Apple's Back to School Promo Launching Wednesday With $100 iTunes Gift Cards?

[ten-oak-druid]

It makes more sense to get the gift card actually.

The ipod promos always locked you into the lowest storage option for the ipod. You were not allowed to pay the difference and upgrade. And if you own an ipad or iphone already you may not be interested an ipod touch. So the free ipod is not always the ideal promo choice.

The gift card lets you buy some media for whatever device you decide to view it on.

 

[motoracer1486]

If this is true...**** you .

 

[jmpnop]

Hey, gotta pay for this somehow...

lol true

It makes more sense to get the gift card actually.

The ipod promos always locked you into the lowest storage option for the ipod. You were not allowed to pay the difference and upgrade. And if you own an ipad or iphone already you may not be interested an ipod touch. So the free ipod is not always the ideal promo choice.

The gift card lets you buy some media for whatever device you decide to view it on.

As far as I remember they allowed to pay the difference and upgrade to higher capacity iPods.

 

[cassians]

It makes more sense to get the gift card actually.

The ipod promos always locked you into the lowest storage option for the ipod. You were not allowed to pay the difference and upgrade. And if you own an ipad or iphone already you may not be interested an ipod touch. So the free ipod is not always the ideal promo choice.

The gift card lets you buy some media for whatever device you decide to view it on.

You were always allowed to pick whatever iPod you wanted. Even a shuffle, nano, or classic. You just got $219 back in rebates, so you either paid the difference if the iPod was more than $219, or just got the value of the iPod you picked back from rebates.

 

[VPrime]

Maybe apple will give this along side the iPod (or even iPad?)
Perfect complement to an iDevice. You can get apps, books music etc all to go on your shiny new (free) iPod.. Or half priced ipad
I guess I'm just an optimist.

 

[Septhy]

Apple Back to School Promo [Japan]

Didn't Japan had a BTS Promo a few weeks earlier? Didn't they give away Ipods?

 

[mdgm]

Didn't Japan had a BTS Promo a few weeks earlier? Didn't they give away Ipods?

I hope the rumour isn't true. Changes to the Promo in the US set the trend for changes to the promo in other places.

I decided not to buy a new MBP earlier this year because of no USB3 and no quadcore in the 13" (which made it incredibly poor value compared with the 15"). If Apple changes to offering $100 iTunes gift cards then the promo will be far less interesting than it has in the past.

 

[Lostanddamned]

My MacBook is around about due for replacement now, at three years old i'm starting to notice a bit of slowdown compared to other machines, as a result I was planning on waiting until August or September and the tail end of the back to school deal to buy myself a new MacBook, but if this rumour is true, it will probably mean I will have to wait longer, in order to have access to enough money to afford the MacBook.

It's a shame is all.

 

[spoccka]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

So what is the deal going to be in the UK? £100? 75?

 

[ten-oak-druid]

You were always allowed to pick whatever iPod you wanted. Even a shuffle, nano, or classic. You just got $219 back in rebates, so you either paid the difference if the iPod was more than $219, or just got the value of the iPod you picked back from rebates.

No. It was the 8GB ipod touch which was the smallest capacity (at the time). And you were not allowed to pay the difference for an upgrade. I don't believe substitutions were allowed by Apple. If a school store allowed it then they were probably not telling Apple what they were doing.

Edit: Well 2007 had 2 sizes of nano or a classic ipod. Looking up the details for this year I can't find information on paying a difference.

2008 had an 8BG touch offered. This is the year I remember checking it out. What I find for this year confirms my memory.

When I search for 2009 offerings I see specifically an option to pay a difference. So perhaps some years were different than others?

Edit 2: You know the more I think about it, what was probably going on was that the school would have limited supplies of older models and the newer model ipods were not available for the promotion. The older models of course had lower storage capacity.

Anyway, whether it was Apple's rule's or my schools I remember being disappointed in the allowed choice of ipod over the course of a few years time.

 

[res1233]

Like others have mentioned, the free card could go towards the Mac App store for applications like the iWorks suite. You would still have $40 left over to go towards more productivity applications and games for that new computer or maybe apps and content for existing iOS devices.

Angry Birds for the Mac, and for iOS. 'Nuff said.

 

[freddiculous]

Lol macrumors really messes your thinking up. I bet you nothing will even happen Wednesday.

 

[SeaFox]

Apple could have downgraded to an iPod Nano and still come out looking a lot less Scroogy, even though the purchase price isn't much higher.

The perceived cheapness of the promo comes from the extra being a digital software/music product -- something that has no real inventory limits because it's a "virtual" product, verses an iPod, which is a tangible device.

Technically, you're supposed to declare the purchase and pay the sales tax when you file your state income taxes.

In my state you can base the amount you pay in taxes off actual purchase prices or you can elect to pay a percentage figure off you AGI IIRC. So taking the latter option might net a lower out-of-state purchases tax bill if you buy enough.

 

[zinynano]

No. It was the 8GB ipod touch which was the smallest capacity (at the time). And you were not allowed to pay the difference for an upgrade. I don't believe substitutions were allowed by Apple. If a school store allowed it then they were probably not telling Apple what they were doing.

Edit: Well 2007 had 2 sizes of nano or a classic ipod. Looking up the details for this year I can't find information on paying a difference.

2008 had an 8BG touch offered. This is the year I remember checking it out. What I find for this year confirms my memory.

When I search for 2009 offerings I see specifically an option to pay a difference. So perhaps some years were different than others?

You were always allowed to pay the difference....

http://www.apple.com/promo/pdf/BTS08_TCS.pdf
http://www.apple.com/promo/pdf/BackToSchool_TermsConditions_US_2010.pdf

 

[OllyW]

Apple doesn't need to giveaway iPod touches to sell you a Mac anymore. You'll buy one anyway. The $100 iTunes card is a nice gesture considering most of you are already getting significant educational hardware discounts.

Well said.

If Apple do go with the $100 iTunes gift card and Mac sales plummet in the next quarter they will know they have made a big mistake and we'll probably see the free iPod deal return next year.

What will probably happen is we'll see the usual record year on year Mac sales and if you are lucky they will keep the gift card offer next year. Just be thankful for whatever freebie you end up with because there's no guarantee it will be there for ever.

 

[ratzzo]

I hope this is not true. What a drastic change!

 

[Castiel]

Maybe they meant Free iPod PLUS a $100 card. Ah, yes, please.

 

[PJMAN2952]

Wow. Never thought APPLE would change the annual routine for Back to School. Oh well no worries for me. I am going into 11th grade.

 

[ratzzo]

Just to add that I'd rather have my 15% student discount than a $100 iTunes Gift Card.

The real value for the Gift Card is something like 50$ minus for them... so much greed, especially after buying a thousand dollar machine.

 

[PJMAN2952]

Lol macrumors really messes your thinking up. I bet you nothing will even happen Wednesday.

Well I trust MacRumors most of the time. They have been right about most of the rumors. Just hope something good happens tomorrow because people say APPLE is changing their stores overnight to night globally. Scratch that, APPLE always has something exciting (except the iPod Nano 6th gen)

 

[PJMAN2952]

well, there goes my desire to buy a new computer

Wow. Just because you won't get a free iPod your not going to buy a Mac? That's the reason? So you want to stick to Windows where you get viruses all the time and with cheap plastic computers? Mac's are the most high end (user friendly) machines on the market for this time period. Please think before you type.

 

[TsMkLg068426]

Since student discount on a iMac is only $100 off why can't they let me use this iTunes $100 card towards my purchase? I really do not care for a iPod Touch but I really wanted to get my sisters upgraded blah! Not sure I like this or hate it you gotta admit it is a bit greedy of them and yes it is obvious no new iPod touch this year or else they would clear out the old ones giving away for free with your purchase of a iMac or macbook. I can not wait for the day when they kill off iPod Touch and the only choice you have is a iPad and iPhone. The only way I would ever get an iPhone is when unlimited data is available from any service provider. I wonder how those poor bastards paying for it now, just curious.

 

[PJMAN2952]

well, there goes my desire to buy a new computer

Well said.

If Apple do go with the $100 iTunes gift card and Mac sales plummet in the next quarter they will know they have made a big mistake and we'll probably see the free iPod deal return next year.

What will probably happen is we'll see the usual record year on year Mac sales and if you are lucky they will keep the gift card offer next year. Just be thankful for whatever freebie you end up with because there's no guarantee it will be there for ever.

True that bro. I mean your getting something free from APPLE! So I just wish people would stop bitching about this because its 100 dollars. You might not get 100 dollars for free ever again. Its once in a life time opportunity.

 

[endhalf]

Typical americans... You'll get $100 instead of $200 for free and you feel bad? You know what we get? Nothing, coz Apple B2S won't start in Czech Rep and fees for purchasing something from USA are so big that it isn't worth buying it in USA and ship it to Cz.

So if someone doesn't want $100 gift card, I'd be happy to take it for him.

 

[spcdust]

If this were true I'd personally be disappointed as the only way I could justify and iPod Touch was using the BTS promotion. However, what will be will be, if it's a $100 iTunes gift card I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, it's still an incentive so people need to get over themselves and stop whining on about it.

Personally though I'm not convinced this is the full story or in any way accurate, MacRumours and the other sites have been pretty far off on this particular "rumour" so we'll see what transpires. BTS promotion or not I'm going to purchase my iMac on Wednesday.