Stefan Mileschin

Schools will not like the repair bill

The outfit's ridiculous repair policy will scupper Apple's attempts to mass sell its tablets to US schools.

For those who came in late, Apple thought that it could resurrect its falling bottom line by taking on Chrome books in the education market. It bundled up a refreshed of its 9.7-inch iPad keyboardless netbook with Apple Pencil support for schools and assumed that the idea would take off.

However it appears that schools are not impressed with Apple's offering. iFixit has published its teardown of the device this morning which shows that the Apple vision for schools will cost kids a fortune as it is practically unrepairable.

If an iPad breaks, there's almost no chance that a district will be able to repair it in house; whereas on cheaper Chromebooks, there's a possibility an IT team could open them up to make some fundamental fixes. It's a weak point that it's hard to see Apple ever addressing. And since schools aren't exactly forgiving environments for a lent out device, how well the iPad holds up to drops and dings, and how expensive it is to fix, are bound to be factors in a school's decision on which devices to adopt.

Apple also skimped on the sorts of things that a tablet in education needs. Including no waterproofing, a non-replaceable charging port, zero upgradeability, and use of glue throughout the internals.

https://fudzilla.com/news/45965-appl...ight-to-repair