Apple has officially used its recent education-focused event in Chicago, Illinois to announce and introduce a new 9.7-inch iPad 6 2018 aimed at students and education professionals. With the announcement, Apple has signified its intention to place a heavy focus on education and take the company back to its roots.
It may be hard to believe, but it has actually been approximately six-years since Apple last held an event which was focused on education and products and services to enhance that market.
The Cupertino-based business introduced a tool for designing iPad e-books back in 2012, and now, at the Lane Technical College Prep High School has introduced a new iPad model which is not only powerful and highly capable, but one which is also affordable and priced to appeal to students who want a tablet for educational purposes, as well as teachers who feel the need to use this type of technology in order to distribute and teach the curriculum.
Apple has recently been revising its iPad range by bringing in different versions, with different sized screens, all offered at different price points. In fact, if you were to simply look at all of the iPads on offer, you would be forgiven for being a little confused as to who Apple feels its target demographic is for iPad. And, the introduction of this lower cost model with education in mind, muddies those waters even further.
With that said, as part of its attempt to win back some of the education markets from the likes of Google and Microsoft, this lower cost model will definitely appeal and help the company do exactly that.
This new iPad boasts a 9.7-inch display, an 8-megapixel primary camera and an HD FaceTime camera. At the heart of the machine is an A10 Fusion chip along with the usually GPS and Compass components. The battery life comes in at 10 hours. As expected, support for the Apple Pencil is also there with users being able to purchase the Pencil for $99 only. Schools however can grab it for $89 only.
Apple has added support for Augmented Reality to support classroom learning as well. “The new iPad is more versatile and capable than ever, features a large Retina display, the A10 Fusion chip and advanced sensors that help deliver immersive augmented reality, and provides unmatched portability, ease of use and all-day battery life.”, and announced a ton of new software for both students and teachers (more on that in separate posts on RP – check front page!)
The new iPad 6th-gen starts at $329 for the base model at 32GB, while schools can get their hands on the machine for $299 only. There are of course other storage tiers available as well, and so is WiFi+Cellular support, but for additional cost.
Orders can be made today, while shipping is expected to begin in a week’s time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckEnOBpksGs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IprmiOa2zH8
You can follow us on Twitter, add us to your circle on Google+ or like our Facebook page to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Microsoft, Google, Apple and the Web.
