Mac Lab Report

The iTools Bait and Switch

- 2002.07.25

Apple continues to put blinders on to the reality of the world its customers face, especially education customers.

The recent demise of iTools and free mac.com email will have the effect of driving some of the last holdouts to the Wintel side. Not only was Apple's ridiculously feebleminded HomePage totally eclipsed by the popular Web building site Homestead, for example, but Apple has again mistimed the announcement, displaying a fundamental disregard for its education customers needs and financial status.

We don't get to decide as much as we used to, Mr. Jobs.

Suppose you're a teacher with an iDisk based Web page. The following things will be true for you:

You cannot afford the $100 per year required to keep your external-to-school email working.
All the Web pages you carefully crafted will now have to be rebuilt with new links, and new links will need to be added to the school's page.
School is about to start, so you don't have time for #2.
Your iDisk, which never worked at school anyway, now is not going to be used at home, either.
The thing you told the district about not needing floppy drives because you could just use iDisk is no longer true.
Your students will not use paid services to store work for you to retrieve outside the school network.

Thanks, Apple. Smooooooth.

I can't wait to see the next bait you have to offer - and the switch you pull later.

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is a longtime Mac user. He was using digital sensors on Apple II computers in the 1980's and has networked computers in his classroom since before the internet existed. In 2006 he was selected at the California Computer Using Educator's teacher of the year. His students have used NASA space probes and regularly participate in piloting new materials for NASA. He is the author of two books and numerous articles and scientific papers. He currently teaches astronomy and physics in California, where he lives with his twin sons, Jony and Ben.< And there's still a Mac G3 in his classroom which finds occasional use.

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