Over the last three years, Apple’s iPads and Mac notebooks — which accounted for about half of the mobile devices shipped to schools in the United States in 2013 — have steadily lost ground to Chromebooks, inexpensive laptops
that run on Google’s Chrome operating system and are produced by Samsung, Acer and other computer makers.
While school administrators generally like the iPad’s touch screens for younger elementary school students, some said
older students often needed laptops with built-in physical keyboards for writing and taking state assessment tests.
Of the $7.35 billion that schools, colleges and universities spent on mobile
and desktop computers in 2016, sales of Apple devices fell to $2.8 billion in 2016, from about $3.2 billion in 2015, according to IDC, a market research firm.
Of the 12.6 million mobile devices shipped to primary
and secondary schools in the United States in 2016, Chromebooks accounted for 58 percent of the market, up from 50 percent in 2015, according to the report.
Mobile devices that run on Apple’s iOS and MacOS operating systems have now reached a new low, falling to third place behind both Google-powered laptops
and Microsoft Windows devices, according to a report released on Thursday by Futuresource Consulting, a research company.
“We’re incredibly passionate about education and new programs like Apple Teacher,” a site for teachers
who want to learn how to more creatively use Apple tools with their students, she said.