What iss the diff between releasing right up to Back to school or towards the end of back to school ?
Apple jsut refreshed their entire "campus-friendly" line before back to school. According to your logic, they are basically losing even more money doing that.
Apple launches upgrades and add campaigns not for you and me (guaranteed apple buyers) but for college kids that might chose something different than apple, and in that sense, the newer their products and the better the offer, the higher the sales numbers.
The Back to school is just a gimmick anyway, its such a small % discount, and since its from apple store, they are actually boosting App sales and getting publicity worth equal or more than the discount, its win/win for them. Pairing new macs with Back to School is a major benefit "business" wise. If Apple is not releasing the iMac it's either because they see no future in the product OR they are having productions problems. A lot of data suggests the latter.