According to a report citing “a source with some success in the past,” it seems that the upcoming iCloud, widely expected to replace MobileMe and offer additional features, will have tiered educational pricing, possibly even being free to students and teachers, or with the purchase of Apple products.
This tip, which comes to us from 9to5Mac, does seem to make sense for a few reasons. First, Apple’s Back To School promotions are said to be somehow tied to WWDC (which is unusual). Furthermore, releasing iCloud to students and educators could be a strategic move for getting the new service off to a hot start, as college students as a group tend to use Macs much more than most other segments of society.
In addition, Google’s Apps for education (Microsoft’s as well) are making a huge Cloud push in schools, a traditional stronghold of Apple. The offerings are free for acadamics. As Google starts to deploy Chromebooks to these students at $20/month, Apple needs to have a strong Cloud to Computer showing. While Apple’s computers and media devices obviously have a stronghold in the college community, it only makes sense that their cloud services should maintain it.
At any rate, it’s incredibly likely that we’ll find out very soon, so stay tuned in the coming days for the exciting news and announcements to come from WWDC.
[9to5Mac]