For all the attention that the iPhone App Store gets from both the blogosphere and the iPhone’s competitors, it has a structural problem that limits it usefulness when it comes to distributing applications for the primary and secondary education markets. That’s a shame because the iPod Touch, the “phoneless iPhone”, would otherwise be a wonderful platform for K-12 schools.
Here’s the problem… Schools don’t license applications one user at a time. They buy bulk licenses for a whole classroom, a whole school, or a whole district. The app store doesn’t really provide any way to do that. Sure, the school district could set up an “enterprise” developer arrangement with Apple and then get the vendor to upload the program, but that requires more work on the part of the district to purchase those applications than it does to buy traditional educational apps. Schools are as strapped for technical resources as they are for cash, so this problem alone takes much of the luster off the iPod Touch as an instructional platform.
Let’s hope someone at Apple notices.
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Copyright © 2008-2012 Richard A. Milewski
We’ve done a number of pilot project in the last 9 months with the iPod Touch in the classroom and the issue is larger than the logistics of bulk purchase. We’ve repeatedly asked Apple a simple question– If we buy a set of 30 ipods for a class, how many copies of a paid app do we need to purchase, using how many iTunes accounts. The answer on all occasions, from all levels, has been “The iPod App store is a consumer device and the end user license agreement (EULA) is not written for schools” and on further questioning, they have said that they cannot interpret their EULA and how we choose interpret it is a mater for us to discuss with our School’s legal council.
I’ve had to use a loophole in the EULA that says the developer’s license overrides the Apple one and have negotiated clarification for one developer that it was OK for a school to purchase, so one down, 130,000 to go.
I am trying to find a way to purchase apps from the app store with a purchase order and there is no vehicle to do this. It is difficult for schools to be able to purchase apps for the itouches because all purchases must be made with a PO. It would be great if Apple had a separate vehicle for schools to purchase things from the itunes store.
I am the developer of the current #2 iPhone Education app (Mathemagics – Mental Math Tricks) and I couldn’t agree more with your post. I have been asked numerous times by teachers and other education professionals about how to bring an iPhone app into a classroom setting. Unfortunately, there just isn’t a good answer right now. Until more schools purchase iPod Touches en mass for the purpose of using them in a classroom setting I doubt we’ll see any sort of bulk purchasing of apps. Apple does listen to its market so I think it will require that sort of groundswell of usage in order to encourage them in the direction of bulk purchases.