I own a 1st gen Macbook myself and have had much more trouble with it than any other mac I’ve owned before. A later model my wife has has not had those problems. I used the heck out of my MacBook the past 2 years and was always glad there wasn’t a warranty “clock hours” limit because I was sure I’d have exceeded “normal use time….” Warranty repair percentages certainly should be lower than 10% to be reasonable.

I’d love to see Apple come out with a laptop focused specifically on education and priced much less as well, in the $500 range or less. I don’t know if we’ll see that or not. I think we’ll continue to see the downward pressure on laptop pricing coming from those advocating for Linux and open platforms. I need to use Linux more and specifically use video editing applications on Linux. While I am a big fan of Macs and have seen great successes in laptop initiatives using Macs, as I said in the post if it was up to me I would also explore the option of going with a Linux computing platform for a 1:1 initiative. I think the vision of the project needs to drive the hardware and software acquisition process. What do you want and expect learners to do with these computers? One of the biggest struggles is helping people see beyond more traditional productivity software use and web 1.0 Internet use.

In terms of “success” with laptop initiative using Macs, I agree with you that my experience tells me Apple has a lot to do with past successes, but research reports like this one from TCER also support this. I think it is important that we base our recommendations and perceptions not only on our own experiences but also on research, and many of the documents coming out of TxTIP are helpful in this regard.

I do have some issues with Macs.

1. The overall quality of Apple products has decreased dramatically the past 3-4 years. For example, we purchased 500+ Macbooks in 2006 and OVER 35% have needed warranty repairs. Completely unacceptable. Shoddy system boards, CD drives, hinges and cases. For comparison, our 200+ HP laptops purchased at the same time have had about 6% warranty repairs.

2. Mac’s are priced way too high. Have you ever tried to explain to a school board member why a DVD burner costs an extra $200 on a Mac? They look at you like you are an idiot. Or how about why, after about 8-12 months of a new software release, the newest hardware suddenly stops running the older software? Or, why do we have to pay for a 3 year warranty when it is included in other business class computers that already cost less? These are real life questions that school board members will ask.

When I started in Ed Tech back in the mid 90’s, I could and did easily defend our district purchasing Mac’s for many years. It is getting much much harder lately.

But, back to the issue. I do believe that schools that use Mac’s are more likely to have successful 1:1 initiatives. Is it because of the hardware and/or software? I would suggest there are many variables that come into play, but my experience still tells me the Mac’s have something to do with the success.

If you are really serious about affordable laptops, I hope you’re looking at Linux. Sadly when I was at NECC talking to some of the resellers of the Intel ClassmatePC, I learned at least one of them was NOT going to discount their laptops at all when customers went with Linux instead of Windows. They were just going to keep that extra money that the school wasn’t going to pay for a Microsoft license and NOT pass the savings on to the educational customer. How wrong is that?! Hopefully that will change, but I didn’t hear any indication of it changing at NECC.

Great story about laptop initiatives. Our school district gave all of our teachers Apple Macbook laptops this year. I hope to see it extended to our students in the future. When you look at how well Floydada has done and what their students have the potential to learn it is just pretty amazing.