Apple Considering Bid to Provide 15 Million iPads to Turkish Schools

Damn lucky turkeys! When I was in school we used tablets... stone tablets. My homework looked like the 10 commandments.

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what...turkey doesnt want the hp tablets best buy cant give away?

GOOD. Let the Turkeys allow their kids to surf porn and play games all day long instead of learning. Give us books.

Right because there is no way to block kids from porn sites or being on the Internet. :rolleyes:

Too bad Turkey is about to block most of the useful internet.

12,000 pages blocked and hundreds of keywords blocked from search. :mad:

More thinking like this need in US

Government officials had previously indicated (http://www.todayszaman.com/news-250354-turkey-decides-on-domestic-production-of-tablet-pcs.html) that the tablets themselves must also be produced in Turkey.

It would not hurt to have a little more thinking like this with companies bidding on government contracts in the US. Quite simply...create jobs and the associated tax base so we can afford to buy your products.

Interesting. I'm actually headed to Istanbul in a couple of weeks for a vacation. Just don't block my airline check-in ability and I'm a happy camper. :D

I was there this time last year, and honestly it's a wonderful city with great people. However, during my stay YouTube was blocked.

Make sure you go to Istiklal Cadessi and walk the whole thing. It's a great place to hang out during the day, but especially at night.

Turkey has been providing free printed books to all puplic school students for years. If Turkish government give away iPads to students, they wont have to spend money on printed books every single year. Considering all the things that iPad can do, it is really wise to provide students with iPads:apple:

Interesting. I'm actually headed to Istanbul in a couple of weeks for a vacation. Just don't block my airline check-in ability and I'm a happy camper. :D

May I suggest visiting the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia & the Grand Bazaar? Great, beautiful places.

Classic. :D

Thanks. My uncle's pride for his country rubbed off on me a bit so whenever I see anything about Turkey, my interest goes up a bit.

It'd have to make best use of the ~$400-500 cost.

It depends on what grade level you'd start giving out iPads to, and how long you expect them to stay working, unbroken and unstolen. (Unless you work out a nice deal with Apple for extended warranties and breakage swaps.)

As you said, I think they would figure out a way that is not too expensive for both Turkey and Apple.

I see this and don't think "Aww those kids will be SMART" ... because I was a kid, and using a calculator didn't make me smart, actually doing the work did.
And we all know these will just be used primarily for entertainment, to play with (don't even TRY to claim otherwise).

My main thought about this is; "Interesting... Apple apparently has SEVEN AND A HALF BILLION dollars to burn".
As a shareholder, I'd rather see that money go to either product development, or to reducing costs and prices of the expensive hardware.
And as a iPhone owner, I'd like the same. :-/

As you evidently have never experienced an iPad or technology being used for anything other than entertainment, it is pointless to debate this or point out that just putting a Google like search engine in the hands of anyone extends by several orders of magnitude what can be covered in a text book or the cache of knowledge a teacher may hold.

As the executive team at Apple has managed to take the company from having less than 6% of the computer market to the being the highest valued company in the US in just a little over a decade, I'll trust their assessment of how Apple should use $7.5 billion of their $70+billion reserve. You assume that this investment would address none of the goals you outlined, a very un-Tim Cook scenario. Further as the iPad is not only the price but manufacturer-margin leader they are already performing examplarily for their share holders as well as consumers.