Apple is advertising a $100 Mac App Store credit when students buy a Mac during their back-to-school promotion -- a kind of stingier promotion than last year which gave students a $199 iPod.
From the promotion:
When you buy a new qualifying Mac with Apple education pricing* from June 16, 2011, through September 20, 2011, you'll get a $100 Back to School Card to use on the Mac App Store, the App Store, the iTunes Store, and the iBookstore.
The new "stingier promotion" was also likely a move by Apple to entice students to download legal apps rather than pirate them, writes BetaNews. However, how much can $100 buy at the Mac App Store? Three iWork apps cost $60. (Microsoft Office, a college staple, isn't offered.) To give Apple props, it also gives a $50 discount off computers for students at its education store -- where one can buy a $1599 Mac Book Air for $1549 (that's a whole 3 percent off!)
Windows also has a back-to-school promotion where they give away a 4GB Xbox 360 (retails for $199) with any purchase of a WIndows 7 PC more than $699, which also seems like a better deal to us and probably most college students. Still, why aren't these companies just discounting their product more?
The back-to-school promotion is supposed to be about getting new and younger customers and creating a new generation of loyal fans. Apparently Apple thinks it has the future sewn up and doesn't need to woo any kids.
