Natasha Singer:

Apple’s Macs and iPads have lost significant ground in the U.S. educational market during the last three years, in 2016 slipping to third place behind Chromebooks and Windows devices, according to new research.

The research in question is this report from Futuresource. From the report:

At an operating system level, Chromebooks continue to gain market share, reaching 58% in 2016, up from 50% in 2015. The strong combination of affordable devices, productivity tools via G-Suite, easy integration with third party platforms/tools, task management/distribution via Google Classroom and easy device management remains extremely popular with US teachers and IT buyers alike.

And:

Whilst the growth of Chromebooks has certainly been a major headache for Apple and Microsoft, they are not standing still. Both made major developments through 2016, Apple announcing the ‘Classroom’ app and major education focused functionality updates on iOS 9.3, including the ability to share iPads.

To me, the issue is not Apple devices losing luster. As the linked report makes clear, this is about the growth of Chromebooks and the Google ecosystem. Google’s ecosystem is incredibly affordable, just perfect for the education market.