It Sounds Like Apple’s Event Tomorrow Will Focus On Education

Back in January Phil Schiller and Apple took to the stage at the Guggenheim Museum and talked about the importance of the iPad in education. The keynote, at the time, focused on a new iBooks app, iBooks Author, and a brand new iTunes U portal for the iPad. All the updates and tools that were released focused on making digital content easier to create for teachers, and easier to consume for students. In short, Apple was making a point of illustrating just how great the iPad could be in the classroom. Here we are a full ten months later, and rumors are swirling again that Apple will be focusing on education during their keynote tomorrow, October 23, 2012.

The event – expected to focus on a new iPad that is both smaller and cheaper in price – will also focus on the “iPad mini” in the classroom, and the benefits of the lower price-point for students and educational institutions.

Bloomberg, in an article highlighting the importance of the iPad in classrooms, tossed out a little nugget of information that has everyone speculating exactly what Apple has in store for them tomorrow:

Apple executives plan to make a point of highlighting the iPad’s educational capabilities at tomorrow’s event, according to a person with knowledge of the planning.

Simply stated, a cheaper iPad could disrupt the education market even more than the current iPad has at this point. Given the steady adoption of the current iPad in schools, it would be a pretty impressive feat. Rumors are also circulating that educational institutions will get special discounts on the iPad.

That said, I wish I had an iPad while I was in school. I just spend the last two days digging through boxes of old textbooks from when I was in college. They’re out of date, useless, and heading directly to a recycling plant. Not too shabby for a stack of books I’ve spent about eight thousand dollars on while attending college back in the day. What a waste of cash.

Joshua is the Content Marketing Manager at BuySellAds. He’s also the founder of Macgasm.net. And since all that doesn’t quite give him enough content to wrangle, he’s also a technology journalist in his spare time, with bylines at PCWorld, Macworld and TechHive.