Apple fighting to regain its position in America's classrooms

Apple's next splashy product announcement won't be from its new campus in Cupertino, Calif. It will be from a magnet high school on the north side of Chicago — a signal that Apple isn't ready to let go of the education market it once dominated.

Apple has not said what products will be introduced at its event next week, but the announcement comes at a crucial time as many schools are looking to renew or change their agreements with companies for classroom tech over the summer. The hope for tech companies is that having their technology in the classroom can turn students into their long-term customers.

Macs, and later iPads, were once synonymous with classroom tech. But over the last several years, Google and Microsoft have overtaken the company as leaders in new classroom tech. Google is now the undisputed king in classrooms, thanks to an aggressive push to give individual students low-cost laptops — deals it sweetened with free software and cheap rates to help districts manage the thousands of new machines. About 60 percent of new technology being shipped to classrooms was made by Google near the end of 2017, according to the analysis firm FutureSource. Microsoft has also seen a gain, shipping roughly 22 percent of technology to schools. Apple, meanwhile, has been slipping — with iOS making up 12.3 percent of new tech shipping to classrooms, and MacOS with just 4.7 percent.

Google's lead will be hard to shake, given how well it has sold its systems to schools and how accustomed they have become to its products, said Mike Fisher, associate director at Futuresource Consulting. School districts also tend to use a mix of products, often starting out younger students with iPads but then moving to Chromebooks or cheaper Windows laptops as students age and require more computing power or a full keyboard.

That leaves it to Apple to make a compelling case Tuesday. The company has never pulled away from education, but it hasn't been as aggressive, analysts said; for example, the last education-focused event it held was in 2012 when it introduced iBooks. Although Apple hasn't said what it will introduce next week, it is expected to offer lower-cost iPads. Fisher said he thinks Apple will also offer a substantial revamp of its classroom software, and focus on its capabilities of augmented reality.

A low-cost laptop, which has also been rumored, would be a tough sell for Apple — even if it slashed the price of a laptop significantly. Right now, Chromebooks and Windows PCs aimed at schools cost about $300 per student, Fisher said. That's about the same education pricing for an iPad. Apple makes what money it does from selling hardware and software as a package, unlike Google, which makes a small amount licensing the Chromebooks and also a subscription fee from management software. Microsoft deeply discounts devices — tablets start as low as $189 — and sells software to schools.

Apple didn't respond to a request for comment.

The company is also expected to revamp its Classroom application, which allows teachers to personalize lesson plans, communicate with parents, and closely track student performance.

Education is an important market for tech firms, even though companies don't make a significant amount of money from school contracts if you look at how much Apple makes from its iPhone sales and Google makes from advertising, said analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights. With discounted devices and low-cost or even free software, even large contracts aren't comparative moneymakers. The appeal comes in establishing preferences.

Getting young people to like a brand is even more significant in a connected world, where it's easier to use particular programs across platforms. A preference for Microsoft Word, for example, is no longer limited by a device. The same is true for Google's suite of apps.

Increasingly, as in the consumer world, tech companies are pitching schools a whole ecosystem of software, hardware, and even lesson plans. Apple announced in January, for example, that it will expand its own Swift coding curriculum for iOS to serve every student in the Chicago public schools.

The school where Apple will hold its event, Lane Tech College Prep High School, was featured in Apple's release detailing its coding curriculum program.