Apple has launched their 2011 Back to School 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.
You must be a qualified Apple Education Individual end-user purchaser, and not a reseller, to obtain this promotional offer. Products must be purchased from Apple Retail, Apple Telesales, or the Apple Online Store and delivered to an address in the 50 United States or the District of Columbia.
More info via Apple Store here.
Do you think Apple should let Dvorak know there’s a back to school promotion on? He seems quite unschooled in Mac products.
BLN,
Comedy 101: You never want to use a word from you punchline in your set-up. Let the reader make the leap – much more effective.
Obviously not as good as the free iPod promotion of years past, but better than a sharp stick in the eye.
I, for one, am surprise. MS is raising their offer with a free Xbox. Apple, OTOH, seems to be lowering their traditional promotional offer. Guess, that’s telling who’s under pressure, yet, I’m still surprised. Couldn’t they throw in an TV, or better yet, the upcoming AE/Time Machine?
Very Weak Offer. A big disappointment and I’d expect Apple to feel the impact of this in the July / Dec. results.
Wow, from awesome to lame. All that damn money they’re making and they have to go cheap on this?
It probably ties into that story about them cracking down on third party iPod giveaways. Steve threw a cranky fit after he woke up one morning and decided it “cheapens” the brand, even when Apple is the one giving them away. But still they could’ve come up with something better than this shit.
Nearly $6 billion in profit last quarter and Steve is in the room with Tim Cook scheming on how to pinch pennies, cheap miser fsck.
It will be interesting to see how successful this year’s promotion is compared to years gone by. Maybe Apple figures that Macs and iDevices are on a roll, and don’t need to be so heavily and expensively promoted.
My college kids will be greatly disappointed. Not a smart promotion.
🙁
I waited for nothing! Ugh
Actually you waited for a $100 gift card that you wouldn’t have gotten if you would’ve purchased thru the Education site as recently as yesterday 😉
As I said, better than a sharp stick in the eye, but just barely.
My daughter will be very disappointed. She has a very old iPod and I was planning to buy her an iBook for school this fall as well as surprise her with the new/free iPod. I can’t afford to buy both and the iPod won’t be that useful for school work. She will just have to make do with the old one.
You’ll be getting her a macbook, but I see your point.
I was kind of sitting on the fence trying to decide what to buy for my daughter. I like Macs. But Office on the Mac really stinks compared to it’s Windows cousin. I was kind of hoping for the usual promotion by Apple to help me decide to get her a Macbook Air. But the promotion this year is lame, the new Macbook Air’s are still not available, and there are plenty of nice Windows laptops for cheaper that will also score me a new xbox. Hmmm. Decisions, decisions.
You could if you wanted to use the $100 to download iWork from the Mac App Store and use that as a replacement for the shiteous MS Office. I believe it’s only $79 so you’ll have $21 to blow on Lady Gaga’s latest album…not. No, don’t blow it on Gaga.
Actually, no you can’t. The $100 can ONLY be used on iaudiobooks, music, apps, and movies, etc.
NOT THE APPLE STORE
Did you even read? It said it can be used on the Mac App Store. That means you can buy iWork through the Mac App Store. You no longer have to buy the boxed copy to get it.
Never under estimate the power of Call of Duty and an Xbox. I have several friends who have been waiting to see what kind of iPOD apple was going to offer on the back to school special. They were weighing getting a macbook and a iPOD vs. a PC laptop and a Xbox.
According to them the PC – Xbox deal now wins hands down.
The gift card instead of the iPod offer will hurt Apple sales, how much remains to be seen. I have several clients who have been waiting to purchase Macbook Pros for their students entering college. Most of the parents experience sticker shock when shown the prices on Macbook Pros. However, after showing them the full package (iPod Touch, Printer, iLife, they grudgingly come around to spending $2000 (Mac+warranty).
Parents mental equation is:
Macbook Pro $ 1800
iPod Touch – 200
Printer – 100
iLife – 80
= $ 1420, close to the price of a Dell XPS 15Z
Now the equation has changed just enough it will be interesting to see if it affects purchase decisions. My guess and only a guess is that it will especially with the free Xbox offer that Microsoft is promoting.
WTF? Is a 13″ MBP not good enough for these mollycoddled son-of-bitches?
By all means, they should buy the MBP just because you are grumpy.
They’re proposing to spend $1800 on a 15″ MBP when they could have gone for a 13″ MBP for $1200. With $200 off if you have a qualifying education discount you’re looking at $1000. The math he showed was all skewed.
Apple doesn’t offer a $200 education discount on their 13″ macBook Pros. Only $100.
Ok I was thinking of $100 off in cash terms and $100 off in Mac App Store voucher terms. It’s still a significant saving if you use a part of the $100 store credit to buy iWork.
I see your point below. The $100 gift card can be used for iWork, which might help creat a value proposition in the mind of a college student. Or not, who knows….
I’ve been waiting for the ipod promo for months to buy a new macbook pro to start university this fall..
I’m not even interested in the xbox, but I’m getting a pc anyway -_- just reselling the xbox outweighs the love I have for apple.
As much as I love and desire a mac, this definitely killed it.
I hope apple sales get crushed this year.
Unless they change their promo back in the next month, I won’t be getting a mac for the next 5 years till I get a job (interior design). If they bring back the ipod promo next year, its still gonna be too late, university students are poor you know /:
very disappointed
My design program suggested a pc over a mac due to program compatibility, but I was planning to get a mac anyway cause of the ipod promo and the fact that I prefer apple so much more.
But without the promo, all that’s left is the fact that I prefer how a mac looks -_-
Its just not worth it anymore.
Just reselling the xbox takes off at least $150 from the already lower price of a pc.
This is the worst year for apple to change their promo, with microsoft giving away a xbox this summer..
These kids don’t think like you and me. Most young people, unless they are raised by a Mac user like myself, are at best platform agnostic. If you dangle free hardware in front of them year after year, you have set an expectation whether you like it or not. So as they evaluate their impending computer purchase, the free X Box is going to look mighty tempting to them compared to a gift card that can’t even purchase hardware. You might call them greedy, or mollycoddled, or whatever, but they don’t care. Millions of young people entering college want the best deal they can get, at least in their minds, and having free hardware thrown at them is a mighty strong pull.
I have no idea why Apple went the gift card route this year, but I do know that if you ignore the youth market, even if that is just their perception, you risk losing a lifelong customer who may have purchased dozens of Apple products into the future.
Something to think about anyway.
There’s no doubt in my mind Apple pulled off a wrong move there by not offering free hardware to go with a back to school Mac purchase. No doubt students go through a purely hardware driven mental calculation and Microsoft made a good move offering a free XBox. Apple should have matched that with at least a nano if not an iPod touch. It wouldn’t have eaten much into profits but they would have won an early adherent for life.
Wrong move Apple.
Good promotions get people excited to spend their money, and possibly to spend more than they normally would. Bad promotions de-motivate people to spend their money. What we are seeing here is nothing more than a bad promotion that has de-motivated a lot of excited people.
What’s up with that? What a let down… when those in Japan, Australia get free iPod promo… My wife’s a teacher… So no free xBox either… Maybe we’ll buy a Refurb instead…
Bummer, I guess they needed to save some money to do the $7 Million upgrade work on the NY store and to get ready for the mother ship build. It could also be they feel that giving everyone what is normally a $170 upgrade for $30 and free cloud computing/storage this year is enough. All this in a damaged economy, just something to think about.
What a bummer………. I guess i’ll just keep my 3year old Macbook.
This is a very disappointing offer…was looking forward to the annual ipod promotion. Guess we’ll be shopping around for a laptop…
wow lucky for me I got the promo last summer but it blows that i have waited so long for the promo this summer to buy my parents an iMac and my girlfriend a bookpro and great news.. f’ng $100 per purchase towards Apple App Store.. and that would make me an official Apple’s Bitch..!!
guess they gonna miss out on my 3 g’s..
I was gonna ball since Ive saved the money but now they get Dk!! at leat the ipod would’ve been nice Christmas Presents .. so here’s the incentive.. spend 3000 with us and we will give 200 for u to spend it back with me…..
NNNNooottt!!!
shame on Job’s we have been faithful customers and with no hesitation spend on ur brand.. but this unacceptable cheap and gritty.
i want to get a mac!!!