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Apple Debuts App Store Volume Purchase Program for Educational Institutions

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Apr 12, 2001
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Yesterday, we noted a change to the App Store's developer terms and options allowing developers to offer their applications at a 50% discount for bulk purchases made by educational institutions. Apple has now posted information on the program disclosing how institutions can take advantage of the discounted pricing.
The Volume Purchase Program makes it easy for educational institutions to purchase iOS apps in volume and distribute those apps to users. The Volume Purchase Program also allows app developers to offer special pricing for purchases of 20 apps or more.
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Volume purchasing is accomplished via vouchers available through the Apple Store for Education in $100, $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 denominations. The vouchers can be purchased by authorized educational purchasing representatives and are sent by regular mail. Vouchers can then be distributed to "Program Facilitators" for redemption in the App Store.

Full information on the program is available in an FAQ, with the company also offering a direct Volume Purchase Program portal to allow authorized educational users to log in and redeem their vouchers.

Article Link: Apple Debuts App Store Volume Purchase Program for Educational Institutions
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/08/10/apple-debuts-app-store-volume-purchase-program-for-educational-institutions/
How generous of Apple to allow developers to offer educational/bulk discounts.

Such is the closed nature of the app store that Apple actually has to give permission for something OS X developers have been doing on their own for over 25 years.
 
ValSalva said:
How generous of Apple to allow developers to offer educational/bulk discounts.

Such is the closed nature of the app store that Apple actually has to give permission for something OS X developers have been doing on their own for over 25 years.
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Awesome, so you would rather have a bazaar which is completely unusable by the average non-nerd? How would you weed out malware and spyware? How would the end user be notified of updates to the apps they purchased? How would the end user manage their app collection?
 
aristotle said:
Awesome, so you would rather have a bazaar which is completely unusable by the average non-nerd? How would you weed out malware and spyware? How would the end user be notified of updates to the apps they purchased? How would the end user manage their app collection?
Click to expand...

Seems to work for Macs and OS X... so YES! I'd rather have the restrictive app store be opt in rather than have no choice to opt out.
 
What's apples stance on imac's and hardware in the classroom. I remember growing up the ][e's were in every classroom.
 
ValSalva said:
Such is the closed nature of the app store that Apple actually has to give permission for something OS X developers have been doing on their own for over 25 years.
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Considering OS X is about 10 years old, I wonder how developers managed that.

--Eric
 
ValSalva said:
Seems to work for Macs and OS X... so YES! I'd rather have the restrictive app store be opt in rather than have no choice to opt out.
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Right and those are full fledged computer that might or might not run on battery and keeping your third party apps up to date is a nightmare right now. Macupdate does have a third party desktop client but most end users are not aware of it.

Also, macs have up to now been lucky that there have been no major malware outbreaks but the danger does exist and so some people run anti-virus on their macs. Do you want people to be forced to run anti-virus on their iphones and iPads too? That would suck up the battery life and bog down the devices.

I suggest that you stick with windows if you are a masochist as you seem to be.
 
ValSalva said:
How generous of Apple to allow developers to offer educational/bulk discounts.

Such is the closed nature of the app store that Apple actually has to give permission for something OS X developers have been doing on their own for over 25 years.
Click to expand...

The genius of the AppStore is in taking care of a lot of the work that developers had to do just so that they could distribute their creations.

For 25 years you had to keep promoting your stuff in the right places, maybe you hired a salesforce if you wanted to get into educational institutions, or worst, you gave up a big chunk of the revenue to someone who had. Then you wasted time and resources qualifying your volume buyers. And finally, you had to provide your big buyers with 30 or more days credit, then hope you would be paid on time.

Now, any lone app developer in his/her attic has the same or better marketing reach. :cool:
 
ValSalva said:
How generous of Apple to allow developers to offer educational/bulk discounts.

Such is the closed nature of the app store that Apple actually has to give permission for something OS X developers have been doing on their own for over 25 years.
Click to expand...

I can tell you're not too bright. Apple is marketing this for the developers saving them a fortune.
 
I hope this is extended to the iBookstore. My company publishes educational manga, and our physical books are quite popular with schools and public libraries. We'd love to be able to offer discount pricing on the versions we sell through iBooks (and the Kindle store for that matter) to educational institutions.
 
I wish sometime like this exist for any kind of customer.

I have a odd situation where my app (no yet in app store, mainly because this) is purchased by small companies in small qty like 5, 10, 20 in a purchase.

The company buy it, then deploy to his staff.

Now, I still don't know what to do with this. No one on them are large enterprise, yet, no one buy only 1 copy.

And I'm tired of manage the updating, deployment, payments, and that stuff myself...
 
ValSalva said:
Seems to work for Macs and OS X... so YES! I'd rather have the restrictive app store be opt in rather than have no choice to opt out.
Click to expand...

Actually... you do have a choice, and furthermore, its for the more technically inclined; you know, jailbreaking.

It's no longer illegal under the DMCA, and while it breaks the EULA and voids your warranty, who cares? It's easy to fix/revert. So yes, you do have a choice to opt out, and its even made by third-party developers, which you seem so akin to :)
 
According to the FAQ, educational institutions can't use the vouchers for bulk sets of free applications. Obviously, their students and staff can "buy" free apps on their own, and no discounts apply, but part of the suggested use of this program is to distribute codes through mail merge for the convenience of the institution and the end users, so I'd think free apps should be set up to work just as paid apps are. They just wouldn't deduct any money off your voucher.
 
Awesome! I'd imagine the iPad is a dream come true in the classroom (even more so now). I taught English in a 1-to-1 program school where every student had a MacBook, and while it was really nice in a lot of ways, I'm not convinced that a Mac (or any laptop) is the best platform to hand out to each and every student for a couple of simple reasons:

1. It's too powerful. Time to work on a research paper? Not a chance. Unless you stand over the students' shoulders they try to play Robot Unicorn Attack. I know a lot of people hate that iOS has no flash, but as an educator, that makes me so ridiculously happy. (I know, I know, HTML5 is going to rain on my parade there in a short while.)

2. The camera and microphone creep parents out like you wouldn't believe.

3. They're surprisingly resilient overall (I once saw a student drop-kick his into a row of lockers--he had just gotten in trouble and had anger issues--and it still looked and worked fine), but the screens tend to get broken a lot.

So ya. I'm totally open to using iOS devices instead.

Glad to see Apple is keeping focused on the education market!
 
aristotle said:
Awesome, so you would rather have a bazaar which is completely unusable by the average non-nerd? How would you weed out malware and spyware? How would the end user be notified of updates to the apps they purchased? How would the end user manage their app collection?
Click to expand...

the same way you are managing your imac. :rolleyes:
 
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