MINIMANIA: Bloomberg reported that Apple execs were planning to "make a point of highlighting iPad's educational capabilities" at the official unveiling of the iPad mini on Tuesday. It even offered some juicy teasers of Apple's education outreach efforts in places like southern Texas and San Diego. Unfortunately, according to Forbes' recap, CEO Tim Cook didn't have much to say on this other than showing off some updates to its iBooks Author software. CNET's minute-by-minute notes captured slides that revealed iBooks textbooks currently being used in over 2,500 U.S. classrooms and covering 80% of "U.S. high school core curriculum." We would have expected Cook to brag about bigger numbers, say, the actual number of iPad sales to schools. (Yes we've heard that iPad sales outnumbered Mac sales 2 to 1--but we still don't have a number!) In light of all this iPad-mania, though, Scott McLeod astutely points out on Twitter that the new 7.9 inch iPad Mini, starting at $329, are currently not compliant with minimum hardware specs issued by the two companies developing assessments for Common Core Standards.
