Last week, Apple announced an education-focused event taking place on March 27th in Chicago. Here are my predictions of what we can expect from that education-focused event. The last time an “education” event has gone on was back in 2012 so it’s been quite some time since the last education-focused event. So hopefully, we’ll be seeing some much needed updates and refreshers to some of the existing lineup and maybe even a few new product lines from the Apple side. So let’s dive into it.
You probably noticed those really annoying ads that Apple has been running for their iPad Pro saying that it’s really replacing your computer and I think Apple’s really gonna nail that statement forward in this event by introducing even less expensive iPads. The best value iPad you can buy today is the iPad 9.7. At $329, you’re getting really good hardware, great display (yes it’s not laminated). The most important thing is the hardware on the inside is very good and it’s the most affordable iPad you can buy today and I think the new iPad 9.7 is going to be even less expensive, maybe even $269 is the number I heard. But it might be less expensive with better hardware, newer cameras, and we may even see some new software and hardware features. One hardware feature that we might see on the new iPad 9.7 is the smart connector that will be borrowed off the iPad Pros and that will open up to some new hardware lines from Apple, maybe even a new keyboard for the iPads, maybe even some new smart connector features and quite even possibly, Apple Pencil support on this new, inexpensive iPad.
The Apple Pencil for this iPad Pro won’t be the same Apple Pencil that is currently for sale for $100 because it’s pretty expensive price, especially when reviewing a budget level device but we may see a very cheap alternative, probably less build quality and all that kind of stuff, something that particularly only works for that iPad, maybe a different technology, the latency might be a little different. But it’ll be very interesting to see what will happen on the Pencil side of things because the invitation looks like it was scribbled or sketched with a pencil so we may even see an Apple Pencil 2 and this Apple Pencil will slide down and become cheaper. Who knows? The most important thing is I’m pretty sure that the new, cheap iPads will support the Pencil, whatever that is.
Now sticking with iPad hardware, we may even see a refresher of the iPad mini. It’s been forever since the iPad mini. The most current iPad mini is the iPad mini 4. If we see an update to that, that’ll be great. If not, then maybe it’s completely dead. Who knows? But we may see a refresher of that iPad mini 4 or iPad mini whatever you want to call it, maybe the new iPad mini. Whatever it’s going to be called, maybe we’ll get a new one, maybe not. Who knows?
This event’s going to be an education-focused event, which in my opinion is a little bit more budget-friendly because we’re talking about students, educators, things that school districts want to buy for an entire district not just one household. So probably, not going to see any new iPad Pro announcements at this event. That will probably be reserved for WWDC or sometime later in 2018 where we’re seeing less bezel iPads with Face ID and all that kind of stuff. It probably won’t be happening at this event.
On the software side of thing, ClassKit is going to be announced at this event, which will allow educators and other developers to develop applications particularly for school applications. So basically testing software out, all that kind of stuff. It’s just a new form of tools that developers can use to develop applications quickly and efficiently and have it available on iOS devices, particularly iPads.
Now that the inexpensive iPads do come with smart connectors, you will probably see a cheaper alternative to a keyboard that Apple will make for the new iPads. So we’ll definitely see some kind of hardware in terms of that, maybe they’ll partner with third party developers to develop some inexpensive and very good quality keyboards for that less expensive iPad.
This year also marks the 10th anniversary of the MacBook Air. We actually just passed a couple of weeks ago. There are some rumors on a new 13.3-inch MacBook Air, kind of a slot between the 12-inch MacBook and the 13.3-inch MacBook Pro. Rumors say that it will be featuring a Retina display with less hardware in terms of prowess. Who knows where it’s going to be priced? Currently, the MacBook Air is still not Retina, the hardware’s not very good. It’s the slowest computer you can buy. In my opinion, if you’re in between basically a MacBook and a MacBook Air, I’ll tell you to buy the MacBook or the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro at the same price as the MacBook. So we’ll see a new Air, maybe we will, maybe it’s completely dead. I think that they’re definitely gonna do something since it’s the 10th anniversary of the MacBook Air announcement. And it was such a huge product back then. It would be a shame to see the moniker kind of let go, honestly. So we’re crossing fingers. Hopefully we’ll see some new MacBook Air hardware release at this event and it’ll probably be more education-focused as well. So it’ll be cheaper, hopefully higher quality, hopefully getting Retina display, and some good specs.
The last announcement I can expect to see at this event is gonna be a complete revamping of the iBooks application. Honestly, it’s probably just gonna be called Apple Books and not iBooks anymore. And it’s just gonna be revamped, updated, maybe even to match the new App Store color scheme and stuff.
So that’s what you can expect at the Apple Education Event on Tuesday, March 27th. Hopefully, we’ll see some more surprises. If not, then I guess that’s what we get and we definitely have a lot more Apple events going on in the rest of the year. We’ve got WWDC and their normal September/October timeframe iPhone announcement and other hardware announcements that they usually do throughout the year.