In a 20-minute discussion with journalists, Apple’s CEO talks about education, USB adoption, catching up to Windows

Feb 23, 2015 14:01 GMT  ·  By

In 1998, shortly after making his triumphant return at Apple, then-CEO Steve Jobs agreed to do an interview with a couple of young journalists on the topic of Mac adoption in higher education.

“This chance to sit down with Mr. Jobs was the biggest interview I’d ever been assigned,” the author of the interview said.

Jobs has always prided Apple and himself implicitly that Macs and education converge beautifully. When asked if price was a reason why Macs were dropping like flies in the education sector, Jobs typically put on his reality distortion field mantra, enumerating the key areas where the Mac was actually winning over WinTel, such as USB adoption, and Apple’s relationship with software developers and service providers.

Jobs can even be heard saying that Macs are actually cheaper and faster than the regular computers that most schools and parents were acquiring for their students. You can actually feel the man’s anticipation of the days to come.

While Jobs certainly made a few bad predictions as well - such as the mass adoption of FireWire - he did envision that Apple would ultimately become the most user-friendly platform, though not necessarily the cheapest.

Today, iPads are being pitched as the best tools for education. Some schools have implemented them better than others, but at the end of the day, Apple can only do so much to convince institutions to change their views.