Better Late Than Never? Apple’s Back to School Deals May Be Imminent
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If you’re a student — or have one in your family — you may have noticed that Apple’s annual Back to School promotion is running a bit late this year. In fact, we wouldn’t blame you if you’ve wondered if it was coming at all.
After all, Apple is definitely breaking a trend here. For the past six years, the company’s Back to School promotions have launched in June, usually a week or two after its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). However, those early bird dates have actually spoiled us, as there was once a time when July was the norm for Apple’s Back to School Season.
That transition to June sale events came around the same time that Apple switched up the program to offer only a set of AirPods (or most recently, an Apple Pencil) with the purchase of a new iPad or Mac. That differed from the 2015–2019 era, when students could pick up different tiers of Beats headphones that varied depending on the device purchased. Before that, Apple simply offered gift cards, much like it still does for its Black Friday deals.
It’s not yet clear what Apple has in store for this year’s Back to School promotion, but the good news is that it’s still coming. Yesterday, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman noted that Apple retail stores will begin putting up promotional materials and reorganizing their layouts this week. That follows an earlier note from Gurman that said Apple was scheduling new in-store sessions starting June 29 “to align with” the Back to School promotion.
Those sessions, which were expected to be centered on Mac and Productivity, don’t appear to be on the schedule yet, but those might also be coming once the Back to School promotion actually launches. However, what form it will take this year remains a bit of a mystery.
Apple is facing an unprecedented supply chain crunch that forced it to make some major price hikes last month — a significant move for a company that treats its product prices as a marketing point. While Apple’s standard student discounts remain available as always, the educational prices have risen along with the rest of the tide.
Those educational prices are available all year round, so Apple’s Back to School promotions usually just sweeten the pot by throwing in something extra. However, Apple has never offered deeper discounts on any of its promotions. What you get instead is something extra thrown in. For the past six years, that’s been a set of AirPods. There’s a small chance Apple could switch back to gift cards this year, and while those can’t be used for the qualifying Mac or iPad, they can help take the sting out of any extra accessories to go along with them.
Apple has also cracked down on the “honor system” that used to be the norm for getting educational pricing. Now, student buyers must prove their eligibility through UNiDAYS. That’s already been standard in the UK for a few years, but recently expanded to the US, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Turkey, and Chile.
Perhaps those stricter policies will allow Apple to be more generous with this year’s Back to School promotion and offset the impact of the recent price hikes on cash-strapped students.
Still, even if Apple goes above and beyond, you’ll likely still be able to find better deals elsewhere if you scout around, especially considering that smaller retailers may still be willing to clear out stock at the older prices, which are almost always better than Apple’s best educational discounts right now.
We’d also recommend checking out Apple’s Certified Refurbished store. While purchasing used products can be a roll of the dice from most vendors, Apple’s products are about as close to new as any refurbished product can ever be — and the company stands behind them as if they were new. In some cases, they’re merely “open box” products that were purchased and returned after someone’s credit card bill came in. However, even those are cleaned up, fully tested, and come with the same warranty and eligibility for AppleCare+ as a new device.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
