Chromebooks Overtake iPads In US Education Market 193
SmartAboutThings writes In Q3 2014, IDC notes that Google shipped 715,500 Chromebooks to U.S. schools while Apple shipped 702,000 iPads. Thus, Apple's iPad has lost its lead over Google's line of Chromebook laptops in the U.S. education market as Google shipped more devices to schools last quarter. While analysts say [registration required] that this advantage for Google's Chromebooks can be attributed to their low cost, the presence of a physical keyboard has also been seen as an important factor.
Uh yeah? (Score:5, Insightful)
When you have a device that lasts maybe 5 years of use, adding about $100 per child per year just for the device really starts to add up.
I suppose chromebooks could be used for some entry CS-like education and obviously word processing, but I have no idea what educational aid an iPad contains besides maybe text books, but if that was the case, I'd rather have schools endorsing an epaper solution being far cheaper, energy efficient, and probably better on those poor kid's eyes (staring at screens for 8 class hours and how many home hours?).
Re: Uh yeah? (Score:2)
Are you imagining a current consumer Chromebook will last 5 years?
Will the batteries last that long?
Re: (Score:2)
>When you have a device that lasts maybe 5 years of use,
It might last 5 years, but I want a new toy at least every 2 years.
Re:Uh yeah? (Score:5, Informative)
These are shipments directly to the customer, not to some store.
Re: (Score:2)
The Chromebooks may be shipped to the customer but the "customer" is not the person who has to use it. This sounds like the "cheap PC" effect all over again. A functionary decides some similar but significantly less capable device is good enough product because all he sees is a lower price tag. Whenever the customer is not the same as the user of a computing device, the result is usually distorted by short sighted initial cost arguments. Also, it is your damn sig so it goes in automatically without extra ty
Re: (Score:2)
The "chiclet keyboard" can be really nice. I love my Surface keyboard (Type, not Touch) and I don't find myself slowing down at all. I can switch between that and my full-sized keyboard without any problems.
Anecdotal of course....but there is a reason that vendors are switching- a lot of people really like them.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, neglected to say "and saw the same result." Father is fairly technical -- has a Linux box and runs Windows in a VM on it. But I bought him a Chrombook and that's now his primary sitting-on-the-kitchen-table computer. It gets the day to day use, whereas the VM box gets to do his taxes.
Re:Uh yeah? (Score:4, Informative)
The Chromebooks aren't going to last more than a few months
I work for a company that sells technology into K12. We have many education customers that are 2+ years into their Chromebook deployments.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
For what it's worth, the local school district in my area rolled out arm-based samsung chromebooks to all students 7th grade and above 2 years ago. All of them that I have seen are a little scuffed up but still intact over that amount of time. Given the price point is much cheaper than an ipad and it can be used for useful things like word processing, etc... I would say this is a much better deal for the school.
Honestly, what is the educational value in an iPad really to middle and high school students? T
Chromebooks -- pieces of junk? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Chromebooks aren't going to last more than a few months. Ever try any of these pieces of junk at BestBuy?
No, I haven't. But I did buy a Samsung Chromebook and I have been carrying it around and using it.
It seems no more fragile than my old Atom-based laptop, which is still in perfect working order.
They are equipped with dim TN LED-lit panels, low resolution, and the keyboards are the most uncomfortable things ever.
Huh, which model in particular are you thinking about? Because IMHO my Samsung Chromebook is kind of like a Mac laptop, only less expensive. Both use similar "chiclet" keyboards, both have multi-touch touchpads (and both *use* the multitouch gestures). The Chromebook costs less, weighs less, and has long battery life; and it is adequate for the things I usually want to do when I'm out and about.
The screen doesn't have a "wow" factor but neither am I suffering when I use it. The 1366x768 resolution is pretty common for a device that size.
You make it sound horrible, but so far I love the thing. It's far better than my old Atom-based laptop (which struggles even to play a YouTube video).
But I digress, I've always hated the "chiclet keyboard" that all the laptop vendors have switched to.
You can thank Apple for that one. They did it first and then everyone else followed.
It does allow for a thinner laptop but I wish there were more laptops still made that have more ergonomic keys.
Re: (Score:2)
They're drop shipped directly from the manufacturer to the school district. Same as how enterprise computer sales work. There is no big box "chromebooks for schools!" retail outlet that superintendents and CIOs drive to once a year with their SUV to stock up on the latest school technology, and then drive home with it to wrap it up in christmas paper.
Re:Uh yeah? (Score:4, Informative)
That said, I think if the Surface was 5x less expensive, it would beat the Chromebook in school as the device of choice.
But then you had to slim down the hardware so heavily, that Windows will be nearly unusable, which in turn wouldn't make it into the device of choice.
Re: Uh yeah? (Score:2)
The HP Stream 7, at $100 list price, is a very useful tablet. It only has 1 Gig of RAM, but with a quad-core CPU and flash storage (32 Gigs included, expandable with micro SDXC card) they perform quite well.
AND, they currently ship with 1 yr of Office 365 AND 1 yr of OneDrive storage, up to 1 TB. What does MS charge for a TB of storage for one year in OneDrive?
Re: (Score:2)
I've got to say (shameless Surface plug coming...at least I am consistent...) that my Surface works perfectly for this reason.
I can sit in my recliner, and use the Surface as a tablet. Albeit the edges are too sharp, and it is heavy...(SP2) but I enjoy using it this way while I sit and drink coffee.
Then I walk over to my desk, snap it onto the keyboard, and I'm typing wonderful comments like this one.
It *does* work, and it works well. Just give it a shot. One device for multiple scenarios is really a go
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But, public schools should not go with Windows because its an administrative burden to support that OS on hundreds of machines. Chrome OS & associated Google cloud services are simple, cheap, and well suited to the task.
Re: Uh yeah? (Score:2)
What dou you have against on-demand toast? Millions of people go hungry every day, making toasters more accessible might just help some hungry people...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's a huge fucking "if".
Especially for education technology companies.
Re: (Score:2)
Meh, they're okay. (Score:2)
Re:Meh, they're okay. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The nice thing is the kids can access their school google accounts from home computers as well, allowing a lot of flexibility.
simple (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:simple (Score:5, Insightful)
pieces of crap that break constantly due to horribly cheap parts
That is just as meaningless a statement about Chromebooks as it is about Android phones. . . What specific company hardware are you talking about (e.g. I have had a very good experience with Samsung and HP Chromebooks)?
/. that has not bothered to really look into chromebooks before hating them. . .
Regarding your "featureless" statement, have you heard of Crouton [github.com]? Also, were you aware that an increasing number of Android apps are coming to Chromebooks [google.com]? Your post seems to represent the segment of
Re: (Score:2)
Your post seems to represent the segment of /. that has not bothered to really look into chromebooks before hating them. . .
The same could be said of ipads...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Among normal wintel laptops, the bottom of the range is dangerously cheap plastic crap that breaks if you look at it; but it's quite easy to buy various levels of ruggedness from 'adequate build quality' to 'actually designed with road warriors in mind' to 'yes, actually rated
Re:simple (Score:4, Interesting)
Ruggedization costs money. try speccing out that Toughbook sometime and you'll find it costs a heckuva lot of money for not a lot.
Partly because they're niche devices that don't sell a lot, but also because the ruggedization means extra materials and assembly that costs more.
And Chromebooks are designed for a very price-sensitive market - they can't cost more than $200 before approaching "regular laptop" price ranges. And in the end, they may be more fragile, but with the data in the cloud, they're also a lot more rugged because if the student drops or breaks it, they just log into a new one and all the data is there.
There's also the cost factor - if it costs $50 more to ruggedize a Chromebook, then it means instead of buying 5 Chromebooks at $200 each, they buy 4 at $250 each. The 4 may be ruggedized, but if students are careful and they don't break one out of the 5, then it's cheaper to go non-ruggedized.
The other big issue with laptops is theft - and Chromebooks just aren't the target people wantak
Re: (Score:2)
Back when 'netbooks' were a thing, for instance, Dell had the Latitude 2100, 2110 and 2120, which were utterly standard netbooks in basically all respects; but m
Re:simple (Score:4, Interesting)
There are certainly costs associated with ruggedizing things; but those ruggedization costs apply to any laptop(so if it's more expensive than a chromebook now the ruggedized version is going to be more expensive than the ruggedized chromebook);
The ruggedizing is, essentially, a flat cost. As such, the price increase as viewed in relation to the cost of the original device would be much greater on a chromebook. Eg.
$200 chromebook + $200 to ruggedize it = 2x's the base cost, or 100% more
$900 laptop + $200 to ruggedize it = 1.22x's the base cost, or 22% more
When you're getting a bunch of them, that significantly changes the number of them you can get. ... or = 50 ruggedized $400 chromebooks ... or = 82 ruggedized $1100 laptops
$20,000 = 100x $200 chromebooks
$90,000 = 100x $900 laptops
This is the key point I think the others we making. You'll still get broken ruggedized ones, but fewer of them. How many need to break of the cheap model before it is worth getting the ruggedized ones? With chromebooks being so cheap, there would have to be a phenomenal number of broken ones before you'd break even.
Car analogy... it'd be like getting full coverage insurance on a used 1986 honda civic that you own outright. It'd be cheaper to pay for a new one with cash than deal with the deductible + high rate when they total it!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: simple (Score:2)
It sells for a near-ipad price of $300+, about 50% more than it's chromebook peers...
That same $300 can buy a quite-capable a Windows 8.1 with Bing device, which can run regular Windows applications, something a Chromebook can not...
Re: (Score:2)
He has a pretty good chromebook junkyard that he lets the kids have access to to fix things before they have to pay for a replacement.
That is a great concept! I doubt that there is any school system that does not have a closet somewhere where dead Chromebooks could be stored. When the inventory becomes large enough, an elective high school course in tearing down, diagnosing, and repairing them would get some of them back in service while providing the students a great hands-on learning opportunity in problem solving and general shop procedures.
While many schools would not have a teacher with the requisite technical skills to take on such
Re: (Score:2)
The motherboard is a one piece unit with soldered on eMMC, RAM, CPU etc, battery is glued in, etc. Basically you have a plastic clamshell around the display, and a plastic clamshell around the keyboard/motherboard, and battery glued to the clamshell.
Misleading (Score:2, Interesting)
If you sell more product in one quarter, it doesn't mean you overtook your rival, it just means your rival has already sold millions of iPads and schools are saying "no thanks, we'll wait till we need a iPad upgrade".
Re: (Score:2)
It does mean they overtook their rival in quarterly sales.... Why would you think it meant something else, I assume you thought it meant in total sales?
iPads quite simply aren't a primary computer (Score:5, Insightful)
This one is a bit of a no-brainer. There is the keyboard, the trackpad, the cost, and the screen-size. Also many sites require such niceties such as right clicking, or click and dragging.
But what is even more silly is when Microsoft pathetically tries to strongarm a school system into using its wayyyyy expensive surface technology. It is not only expensive on a per unit basis but is used by Microsoft to engage their whole licensing nightmare engine with one upsell after another of enterprise crap.
So while any school system that gets iPads is just wasting its money, any school people who get the surface should be fired for wasteful incompetence.
Re: iPads quite simply aren't a primary computer (Score:3)
Surface RT costs $200 - about the same as a chromebook.
Ms Office365 is free for educators/students - same price as Google Docs.
MS includes OneDrive cloud storage and email for free - just like Google does.
A prudent school administrator could build an MS-centric environment for the same initial cost as a Google-centric one, and with the same on-going costs.
Choosing Windows 8.1 with Bing devices in-place of the Surface RT would open up the entirety of the PC software world (within reason) for about the same c
Re: (Score:3)
A Surface Pro 2 is cheaper than an Ipad Air 2 (Score:2)
Surface pro 2s have been selling for as low as $300. That is $200 cheaper than an iPad Air, and they come with a digitizer (you know, so you can actually take real notes) and you can add a well-designed keyboard cover.
If you're an engineer looking for a high-end ultrabook, then yes, the Surface Pro can easily set you back $2000. However, for schoolwork, Microsoft actually seems to be providing a much better alternative than the iPad. An actual PC tablet running an i3 (not a toy running ARM) with an actua
Adminstration (Score:5, Interesting)
Chromebooks come with some good tools for using existing infrastructure without too much of a learning curve. Getting teachers to open and use a spreadsheet on an ipad is a lot more tricky than opening the same file on a chromebook.
Bottom line, if you are dealing with more than 5 devices, chromebooks save a ton of time and energy.
Re: (Score:3)
My daughter is a teacher and her school just rolled out Chromebooks for all high school students. Google has a lot of nice education applications which allows her to administer her class, check assignments and assign work on the Chromebook.
Check out:
https://www.google.com/chrome/... [google.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Getting teachers to open and use a spreadsheet on an ipad is a lot more tricky than opening the same file on a chromebook.
Perhaps, but you are mixing the ease o fuse of a piece of technology with the ability to use the underlying technology. It does no good to be able to open a spreadsheet more easily if you have no idea how to use the spreadsheet beyond the basics; and my experiences with school systems is they give the teachers technology and expect them to use it without teaching them how to use it. As result, they spend hours struggling with the technology and sometimes simply discard it because it is too much of a hassle
Not surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
On the flip side, I'm really seeing a move towards Google Apps for my middle schooler. Virtually all his projects are done as part of a group, and they work from online documents. He doesn't need the high end features of Word or Excel: he needs a way to have multiple people work on something over two weeks. It's easy for the teacher as well- just send them the link and you're done, no papers to lose.
Using a Chromebook as a Development Machine (Score:5, Informative)
I've been using a Chromebook for a while. I am a web developer. This particular machine does not have Crouton or a standard Linux distribution on it, just the stock OS. I would probably have opted for one of those, but this machine has a broken power button, which prevents it from being put into developer mode. So far I have not run into any insurmountable problems, and I think overall that it has been an improvement in my workflow.
Chrome OS has a number of useful features. The longest part of rebooting or updating the machine is waiting for your browser tabs to reload. You may say that this is uncommon and that you don't care how long it takes, but on the other hand no one will miss that wait time either. Having files backed up automatically is quite pleasant. If and when you are in the unfortunate position of having a machine die on you, sitting down to any Chromebook and typing in your password will restore your files, bookmarks, browser history, desktop background, and all installed programs in a couple minutes. The biggest downside is printing; it's possible if you have another computer or a Cloud Print ready printer (yeah right), but it's not fun under any circumstances.
Tips:
Either Google Docs or Office Online do a pretty good job of handling office tasks, with one exception: neither will open a password-protected excel spreadsheet. For that I have been using RollApp [rollapp.com], which does exactly what it says on the tin but is a bit slow. For web development, Chrome OS includes an SSH client. You don't need more than a VPS and vim, do you? You do? Well, in that case, you should be more than happy with Cloud9 Web-based IDE [c9.io] (Chrome Store link [google.com]). You get your own little linux environment for each workspace, already set up for various development tasks. The editor is pretty similar to Sublime Text, and cloning projects from GitHub is fast and easy. You can also connect to a private VPS and do whatever crazy things you like there. Loading up a workspace restores all opened files and terminal windows, including any terminal programs/output. Run your tests, close the window, come back a week later, and the test output is still there. If you happened to be exploring something using a CLI interactive interpreter, that will still be running when you get back to it. Also, the workspaces are separate instances: developing locally I would always have to set up a new user, add it to the www-data group, set up its own fcgi pool, add an entry in /etc/hosts, and so on and so forth. Setting up lxc or nspawn containers makes this marginally easier. Letting your IDE handle it for you is brilliant.
Using a Chromebook does not mean giving up your ability to use (or create) complex software, but you will have to change your workflow. There is probably a fair amount of software that is not available on the web or even via SSH, but I think that most people's needs would be satisfied. I left my other Chromebook lying around the house for the roomies to use, and I don't think any of them noticed that it wasn't running Windows -- probably never used it for anything but web browsing. Your IT professional may need a XAMP stack, but he doesn't necessarily need it on a local machine, and there are some real advantages to not doing so, even if you skip the cloud-based IDE and just do a VM.
I have no connection to any company listed above except as a satisfied user.
Delivery (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>Schools are just looking for a cheap method to deliver educational materials digitally.
My daughter's school expects the pupils to bring their own laptop. If you can't afford one, they'll lend you one.
This is way preferable to trying to pick a one-size-fits-all chromebook for all students. Schools cannot administer computers. They try, but get it horribly, horribly wrong.
Re: Delivery (Score:2)
Unless the online test requires IE... Then they are 109% useless! unless you have a bank of Windows servers acting as Remote Desktop Servers, blowing away your imagined cost savings.
Google Docs (Score:3)
I talked to a primary teacher this Thanksgiving (IIRC, 6th grade) about chromebooks in her class.. She loves it, kids do thier stuff in Google Docs can turn it in electronically, etc. Reports are done as presentations, so in part it is reducing a lot of paper...
Though I wonder what the long term cost for society will be. Possible dependency on on-line services?
Re: (Score:2)
Possible dependency on on-line services?
The Cloud ate my homework? Certainly more believable than the dog eating it, especially with all the news articles we keep seeing of major vendors such as Microsoft having outages.
The Cloud is great for offline backup services (be sure to encrypt), but connectivity is not a given even in this day and age. Work locally.
Re: (Score:3)
Let's talk userbase.... (Score:2)
So they outsold iPad one quarter? And now they are the leader? What about the previous 15 quarters going back to the ipad launch? They have a LOOOOOONG way to go to replace Ipads.
Re: Let's talk userbase.... (Score:2)
Are you saying you don't think Foxconn is a socially responsible company?
Actually, some are 'free' (Score:3)
All the class material and class management are in the 'cloud' [that is at Google central] so 'you don't have to worry about anything' and the total cost of ownership is near-zero.
What's wrong with this picture? Plenty, vendor lock-in, third party and [in the UK] foreign control of a vital resource and not understanding whatever long game Google is playing, just to start with. They're maximising shareholder value or about to, they are not a charity. And as for 'don't be evil' my a***.
Above all, we can make [or repurpose] Linux books, quite easily.
Re: vendor lock-in (Score:2)
Chrombooks do what students need. Tablets don't. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most kids do the following:
1- write reports
2- make presentations
3- do research on the web
4- read books
Tablets stink for #1 and #2. Even for #3, things like cutting-and-pasting text for note taking is a PITA on a tablet. The only conceivable thing tablets are better for is reading books - but (at least at my kids school) they already have most of the books they use yearly in print.
In addition, everything on the chromebook is stored on line. When a kid can start something at school, work on it at home on the family PC, then continue on mom's laptop when we need the PC for something else, you really see how convenient it is, and finally turn it in by sending a link to the teacher. Yes, there are drawbacks (the internet being down, less privacy, dependence on one company), but it is so damn convenient for all parties involved. It is a case of technology making things easier.
Re: Chrombooks do what students need. Tablets don (Score:2)
You forgot one thing:
0. Play (educational) games
Ever heard of 'Brain Pop' or 'Study Island'? If not, do you remember playing Oregon Trail in the '80s? If you told most public school teachers you were going to prohibit students playing games, even educational games, on computers, far fewer teachers would fight to get computers in their classrooms...
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: So much so that Microsoft is trying to get in (Score:2)
Wait until there are countless millions of chromebooks, deployed by IT-ignorant school administrators in smaller schools/districts (as
Re: (Score:2)
It's one of the prime reasons I bought one for the family. Kids mess around with weird web sites? I don't have to worry
Re: So much so that Microsoft is trying to get in (Score:3)
The OS MS offers on the very low-end devices is a zero-cost version of Windows 8.1 - it is full Windows 8.1 with one difference, it is not allowed for the OEM (Dell, HP, etc) to alter the default search engine from Bing or browser from IE11. The end-user is absolutely free to change default search engine/browser
Re: So much so that Microsoft is trying to get in (Score:2)
Yes, this is madness, but in time I'm sure this too will be sorted out OR a school could simply use Google a Docs and Google Drive on their Windows With Bing devices and avoid the madness... Remember, anything you can run on a desktop can run on these devi
Schools can get enterprise tools (Score:2)
Microsoft got where it is today because its enterprise tools are so good. In a small school district, with a part-time IT guy, I could see this being a real mess but if a school has a properly staffed, full time IT department, it is not that hard to manage these things through active-directory and other enterprise tools.
Actually, that is why most universities have switched from local administration to Google or Microsoft for email and such, and Microsoft seems to be winning that battle. You can create one
Meanwhile in France (Score:2)
Our president François Hollande made promises:
Starting September 2016, every highschooler will get a tablet beginning from the 5th grade (typically aged twelve)
Another promise, they will also learn to code. .. but why give them a tablet and not some other device that would allow them to apply what they learnt..
Great
We citizen are told again and again that there is no money, but there is money for buying gadgets..
We are going through the same mistakes that were done years ago in other countries...
2 year
Carl Sagan (Score:2)
For some reason, this reminded me of a passage from "The Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan. The computing world seems more and more divided between a small creative class (scientists, artists, programmers, engineers, writers, et cetera) who mostly use PCs (laptops, desktops, workstations, convertibles like the Surface) and a much larger consumer class (people who primarily use toy computers like the Apple TV, Xbox, iPad, iPhone, et cetera).
I don't doubt that tablets have the potential to be useful in educ
Re: (Score:2)
just lie about your kid's age
Re: (Score:2)
Awesome solution to the 10+m school aged kids.
Re: (Score:2)
Schools use Google Apps for Education. It's designed for use by school aged kids.
Re: (Score:2)
let Google slide their camel under the tent.
I think you mean "Let Google slide their camel's nose into the tent".
Unless you're making a reference to some weird sex thing I don't know about.
Re: Disgraceful considering Google's age restricti (Score:2)
"That's the nose of the camel, hump to follow"
Re: (Score:2)
Google for education can have minors so it is not really an issue. What part were you unhappy with, that you are not allowed to have your kid sign a contract, or that you did not do your research on the chromebook? Why didnt you just create a google account in your name and let him use it?
Re: (Score:2)
I would imagine the bit he is unhappy about is that as a parent he is unable to go and buy his child a Chromebook for a laptop because it requires a Google account and unless he lies about the child's age he cannot create a Google account for said child. Yet Google are pushing Chromebooks as a great laptop for kids which I believe it is. However you can only use one if it comes through the school. Which if your school does not provide laptops for your child or provides an iPad which is useless for typing an
Re: (Score:2)
You don't have to lie about the kids age, just set up an additional account in your own name and allow the kid to use it. What real advantage would a subsidiary account have?
Re: (Score:2)
Why didn't you just create a google account in your name and let him use it?
As someone who successfully parented a child through her teenage years, how the hell else could you give your child appropriately guided access to the Internet? The web is full of dangers for grandparent newbies who had been around the block several times before most slashdot readers were even born. It would be totally irresponsible, a complete case of child abuse, to turn a kid who has not yet even learned how to use his or her moral compass loose on the web without close adult supervision.
Very few, if an
Re: (Score:2)
Disgraceful considering Google's age restrictions (Score:2)
Yes you can, it lets you create managed accounts for kids.
Re:Tablet fad is finally over (Score:5, Insightful)
And good riddance to it. It can go on the ash heap next to the network computer, Windows RT and .NET everywhere.
The tablet itself is not, and never was, a fad. The fad was the really bizarre belief that tablets could and would replace PCs nearly everywhere. So in that way it is very different than the other examples you listed--in my opinion they were all true fads. But then again, what is a ChromeBook if it's not the current version of the network computer???
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Tablet fad is finally over (Score:4, Interesting)
The schools are not moving from tablets to Chromebooks. What is actually happening is that they are buying tablets for young students (K, 1st, 2nd) and Chromebooks for older students.
Re:Tablet fad is finally over (Score:4, Interesting)
Everything feels a bit ass-backwards if you are trying to do things locally (since local programs are all basically treated as a special case of webapps with particularly aggressive caching); but between the various local storage capabilities that have been tacked on(either HTML5 features or ChromeOS specific hacks for 'apps' to create icons and the like) and NaCL/PNaCL please-don't-call-them-plugins, you do effectively have a more or less full set of local OS capabilities, a bunch of APIs, and so on, they just all look like they were designed by web developers.
Again, I don't know if this is acceptance or pragmatic endurance on Google's part; but either way the trajectory of ChromeOS started by veering far into 'network computer' (Hey, let's rip out basically all parts of a linux distribution except the browser!); but has then tacked back, albeit by re-implementing everything inside the browser, rather than re-exposing the underlying OS.
They definitely still prefer to be networked; but, then again, what OS doesn't these days?
Re: (Score:3)
...they just all look like they were designed by web developers.
AUUUUUUUGGUUUHHHH!!! MY EYES ARE BLEEDING!!!
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
.NET is not on the ash heap. It's doing very nicely judging by all the recruitment calls and emails I get on a daily basis.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Can parents opt out (Score:5, Interesting)
Can parents opt out their children of these big brother data gathering devices?
Sure, homeschool. It's legal in all 50 states, to varying degrees.
Re:Can parents opt out (Score:4, Informative)
google for education does not gather said data.
Re: (Score:3)
You haven't. You may have had headlines if you enabled it, you may have had spam, but you're not getting the targeted Google ads like with vanilla Gmail, and if you are, I'd love to see a picture of that with the non-gmail domain clearly visible. Honestly, a picture of screen instead of a screenshot is even preferred.
I really dislike Google in general, but GAFE is pretty straight forward and they're pretty honest about the whole "no ad tracking" stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
"GAFE" being google apps for education? Or for enterprises?
Being allowed to turn off the display of the ads on the gmail screen doesn't equate to turning off the "ad tracking stuff".
Are they still tracking and profiling your account to show you personalized google ads based on that profile on every OTHER page you visit with google ads?
Moreover, with kids, its the long game. They use gmail at school... simplest to setup a gmail at home, share files and contacts between the two accounts, hell even link them t
Re: (Score:2)
Up next, access to health care, quality education, affordable housing, and equal rights under the law.
What about "Net Neutrality" ?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:BetaMax vs VHS . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
I think of it more as a Viewmaster.
Okay, maybe LaserDisc. Either way, it's a really bad tool.
Source: IT Director who was there during the launch frenzy of iPads. Employees demanded them...I even had people in my office CRYING because they 'needed' one. Once everyone had their iPad (and it was no longer a status symbol) their actual usage was limited to email and web browsing. Both of which can also be performed on a phone.
iPads were one of the biggest wastes of money during my time of IT purchasing. They were also the most heavily demanded.
Marketing...
Re: (Score:2)
I think of it more as a Viewmaster.
Oh, come on. It's at least Lite-Brite.
Re: "The year of Linux PCs"... is here (Score:2)
Millions of kids will learn the GUI interface on top of Linux... And it is largely a browser-centric interface in most cases.
Re: (Score:2)
I would agree if you could run the server-side software yourself, by that I mean your own "google account" system you log into, your own instance of gmail and your own "google docs", all free and open source software.