Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. HOMEPAGE

Apple is fighting to win back a market it used to dominate

Tim Cook child
Apple CEO Tim Cook with students. Getty

  • Apple used to dominate the education market in the US.
  • Now Google's Chromebooks are the most used computer in schools.
  • Apple's event on Tuesday is likely to be an attempt to shift the momentum.

Apple's spring event this year is unusual for the company — it's in Chicago, not California, at a public magnet high school. Even the invitation suggests that whatever Apple CEO Tim Cook ends up revealing on Tuesday will be focused on education.

It's the latest sign that Apple wants to reverse its slide in what was once one of its core markets: schools.

While Apple has long been associated with elementary, middle, and high schools in the US, in recent years it has been losing ground to Microsoft and Google in particular.

"If we look five years ago, when the market was really just starting, Apple sort of ruled the roost and had 50% market share in US schools at least," said Ben Davis, an analyst at the market researcher Futuresource Consulting. "They've lost a lot a share in K-12 in 2017."

Apple's iPad made up 15% of computer sales to K-12 schools last year, and its MacBook had a 4.6% market share, according to data from Futuresource, which closely watches the educational market.

Compare that with Google's Chromebook platform, which accounted for 58.3% of such devices shipped last year.

Figures from the data researcher IDC also back this up — it says Chromebook sales started to top MacBooks in early 2016.

Perhaps that's why Cook and other Apple leaders are planning and rehearsing a corporate event that's going to take place at a magnet high school.

It's also why the one device Apple is most likely to announce on Tuesday is a low-cost iPad — something that would be perfect for schools, according to Bloomberg.

iPad focus

51sxc2p 01L
Some schools require students to use durable keyboard cases with their iPads. Amazon

One of the trends driving the education market is so-called Common Core online testing. The two main organizations managing it require devices to have a keyboard, Fortune reported in 2015.

But the primary device Apple uses to target schools is the iPad, which doesn't have a physical keyboard.

Cook has addressed this dynamic before, in 2015 making an unusually cutting remark that Chromebooks and cheap Windows laptops were "test machines" and that Apple had no plans to race to the bottom.

"We are interested in helping students learn and teachers teach, but tests, no," Cook told BuzzFeed.

There have been some signs that teachers and students think Apple's laptops are a better fit for schools too.

In 2016, when a Maine school district gave iPads to students in grades seven through 12, one teacher said they were "a disaster" and that students primarily used them to play games during class. Other teachers complained that the students used the iPads as toys and that word processing was "near to impossible."

Students agreed. One wrote "WE NEED LAPTOPS!!!" three times in the district's study.

But Apple's laptops are significantly more expensive than its iPad, which costs as little as $299 at Apple's education price.

And Apple is unlikely to play the same cost-cutting game as Google's and Microsoft's hardware partners, so it will have to stand out some other way. In a large order of Windows PCs or Google Chromebooks for schools, the cost of each device can go as low as $150, according to Futuresource.

That's because Google and Microsoft don't sell the machines, so they don't mind a price race to the bottom; they want to provide the software.

"In the long term, it's not about devices — it's about getting schools in that platform and trading them up to a cloud infrastructure," Davis said.

Software

chromebooks school
Virginia students using Chromebooks. Virginia Department of Ed/Flickr

Apple is also likely to reveal new software for the classroom on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg. In 2016, Apple bought LearnSprout, a small startup that provides a dashboard and analytics for teachers.

But even classroom software management is a space where Apple now lags behind Google, which makes G Suite for Education, a version of Google Apps for schools and teachers. Its Google Classroom app is popular enough that it's planning to release a version for businesses, according to The Information.

Meanwhile, Apple has software called Apple Classroom that works with iPads.

Davis said Apple was "not focused on their own productivity suite."

"One of the big drivers that both Google and Microsoft offer is 365 or G Suite for education, including email and productivity tools and all of that," he said. "Apple does have productivity tools in its iWork solution, but it's obviously not kind of a mainstay at the company. There hasn't been as much focus and development for the education sector."

Davis added: "Google and Microsoft built out those platform tools alongside the devices more effectively, I would say."

One advantage Apple's software may have over rivals is that it has a good reputation for securing user data. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital-rights group, raised questions last year about whether Google was properly handling students' data.

On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.

Apple iPad Education

Jump to

  1. Main content
  2. Search
  3. Account