Apple’s next target for the iPhone: students. According to Apple Insider, as well as flogging the devices through the usual channels, the company is looking to start selling the handset through “on-campus stores and other educational resellers”.
If it’s true, it could mean a significant step for Apple – expanding the channels it sells the device through beyond Apple and AT&T stores (needless to say, this student-targeting initiative looks like it’ll only be out in the States to start with) as tries to embed itself even further into the education market.
Are students in America seriously cashed up? Or is Apple banking that there are enough parents willing to lay down the massive bundle of cash necessary to get an iPhone (Steve Jobs may have cut the up-front device cost by a fair bit, but there’s still a great big data bill to contend with) for their university going kids? If Apple’s smart, it’ll spread the discounts it gives educational institutions on Macs to iPhones too – reel in the users while they’re young, and hope they stay with it for the upgrades.
$200 US is not a massive bundle of cash. It is 2.5 tanks of gas (if one has a family sized car/suv). It is the price for dinner for 2 at a moderately priced London restaurant (with drinks). It is the price of 2-3 textbooks.
US students are not seriously cashed up, but $200 is the entry point for any slightly decent phone at any of the mobile shops here, unless you want one of the crap crap crap crap flip phones that comes free or nearly so.
I have watched students in the UK & Ireland spend nearly that much on drinking over a weekend (
Excellent points, msjen!
makes a very interesting read, now all I am doing is waiting for the news about pay as yo go in the uk!
Hook 'em while their young!
I recently did some polling to gauge student interest in the iPhone in the UK:
http://www.reachstudents.co.uk/blog/2008/09/19/…
I recently did some polling to gauge student interest in the iPhone in the UK:
http://www.reachstudents.co.uk/blog/2008/09/19/…
I recently did some polling to gauge student interest in the iPhone in the UK:
http://www.reachstudents.co.uk/blog/2008/09/19/…