Apple held its education-centric “Let’s take a field trip” event at Lane Tech College Prep High School in Chicago today. As expected we saw some new hardware announcements, education-focused software, and new educational pricing and incentives. Below is a full rundown of everything unveiled today.
Hardware
The following new hardware products targeted towards students were announced.
The New iPad (again)
Welcome back to 2012 - ‘The New iPad’ is on sale again! Technically speaking, this is the 6th Generation iPad, however, just like last year, its official name is simply ‘iPad’. The Apple Website is touting it as ‘The New iPad’, which makes absolute sense as that’s precisely what it is, and it’s a nice callback to when the first Retina iPad was introduced (the 3rd gen) back in 2012, as this was how that device was marketed.
The new iPad is a modest yet incredible welcome over the 2017 model, it retains the same form factor including the same non-laminated 9.7” Retina display. No P3 wide colour, True Tone or ProMotion here. It features a processor bump up to the same A10 Fusion chip found in the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. This results in 40% faster CPU and 50% faster graphics performance when compared to the previous generation 9.7-inch iPad. LTE speeds have been increased up to 300 Mbps on this device, and if you opt for the Wi-Fi + cellular model, the Apple SIM still comes pre-installed. Unlike the iPad Pro models, however, it is not embedded in the device, so you will have to choose between Apple SIM or your own carrier’s SIM. The new iPad also ditches the old yellow-gold colour option for the new closer-to-rose-gold colour first introduced on the iPhone 8 back in September.
However, the big news here - as expected - is support for the Apple Pencil (which has received a price drop to £89 in the UK), something that was previously limited to iPad Pro models. This is going to be brilliant for education and really a no-brainer for Apple, especially seeing as the 2018 iPad Pro model will supposedly be so different from their cheaper sibling, the Pencil doesn’t need to remain a Pro selling point.
Finally, Logitech unveiled the ‘Crayon’ - a digital stylus, similar to Apple Pencil, but almost half the price at $49. It uses the same technology as the Apple Pencil technology to deliver the same sub-pixel precision, low latency, and tilt support. It does not feature the pressure sensors found in Apple Pencil, however. It has been designed specifically alongside the 6th-generation iPad, and will not work with last year’s model. It also remains unclear whether or not it will work with any iPad Pro models.
I think the crayon is going to be amazing for younger students.
iPad keeps the same price as its predecessor in the US, starting at $329 or $299 for schools. In the UK iPad now starts at £319 - £20 cheaper than the 2017 model.
Update 28/3/18: It’s no suprise, but it’s been confirmed that the new iPad does not have these additional hardware features found on iPad Pro:
- Smart Connector
- Optical Image Stabilisation
- 4K video recording
- Second-gen Touch ID
Software
Surprisingly, there was no information shared regarding the iOS 11.3 release date as had been expected, however, there were plenty of software announcements to go around.
iWork Updates
Apple’s iWork apps for iOS got updated today to include Apple Pencil support. This will allow Pages, Numbers and Keynote users to add drawings directly to documents and take advantage of all-new smart annotation features. For example, when using smart annotation, the note anchors to the word or image around it. So as edits are made to the document, such as moving or resizing an image or text box, the pencil annotations move with the content. Teachers will also be able to use Markup directly within iWork to add to students' documents and projects using an iPad and Apple Pencil.
Schoolwork and Classroom
Apple’s existing Classroom iPad app will be coming to the Mac starting as a beta in June. Classroom allows teachers to interact with the iPads in their classroom as well as monitor what they are doing on them.
Also announced was a new app called Schoolwork, which lets teachers assign schoolwork and tasks and track the progress of their students. The ClassKit API coming in iOS 11.4 will allow 3rd-party apps to integrate with Schoolwork. Schoolwork will be available to teachers starting in June.
Educational incentives
Other than reduced hardware pricing for schools and students, and the new apps mentioned above, there were other new Apple incentives announced for those in education today.
Everyone Can Create
Everyone Can Create is a free new curriculum that will be part of the ‘Today At Apple’ sessions.
“Everyone Can Create makes it fun and easy for teachers to integrate drawing, music, filmmaking or photography into their existing lesson plans for any subject. The new curriculum joins Apple’s successful Everyone Can Code initiative as one-of-a-kind programs for teachers that keep students excited and engaged.”
The curriculum includes learning resources and teaching guides to help teachers integrate drawing, music, filmmaking or photography into lessons, topics, and classwork. It also features teacher and student guides, lessons, ideas and examples to help teachers bring creativity and new communication skills into existing subjects like English, maths, science and history.
Free iCloud Storage
Students now get 200GB of free iCloud storage. This is great, but it’s still 5GB for everyone else, which is a shame in 2018.
Other things that happened today.
New Watch straps and iPhone/iPad cases went on sale in a variety of Spring 2018 colours. These will likely be around until the September Keynote.
The Space Grey Mac desktop peripherals introduced with iMac Pro are now available to purchase separately from Apple, albeit at a slight premium compared to their standard Silver counterparts.
:))