Don’t be fooled.

Many have accused Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, of being nothing more than a number cruncher, a man untroubled by original thoughts.

The dearth of inventions since Steve Jobs died certainly adds credence to that opinion, and Cook’s financial engineering skills are testified to by the latest iPad campaign. This campaign, as I will show, is nothing more than a confidence trick in pricing.

$329 gets you very little.

Apple targeted the education market early on with its Apple II and Macintosh computers and did well. With the Mac’s introduction in 1984, students finally saw on the screen what they could print and the desktop computing world would never be the same. Then, around the fall of 2001 when the first iPod was introduced, Apple’s focus on the education market started to blur, to a point where now few in schools use Apple hardware. The iMac is ridiculously overpriced for what it delivers and the iPad is useless.

But that does not deter Mr. Green Eyeshades from trying to revitalize what is increasingly a failed product line – the iPad. His teaser offer to schools, a whopping $30 off to students, puts the device in your child’s hands, where it is waiting to be dropped, for $299.

But Wait! There’s More!

The stock memory of 16Gb (sixteen Gb!) is a straight forward cheat for what is a memory hungry device. Evert tried using a 16Gb iPad. I have. Useless once you have an app or two running. Thus you need the upgraded memory model, so add $100. The keyboard in the iPad is useless for extended typing, the sort of thing students have to do when cranking out those pieces on Richard III and his many depredations. So add a wireless keyboard (forget trying to use a wired one) and Apple has your number for a mere $93. Want to use that Apple Pencil to draw on the screen? $90 more. (Wow! $90 for a pencil ….) Then you have to support the tablet at 45 degrees to make it remotely usable at a desk and, hey, there goes another $20 and say hasta la vista to the iPad’s vaunted portability. And you don’t want little Johnny scratching that screen now, do you, so throw in $15 for a wallet/pouch. Let’s see, that’s $617. Plus tax.

Now let’s see what the sensible parent is buying. It’s called a Chromebook, comes with a folding screen like any laptop, no case needed, has a trackpad for drawing and all you need add is a mouse. Maybe not even that. Amazon lists some 500 of these little hummers for under $500. For the most part it’s hard to spend $250. Memory use is smart so you do not need much. Oh! and don’t forget too add $10 for a mouse. The laptop comes with the Google suite of apps (spreadsheet, word processor, calendar) and why, all 650 students and 120 faculty at my son’s prep school use those apps and no one is complaining.

Apple. Con.

A typical Chromebook. Touchscreen and tablet functionality included.