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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."
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!
I will now redundantly add my name to the end of my post. You know, in case you forgot me or something.
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!
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!
That should make it easier to lift high-karma comments there and just paste them here for hopeful same effect.
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?
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?
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
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.
I copy and pasted one. Lets see how it gets rated :)
but now they are getting a life as well? It just sounds wrong.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
How many K-6 teachers you see giving presentations to their students? "OK class, we are cancelling nap time today so I can show you a keynote presentation on my trip to cupertino." In fact, I NEVER had a powerpoint presentation in my entire K-12 career. Yeah, sure, some tech savvy teachers might use presentation apps, but this number is small. My dad, a highschool teacher concurs with this observation.
So why is keynote being targetted at K-12 teachers? I think this is a bad idea. If Apple wants Keynote to take off, it should target college students and college professors... a market which can be expected to jump on it.
All of this, of course, has no bearing on iLife apps... which I think have a certain place in K-12 ed.
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 section (go figure). As a reminder, Students can still purchase Keynote for $79 and iLife for $49 at The Apple Store.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX