Apple Offers Keynote and iLife for Teachers

MikeXpop writes "Apple announced that its two new apps, Keynote and iLife, will be available for teachers for only $15, saving educators $113 (compared to the regular education price). Also, Apple is extending the deadline for free Jaguar for teachers. Both offers end March 31st."

Well, hot piss.

[twiztidlojik]

Hopefully there will be some teachers out there that can reach "agreements" with some of their students ;)

I sure don't want to shell out $150 for something I can get for $15. That's what, a 90% discount? Sign me up!

Re:Well, hot piss.

[EvanTaylor]

Uou have to agree to some annoying terms, and it must be shipped to you at your school.

Re:Well, hot piss.

[JonathanBoyd]

You have to agree to receive publicity material from Apple, IIRC. You're getting spam, but at least it's shiny happy Apple spam in a choice of 5 fruity flavours.

Weird move...

[apple-marc]

Does this seem like a strange move to anyone else? They are making teachers pay for an incentive to get OSX, which is free anyhow!

Re:Weird move...

[JonathanBoyd]

Not strange in the slightest. It's weaning them off MS, making them more inclined to use any other Office type tools Apple wheels out, or the next version of Keynote a bit further down the line. And if teachers start using it, they might start teaching it to students, so the scool might buy copies or the students will think "Gee, this is cool, I wonder what the rest of Apple's stuff is like."

Besides, they're not 'making' teachers pay. They're offering them a heavily discounted product. That's giving them options, not forcing something on them. If I could get Keynote that cheap I would.

Re:Weird move...

[Anonymous Coward]

iLife is free with new computers. You can also download everything except for iDVD from the web, or buy the full CD for $50 (standard price). Keynote costs $100, and, unless I am mistaken, it does not come with new computers. Microsoft Powerpoint costs a couple hundred dollars (standard price), though they have certain educational discounts as well.

I'd have preferred it if..

[jo_ham]

They'd sold the iLife and Keynote apps for full price but thrown in a free iBook to install them on.

Can't have everything I guess!

Already discussed to death at macslash

[weave]

Just in case anyone can't get enough comments about this here, this has already discussed a while back on macslash [macslash.org]

That should make it easier to lift high-karma comments there and just paste them here for hopeful same effect.

Re:Not enough high rated postings there..

[Anonymous Coward]

macslash only has 5 users, so it's pretty hard to get score 5 on any post! :)

Rant Mode

[Llywelyn]

Why is it that everytime a company does something good--offers a software package for free, steeply discounts something--someone steps out of the woodwork and accuses them of having ulterior motives.

Of COURSE they have ulterior motives, they are a *business* and are trying to turn a *profit*.

By giving away iLife and Keynote at what is essentially cost of producing the boxes, they distribute their software more widely into the hands of people who might use it later and help gain a toehold against MS.

Remember, MS PowerPoint already dominates that market and if they want people to try out Keynote they *have* to give them a reason to experiment and play with it. Keynote is not a PowerPoint replacement: there are things that PP does that Keynote can't (yet, though keynote is still the better product overall), however, by offering it at that price they might convince teachers to "try it out" even if they already have PowerPoint and are using it regularly.

Further, if Teachers have the latest and greatest in terms of software--or at least can run it--it helps them defeat the fact that schools tend to lag on the technology curve. Having the most up-to-date software is not necessary, but if you want to give kids an accurate presentation of what yoru software is like, or even want them to be able to run the latest applications, up-to-date software is a Good Thing?.

"In ways its no different to drug dealing. Hook them while they're young?"

Hello? McFly? Are you even engaging your brain here?

Anyone else notice something odd...?

[girl_geek_antinomy]

As far as I could tell from a quick follow of the link, this offer is available only to K-12 teachers and accredited Faculty members of post-secondary colleges - surely secondary school teachers are *most* likely to want/need these tools, and are more likely to be getting to students when they're both aware of the tools being used on them but also open to *uhm* suggestion...? They're missing a trick here, shurely?

Oh, and also, why only in the States? The Free-Jaguar deal applies in the UK, too... when for free iLife and Keynote?

Re:Anyone else notice something odd...?

[girl_geek_antinomy]

Ah, perhaps I'm misunderstanding the US school-age naming system. Sorry :)

Re:Anyone else notice something odd...?

[girl_geek_antinomy]

Aaah, I was reading it in ages.

And I'm British :)

Re:Anyone else notice something odd...?

[kalidasa]

this offer is available only to K-12 teachers and accredited Faculty members of post-secondary colleges - surely secondary school teachers are *most* likely to want/need these tools, and are more likely to be getting to students when they're both aware of the tools being used on them but also open to *uhm* suggestion...?

I think maybe you're getting American educational terminology mixed up. In the US, there's elementary education (Kindergarten, or K, for 5-6 year olds, plus grades 1 through 8 for 6 through 14 year olds; most school systems nowadays divide them up into K-4 elementary schools and 5-8 "middle" schools, but there are other variations), high school or secondary education (grades 9 - 12, 14 to 18 year olds), and post-secondary education ("colleges" are either 2-year Junior Colleges or Community Colleges, offerring the Associate's degree, or 4-year institutions offerring Bachelor's degrees; "universities" being institutions that offer graduate and/or professional degrees in addition to "undergraduate" (bachelors) degrees).

Why the family imac needs keynote

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of uses for Keynote beyond presentations. Since it brings together XML, PDF, and Quicktime really well, the imaginative among us can do some cool shit with it.

For example, a friend of mine who works for an ISP plans on converting server statistics into graphs, which can then be displayed on his desktop as a Quicktime movie, in fact, there's a nifty (evil) OS X hack out there which lets you use Quicktime displays as your desktop background, which I believe he is planning on using for this.

So, sitting at a friend's house with his iBook, he can minimize his windows any time he likes and take a look at how his company's servers are doing. Okay, he's doing it more to be '1337 than for the actual utility of it, but that does give you an idea of how there are other cool ways to utilize keynote besides uberPowerPoint lectures.

A few more steps, and we'll be safe in the Fire Swamp.

Read the fine print

[tbmaddux]

From the sign up page [apple.com] for the iLife/Keynote discount bundle:

Enrollment in this program constitutes your consent to Apple contacting you by email or postal mail with news and other materials about products, promotions, and other developments that may be of interest to you. This program is not subject to certain aspects of Apple's Privacy Policy, such as opting out of follow-up communications.

Anyone else interpret that last sentence as a lifetime spam subscription that cannot be cancelled?

Re:Read the fine print

[Llywelyn]

You would prefer to pay the full price?

TANSTAAFL

Re:Read the fine print

[tbmaddux]

You would prefer to pay the full price?

Apple's other educational discounts (such as the educational Apple Store) don't impose the same cost on my privacy. I thought the info would be helpful to anyone who got as stoked as I did about the price but maybe didn't catch the little blurb. I was surprised to see it.

In response to your question, I haven't decided yet whether it's worth the price or not for iLife+Keynote, but I can tell you I haven't signed up for any supermarket discount cards or the like... in those cases I would prefer to pay full price.

Perhaps someone who has signed up for this program or the "X for Teachers" one (which I see has the same language [apple.com]) could let us know if they're able to later stop Apple from "contacting them."

Re:Why just K-12?

[Llywelyn]

1) It isn't just K-12, it is Higher Ed as well. I have a professor already talking about taking them up on the deal.

2) Presentation apps are a tool. If the teacher cannot find something to do with that tool, then there is no need for them to purchase it. OTOH, I think most teachers, if they think a little on the topic, could find a use for it.

For instance, I had a lot of History teachers write notes on the board, a projecter and Keynote/PPT would allow them to present those notes far more legibly and still cover them completely.

I remember several HS math textbooks covering applications. Keynote could easily help craft presentations on some of these applications and how the math applies.

Computer Science classes are the same way: the presentation could be made much more dynamic and informative if the software is correctly used.

In College I have had a *lot* of classes taught using overheads--these transition easily into Keynote/PPT presentations.

For younger classes there are many ways it could be used that I can think of, put your mind to it!

Just because no-one is using a tool doesn't, by any means, mean that said tool could not be used to help improve things.

HS, in particular, is in dire need of an improvement.

Also for Higher Ed. Instructors

[Llywelyn]

The article here only links to the deal for K-12 teachers, however, it also applies to full-time faculty at colleges and universities. Once again only in the United States. It is covered in more detail in their Higher Education [apple.com] section (go figure). As a reminder, Students can still purchase Keynote for $79 and iLife for $49 at The Apple Store [apple.com].