Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Bring Your Own iPhone to College

It may have been the case once that you could go to school without a pencil or a textbook but the Missouri School of Journalism have taken it to new heights insisting that students who wish to be budding journalists have to bring their own iPhone or iTouch if they wish to attend. According to their web site they have insisted in students having their own wireless laptop since 2005 and obviously have strong ties with Apple and they recommend that too.

Missouri School of Journalism state that students will be able to electronically download material to either of the devices from iTunes University, a no-cost component of the iTunes Store. The school’s technology store, claims that 90% of Missouri students have iPods. Students with financial aid packages may include the cost of the iPod touch or iPhone and packages because it is mandatory required.

So we clearly have the technology companies all lining up to get a slice of the college market and now joined by Amazon with their new Kindle DX and lining up with textbook publishers. Amazon are also playing the iPhone field with their reader application designed for the iPhone and iPod touch, which is available through Apple’s App Store and the announcement yesterday of their Safari book store for the iPhone app.

So the old saying about ‘catch them young’ may be coming true as students who become very familiar with a certain device and technology may be hard to ween off it after they have finished their course and therefore we have a double wammy with the technology companies retaining them for many years. Mind some would say that the banks have done the same for years.

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