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Apple introduces iPad mini built for Apple Intelligence

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317 points diwank | 2 comments | 15 Oct 24 14:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.55s | source
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mlajtos ◴[15 Oct 24 20:41 UTC] No.41852875[source]▶
iPad mini 2024 with Pencil Pro and Math Notes is going to revolutionize math education.
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hggigg ◴[15 Oct 24 21:01 UTC] No.41853078[source]▶
Mathematician here. No it's really not. Having used it extensively it craps out all the time, fails to parse things properly, doesn't understand anything other than a very narrow undefined subset of anything that needs to be done and generally makes things harder.

It sure looks like it would though.

Noteful and a competent calculator with CAS functionality on the other hand might be a different outcome.

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1. bbor ◴[15 Oct 24 21:13 UTC] No.41853191[source]▶
To be fair, “math education” usually refers to the millions that learn arithmetic, algebra, and geometry every year, not the (tens of?) thousands that take part graduate level courses in “real” mathematics. Although I’m curious; do you think it would handle basic calculus (aka as taught in Calc survey courses up through multivariate)? In other words: does it know how to evaluate integrals and derivatives? Because I’d guess more people take those classes than all their descendants combined.

Either way, and on a more fundamental note: I’m a little dubious that “completing equations” is a net benefit for math education. It really seems like a small nice-to-have-available affordance tacked on to the real game changer: a computer that can adaptively challenge a student and competently answer clarifying questions without making it too easy. Y’know, just AGI stuff lol

As we’ve all seen from ChatGPT’s impact on English courses already, this all will require a fundamental rethink of how we teach children and adolescents. Homework is a bandaid over capitalist failings, and it’s beginning to peel…

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2. hggigg ◴[15 Oct 24 21:26 UTC] No.41853291[source]▶
It has no idea about calculus at all. Not only that it's a numeric not a symbolic calculator. So taking it even further back to basics, if you do sqrt(12) it should really crap out 2+sqrt(3) [as a surd] but it just dumps the evaluation out. My £10 Casio can handle that better.

As for education, you don't really need a calculator. We don't really use them that much. Pen, paper, ears.

As for computers, programmed randomised questions with deterministic answers and documented steps to solve the problems are the right way. LLMs can't do that even if they look like they can. some universities actually have tools which generate those. Those are truly enlightening as you can see the reasoning properly.