenance personnel cite cloud-based provisioning for the Chromebooks as a positive, as well as the near-disposable low-cost of the individual devices as an advantage for the platform.

The cheapest iPad, the Mini 2, starts at $269 before any bulk deals. A full-sized iPad is at least $399, while iPad Pros can cost $599 or more. Macs are even more expensive, with the cheapest recent model at retail being the $999 MacBook Air. Until late 2015, the white plastic MacBook was available to schools for as low as $600.

Prices can be somewhat lower for the hardware when purchased in quantity by a school, but Apple educational solutions generally bundle support and software up-front. This can appear to inflate the contract cost instead of it being obscured by long-term ad hoc support needs.

Apple did make some strides towards better educational support in 2016, Futuresource noted. This included introducing a Classroom app for teachers, and multi-user support on the iPad, if only for students.

The company often touts its presence in schools, for instance drawing attention through visits by executives like CEO Tim Cook.

Futuresource observed that both Apple and Google were relatively marginal players outside the U.S. last year. While Apple held 11 percent of the market and Google about 23 percent (including Android), Windows devices dominated at 65 percent, growing significantly since 2014.

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83 Comments

sflocal 6133 comments · 16 Years

About 7 years ago

Sad, but the reality is that most schools will use what is the cheapest, not the best. My nephews use Chromebooks in school and it just pains me to see the frustrations in their faces when those cheap pieces of junk act up.

stickista 23 comments · 8 Years

I'm as big an iPad fan as they come, and even I think that ChromeBooks are a far better solution for classrooms.

sflocal said:

Sad, but the reality is that most schools will use what is the cheapest, not the best. My nephews use Chromebooks in school and it just pains me to see the frustrations in their faces when those cheap pieces of junk act up.

The advantage to a ChromeBook is that if it acts up, toss it out and unpack a new one, and your're up and running in 5 minutes.

NY1822 620 comments · 8 Years

then they go home, and use IPads

macxpress 5910 comments · 16 Years

sflocal said:

Sad, but the reality is that most schools will use what is the cheapest, not the best. My nephews use Chromebooks in school and it just pains me to see the frustrations in their faces when those cheap pieces of junk act up.

Yes I provide tech support for a school district and they see a ChromeBook for $200 and get a bunch of them and we can then just use Google Classroom. I'm not sold on these devices...its a device that does one thing and pretty much one thing only. For Windows PC's, we can get HP Streams for just a little over $250 and they work well for basic things which is all a student needs. Apple provides nothing in this pricing tier...not even close! You can get a crappy 11" MacBook Air for $849 (edu pricing) and thats as low as you can get for a Mac laptop and thats not even a great laptop. For desktops you can get a Dell 5040 for $499 with pretty good specs and they're a small form factor...Apple doesn't really compete in this space either. Sure, you can get a Mac mini, but not with those same specs for $499. It would end up being around $799-899/Mac and then you still need a display, keyboard, and mouse. You'd be better off getting iMacs in the end.

On the other hand you're stuck spending $500 for an iPad and then you should also get 3yrs of AppleCare+, a good case and keyboard. I've mentioned this many times in other threads but Apple seriously needs to include the smart connector into ALL of its iPad lineup. One of the biggest downfalls of an iPad is the lack of a good keyboard that isn't bluetooth. The bluetooth keyboards function fine as keyboards but the batteries are constantly dead and charging them is an absolutely pain in the ass when you have a cart full of iPads. Its hard enough to get users to charge the iPads let alone a separate keyboard that uses a different connection than lighting to charge.

Macs are just expensive for schools. We have about 100 Macs in our district and students love using them, but they're expensive up front. They are however extremely easy to manage, especially if you have a management suite such as JAMF Pro (aka Casper MDM). For that matter, iPads are also easily managed with JAMF Pro (Casper MDM). We very rarely have issues with our Macs...PC's on the other hand can have its own set of issues.

In the end, schools are trying to save money and they can get this device for $200 and also have a pretty much free Classroom suite (Google Classroom) to go along with them. Apple on the other hand has absolutely nothing for the classroom. They depend on apps for iPads and Macs. That means there's a cost and it can be a significant cost if you have thousands of Apple devices. Apple does have Apple Classroom, but that doesn't do anything compared to Google Classroom or Office 365, both of which have classroom specific apps in their suite. iCloud does nothing for schools as far as classroom stuff goes.

Maybe in the consumer world Apple can successfully play with the upper pricing tier, but its not working as much anymore in the K-12 market, perhaps even Higher-Ed.