Macbook Air Eduction Pricing questions?

another question

My sister is in University and is buying a MBA online direct from Apple for about €1080 for a 13inch which is very good, she will also get an €80 giftcard for iTunes.

When she had a trial run through the ordering process, she noticing that 'PAGES' was offered for €17.22 and that this would allow her to open Microsoft Office documents without having to buy MAC Office, is she correct in her understanding of this? It seems too good to be true.

Further to this, could she wait until she got the €80 giftcard and then buy 'Pages' at no additional cost to herself.

Any help appreciated as I don't really understand the whole lot.

another question

Further to the above:

This is probably a stupid question but can Microsoft Office for Mac be purchased in the app store (she could use the €80 giftcard towards the price of it) or is it needed at all?

Sad Professor

Office isn't in the Mac App Store unfortunately.

But yes she'd be able to purchase Pages using the gift card. Pages can open and save Office documents just fine, though in some situations people are better off going with Office. It depends. If she can get by with Pages instead she should as it's cheaper and more Mac-like.

another question

Sad Professor wrote: »

Office isn't in the Mac App Store unfortunately.

But yes she'd be able to purchase Pages using the gift card. Pages can open and save Office documents just fine, though in some situations people are better off going with Office. It depends. If she can get by with Pages instead she should as it's cheaper and more Mac-like.

Thanks for your reply.That's actually what she was saying, that she didn't want to buy a MAC and feel like she was still using a Windows computer by using MS Office. Her degree is primarily English and Creative Writing based, she doesn't do a lot of presentations or spreadsheets or anything like that. She was looking for something that made writing easy, nice fonts, made it look well etc. Pages sounds an nice app, I had a quick read-up on it there.

Do you know if the Retina version is going to be available in the MBA anytime soon?

Graham

another question wrote: »

Do you know if the Retina version is going to be available in the MBA anytime soon?

It looks like that may be a while off yet***, the Retina display would compromise the battery life of the MBA

***educated guess, no-one outside Apple knows for sure).

johnk123

Where is she in University? Some have their own affiliate link directly with apple, which makes them even cheaper IIRC.

gctest50

another question wrote: »

She was looking for something that made writing easy, nice fonts, made it look well etc.?

http://www.tug.org/mactex/

Zcott

Pages is great. Well worth the money.

DubDJ

Also going through Campus.ie wil give an additional 2% saving on top of the 10%. If her college is included that is.

I used my gift card to bug Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. It was handy.

Just also to note there's talk of the iOS version of the three apps becoming free in the next few weeks, which could also mean the full version could also become free. Nothing is set in stone and it's all rumour, but they did already roll out a test version of an online version of the apps. So if she sets up an iCloud account she can try out a web version of Pages for free.

another question

DubDJ wrote: »

Also going through Campus.ie wil give an additional 2% saving on top of the 10%. If her college is included that is.

I used my gift card to bug Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. It was handy.

Just also to note there's talk of the iOS version of the three apps becoming free in the next few weeks, which could also mean the full version could also become free. Nothing is set in stone and it's all rumour, but they did already roll out a test version of an online version of the apps. So if she sets up an iCloud account she can try out a web version of Pages for free.

Super! Thank you.