In a feel-good story, Apple is extending an olive branch to Rutgers Center for Management Development by offering to exchange their recently purchased iPads for the newer iPad 2. This executive education branch of the New Jersey University has offered iPad-based courses since July 2010. The courses run on a regular basis and focus on digital and social media marketing.
The current crop of courses started before the iPad 2 release on March 11 and the school decided to buy the previous generation Apple tablet for the course instead of wait for the iPad 2. When the purchasing decision needed to be made earlier this year, the availability of the second generation model was not known.
Eric Greenberg, Faculty Chair for the business center and coordinator for the course, expected to receive complaints from students whose tuition pays for the iPad and lets them keep the device after the course is completed. Most of the students in this course are business professionals who expect to learn about and use the latest technology.
The local Apple store in Freehold, NJ intervened before the class started and offered to swap out the original tablet devices with the iPad 2 for each student in the course. The store is not charging a restocking fee and is taking back the tablet devices even though they have been customized with Rutgers’ educational software package. “We expected to have to tell the students that it was just unfortunate timing,” said Greenberg, “But Apple really surprised me by being so flexible.”
Though the business school offers several classes that use Apple’s popular tablet devices, the department may choose Android or other platforms in the future. An upcoming online course that uses Flash to deliver content is being converted to a tablet-based course. This particular course would prevent the use of the iPad and favor a tablet from Android or possibly webOS.
[Via Forbes]