Apple Inc. is one of the most admired companies on the planet. Count me as one of its top admirers. What I admire most is the way Apple considers holistically the entire experience of owning and using a computer. Apple has painstakingly thought through the buying experience, the training experience, the support experience, the maintenance experience, and the user experience. By providing the hardware and the software, the services and the support, Apple can provide the consumer with a total experience that far surpasses the competition.
Somewhat ironically, given Apple's historical strength in the education market, Apple does not extend this holistic experience to the classroom. While Apple serves the adult consumer with Apple software (from the iLife and iWork suites), it does not serve the instructional needs of schools. Instead, Apple relies on third parties to develop applications that are used by students in schools.
It's too bad, because the same logic that extends to the adult consumer experience applies with even greater force to the young student experience. The appropriateness and effectiveness of the software is greatly influenced by the design of the hardware, as well as by the support and training.
Hence Innovations for Learning. We have one focus: early elementary classrooms. We have tailored our hardware, our software, our training, and our support to the unique needs of little hands and the short attention spans of students as well as to teachers' hectic schedules, their need for integrated curriculum, and their limited appetite for computer troubleshooting.
We are a service company, not a product company. Our service is designed to improve the entire teaching and learning experience through innovation that is intensively researched and developed and effectively implemented on a scalable basis.
When people remark that TeacherMates are the 'iPods of education', I consider them right in more ways than they know.
