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.
