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"Apple Vice President for education John Couch is reportedly in talks with the Turkish government about the country\u2019s goal to make tablets accessible to 15 million schoolchildren.\nTurkey\u2019s presidential website posted a photo and video of Couch\u2019s meeting with president Abdullah G\u00FCl. MacRumors reports (via local source Elma Dergisi) that the meeting concerned the country\u2019s $4.5 billion tablet program.\n\"Apple has reportedly been pushing for the contract, but negotiations are said to still be underway,\" said the source, adding that the meeting also tackled the layout of Turkey\u2019s unique F-keyboard on iOS devices.\nAnother source suggested that the meeting \u2014 which is not the first between Apple and Turkey concerning tablets in education \u2014 wasn\u2019t quite as positive, with government officials criticizing the \u201Csecond-class\u201D treatment it receives from Apple.\nIn particular, WorldBulletin.net reports that G\u00FCl was unhappy that it takes so long for Apple products to reach the local market and even asked Apple to open some authorized retail stores in the country to speed up the process.\nCouch reportedly refused to commit to anything at the time, but did say that he would speak to CEO Tim Cook on the matter in the near future.\nTurkey is one the world\u2019s fastest growing economies and has touted its tablet program for more than two years.\nThe country first promised to bring tablets to school children in November 2010. Since then, officials have been in contact with a host of budget Android vendors in the last year. At one stage, Turkey was in talks with DataWind, maker of India\u2019s $35 Aakash tablet.\nIn the first signs of a country-wide tablet rollout one year ago, the government partnered with General Mobile and Samsung to deploy 12,000 tablets across 52 schools. That was part of a project to eventually bring tablets to 40,000 schools.\nImage courtesy of Flickr, Secretary of Defense"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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