iPads in schools serve the exact same purpose macbooks did in the past, and its the same thing Google is doing with Chromebooks, albeit its not as bad.<p>Its buying new customers. If kids are literally raised on your products, you take them as yours before they even have money to buy computers in the first place. I went to a high school that used macbooks, and I&#x27;m probably the only person staunchly anti-Apple from my graduating class I know out of 50+ people - the vast majority of them are now primary Apple users over Windows, Android, Linux, etc.<p>Its not philanthropy, that&#x27;s for sure.<p>I personally think its extremely important to get open, hackable hardware in the hands of students instead of some of the most locked down proprietary consumer devices to ever be pushed so aggressively on kids. For selfish reasons, because I don&#x27;t want a proprietary world of tonka class computers and corporate controlled software - I want open platforms using open standards so I can use what I want and not be strong armed into some proprietary control by a business entity. The only way to get that is with an understanding and appreciation for hacker &#x2F; open culture, and kids using ipads in class are definitely not getting exposure to anything like that.