Apple iPad: Best e-learning gadget option for students

The latest report by International Data Corporation revealed Apple iPad unit shipments reached record milestones in the second quarter ending July 2021. With 12.9 million shipments, it leads the pack with more than combined shipments of both the 2nd placed Samsung (8 million) and 3rd placed Lenovo (4.7 million).

Despite the challenges of the chipset shortage, Apple has managed to meet the huge demand from consumers, particularly students who rely mostly on tablets for e-learning. Thanks to Covid-19 induced pandemic, online classes have become the new normal.

To keep the children active with studies, schools and colleges assign projects, PPT presentations, and to perform such tasks, we cannot rely on any other tablet with a big screen. The latter has to have a powerful processor, a long-lasting battery, and most importantly, there has to be an ecosystem of utility apps with a proper user privacy policy.

Here's where Apple iPads come in to play. They are powered by proprietary A-series chipsets and the latest iPads now come with Mac PC-grade M-series chipsets, which make devices perform even power-intensive tasks such as video editing smoothly without any fuzz.

Apple Classroom app. Credit: Apple

Even the display quality of iPads has also significantly improved over the years to lessen the strain on eyes while reading or consuming multi-media content for long hours.

Add to that Apple offers iTunes U Course, which helps not only help education institutions to develop custom curriculum but also offer great tools to teachers to improve their skill sets in addition to helping children understand complex topics with fun activities and project work.

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"The iPad offers a better experience of reading than paper-based books because we can easily navigate through pages and search for terms with the search option and not waste time hunting them down manually. With all books in one place, The iPad being sleek can be carried around almost everywhere saving us the effort of carrying 10 different books. And, the split-screen function allows one to easily multi-task. We can take notes while studying or even read the textbook with online classes going on. Also, one can easily do, undo and redo writings and highlights and not worry about mistakes," said Divya Giridharan, soon-to-be-Dental doctor.

Giridharan has her own YouTube channel as well. She uses editing apps such as ProCreate, Canva, Sketchbook (for Apple Pencil)and PostIts and, Notability for organising work on her iPads (8th gen & iPad Pro 2019).

Apple iPad 8th Gen. Credit: DH Photo/KVN Rohit

"I don’t think the iPad can replace hard copy books because some books can’t be read digitally (the book lover in me can’t let go of the smell of the good old paper books). But as far as studies are concerned, the iPad is excellent and it saves money! Medical textbooks are extremely expensive and it’s not possible to buy each and every book. So iPad makes it easier and much more convenient,"

Besides the native Apple Notes app, Radhika, who owns iPad (8th gen) also uses GoodNotes for studies, organisation with Notion app, and for studying she makes good use of Forest and Flipd apps.

More features coming to Apple Notes and Reminder app this fall

Apple has announced that the native Notes and Reminder app will get more in the upcoming iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey updates, which be rolled out as free software update to all eligible devices this September.

One of the key features coming in Apple Notes is the #Tag. With just typing the keywords with hashtags as prefixes, users will be able to easily locate long-forgotten notes on the app, saving time to scroll all the way to the bottom of the list. It will also have a separate Tag Browser. Users can just type #activities or #travel or a combination of multiple keywords to find a particular note.

Notes app will also feature Custom Smart Folder, which automatically groups notes sharing similar topics.

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Also, the Collaboration feature is also coming in the new update, which allows users to share a particular note with friends and family members. Whenever anybody makes the changes, the user gets notified with the time stamp and what was edited. It also offers the option to use @ to mark people to get attention. This comes in handy for students to help each other to create notes to study with correct facts during virtual group studies.

Another key feature is the Quick Notes. No matter where the user is working on the iPad, he/she can just pull the app with just a finger gesture of swipe up from the bottom right corner and start writing or copy & paste a paragraph from a website and even mark the particular part of an article and share it with a friend. This feature is exclusive to iPad and Mac in Notes.

Like the Notes app, Reminder will also support # tag with a dedicated tag browser and smart folder features.

Also, the Reminder app gets improved natural language understanding capability. This makes it possible for users to type more advanced phrases to create reminder settings. For instance, users can try something like 'Jog every other morning' for a specific, recurring reminder.

With the new iOS/iPadOS 15 & macOS Monterey update, Siri digital assistant will announce Reminders when a user is wearing AirPods or compatible Beats headphones.

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