[decacorn]

a $300 ipad is still technology for the privileged. come back with $20 tech that the majority of underprivileged can actually afford, then you (apple) can boast about making tech ubiquitous. Until then, nothing they have made in the last 5 years has been significant.

[askafriend]

Quite odd to make such bold, sweeping statements about the world with zero data presented.

[oblio]

He’s quite aggressive, but he does have a point. Apple doesn’t serve at all the bottom 20% of the world. Maybe, maybe it does so through the second hand market, which doesn’t really count cause every other manufacturer also has it.

You could argue that by pushing the high end the low end is also pulled up slowly. Still doesn’t seem like a great argument.

[askafriend]

Why is the very first piece of criticism on something like this that Apple doesn't serve the bottom 20%? I can make that argument about tons of things unfairly. For example, does Toyota serve the bottom 20% of the world? Does Hacker News? Does Tesla?

Why don't the middle 50% deserve a great experience or progress? There is A LOT of progress to be made in education in the first world. There is so much low hanging fruit.

Did iPhone serve the bottom 20% of the market when it was released? No. Did it subsequently change the quality of life for the bottom 20% as it ushered in the smartphone era? Undoubtedly. Will this particular announcement do the same? Probably not, but who knows. Does it need to in order for iPad to be successful? No.

Look at it this way, if a $300 iPad is easy to administer, easy to manage, easy to get children to use, easy to clean, easy to handle, useful for teachers and students, and extremely reliable - that is a huge win compared to the status quo because it will convince schools that implementing and integrating technology is both a worthwhile and easy endeavor.

Can Google do something similar with Chromebooks? Sure. Is it a different approach from Apple? Yes. Are both approaches worthwhile? Probably yes, let’s see what happens.



I feel like there’s a fundamental pragmatism missing in the OP’s snap judgement and that results in something short-sighted and irrelevant. Ultimately s/he has a point but not a useful one and there are far far more useful critiques for us to be talking about.

[candiodari]

> Why don't the middle 50% deserve a great experience or progress? There is A LOT of progress to be made in education in the first world. There is so much low hanging fruit.

Why do they deserve better devices than the poor ? This is why poor people are poor. Because rich people "deserve" great experience, great progress, great opportunities, which is another way of saying, of course, that the poor do not.

> Look at it this way, if a $300 iPad is easy to administer, easy to manage, easy to get children to use, easy to clean, easy to handle, useful for teachers and students, and extremely reliable - that is a huge win compared to the status quo because it will convince schools that implementing and integrating technology is both a worthwhile and easy endeavor.

So what you're saying is, it's a great tool for learning and bettering yourself ... and the poor have no rights to it. (I was very poor as a child, and lots of people, especially in my classroom, felt this way about things like nice books/clothes/sports gear (as opposed to secondhand), later computers, and gameboy/consoles/... thanks, people making this argument really made one feel good)

> Can Google do something similar with Chromebooks? Sure. Is it a different approach from Apple? Yes. Are both approaches worthwhile? Probably yes, let’s see what happens.

I don't know if you've been watching chromebooks but they've also become systematically more expensive, especially the google supported ones. Windows 10 devices are the only thing left that has decent cheap options available (cheap meaning < $200 and usable).

Also none of the Google devices work, frankly at all, without a constant internet connection. That's $20/kid/month on top of the basic cost for the android/chromebook device.

[j45]

Devices like Datawind's Ubislate tablets are addressing precisely the 6 billion. Around 2012 they were on the news first $35 USD tablets.

I don't work for them, but recently picked up a couple of tablets try out, they are surprisingly capable devices, and appear to be in ongoing development:

http://ubislate.ca/ (Prices are in Canadian Dollars)

Main site: http://www.datawind.com/

[elsonrodriguez]

Saying Apple didn't help make computing devices ubiquitous is like saying Ford didn't help make cars ubiquitous.

[scarface74]

While not about Apple, that did make me think of something interesting. Why doesn't Amazon aggressively go after the education market? They have the Fire devices, the cloud infrastructure, the Kindle infrastructure for text books, etc. They could partner with Microsoft for the software and office 365.