Apple's CEO began today's special education event in Chicago by stating: "We love creativity and curiosity and we know that our products can help bring out the creative genius in every kid. That's why education is such a big part of who we are as a company, and has been for 40 years."

In closing out the Apple + Education Special Event in Chicago, Apple's Tim Cook stated the following in full:

"This is an important day for Apple and we hope that it's an important day for students and teachers around the world too. We believe in the power of education to create opportunity. And we're excited about all the things that our products can do to make the learning experience even better than ever.

This morning, we announced the new iPad with support for Apple Pencil. It's a breakthrough device and with all of its incredible apps puts amazing creative potential right in the hands of every student – and all of the amazing augmented reality apps being created specifically for learning. It truly puts the abiltiy to explore the world in the hands of our kids and teachers like no technology has ever done before.

We've made some fantastic software announcements today with Pages, keynote, Numbers, Clips and GarageBand all designed to take advantage of the power of the new iPad and Apple Pencil.

We're excited about 'Everyone can Code', our curriculum giving every student the opportunity to discover just how fun it is to create their own apps. And we're so thrilled to introduce you to our new curriculum 'Everyone can Create.'

We believe we can help teachers bring fun new experiences into every subject into the classroom helping kids to communicate in powerful new ways and flex their creative muscle.

We think it's an honor to be able to support teachers with the new generation of apps and services that have been designed just for them. From using Pages to digitally markup student's homework to managing student assignments and viewing progress in the new Schoolwork app.

We've been at this for 40 years and we care deeply about education. We believe that our place at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts makes it possible for us to create powerful products and tools that amplify learning and creativity. This is something that only Apple can do.

To close today, we want to show you just how much fun kids could have collaborating and learning together with iPad. So we made a video and I'd love to run it for you now."  

Of course, what would an Apple keynote be if it didn't somehow kick the competition?

Greg Joswiak, VP, iOS, iPad and iPhone Product Marketing stated during his part of the event that Apple's new iPad with Apple Pencil that "There's nearly 200,000 for education. This goes way beyond the basic and way beyond browser based apps. No other platform has anything close to this depth, breadth or quality of apps for learning."

To rub it into Google's face, Joswiak later noted when introducing the 9.7" iPad with the new Fusion Chip that it's now more powerful than most PC laptops and virtually every Chromebook.

It's a known fact that Google currently is leading in the education market with cheap hardware. So Apple went out of their way to demonstrate that they're back with a more powerful positive message, new apps and hardware and more importantly, a revived passion for the education market.

Apple wants to advance young people's minds by teaching them how to code and use the new iPad that is vastly more versatile for students. The iPad is flexible, light and could use a keyboard and now Apple Pencil.

They demonstrated that they want to support teachers in so many new ways to help them better interact with their students at a whole new level. It's not about throwing a bunch of apps into a cheap notebook. It's a holistic approach to the education market and today's keynote had to be one of the most focused and passionately delivered keynotes that I've seen in some time. Especially Cooks closing commentary.

Some school districts will always blindly go with cheap because they have to. The new iPad with an added keyboard and Apple Pencil is more than twice the price of a Chromebook. Yet others school districts will look at how Apple is working with them, with their teachers, inspiring them, educating them and encouraging them to push their students into making better presentations, in being able to research a project more thoroughly, to use video, to code and to reach for the stars.

I'm sure anyone over 40 years old who watched the full keynote today must have said to themselves, at least once, "I wish I had that when I was in school."

Today's event was inspiring and only time will tell if we just witnessed the beginning steps towards a new revolution in education unfold.

Learn More

For more on today's event, you could check out Apple's press releases as noted below:

One: Apple's Chicago events highlight creativity in education

Two: Apple introduces new 9.7-inch iPad with Apple Pencil support

Three: iWork update brings drawing, book creation and more to Pages, Numbers and Keynote

Four: Apple unveils Everyone Can Create curriculum to spark student creativity

Five: Students succeed at their own speed with iPad and Mac

Beyond today's Keynote video that runs about 1 hour and 17 minutes, Apple released a few other new ads today as presented below.   

Random Keynote Images

Apple was granted a patent for an annotation app for the iPad back in November 2015.

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