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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."
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!
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.
That should make it easier to lift high-karma comments there and just paste them here for hopeful same effect.
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.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
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