What is Apple’s Back to School Promotion? Basically, the deal is that when you purchase a new qualifying Mac with Apple education pricing from June 16, 2011, through September 20, 2011, you’ll get a free $100 Back to School Card. You can use the Back to School Card on the Mac App Store, the App Store, the iTunes Store, and the iBookstore.
If you buy a Mac after the June 6, 2011, you are eligible to request an up-to-date upgrade. The upgrade will allow you to upgrade to Lion for free. You must request your Up-to-Date upgrade within 30 days of purchasing a new Mac computer.
Who qualifies for this promotion? College students or students accepted to college, parents buying for college students or students accepted to college, or faculty or staff members at any grade level qualify.
How do you get your $100 Back to School Card? First, you must shop for a Mac at either the Apple Online Store for Education, the Apple Retail Store, the Apple Authorized Campus Store, or call 1-800-MY-APPLE. Second, you will either get your free Back to School Card with your order automatically if you order it at the Apple Retail Store or Apple Online Store or you’ll have to submit your claim online and get your code via email. Third, you will enter the code on your Back to School Card in your iTunes Account to redeem the $100.

If you want to upgrade your Mac to OS X Lion, you don’t have to worry about going to the store and having to install a bunch of discs from a box; you can just go to the Mac App Store and buy Lion for $29.99. You also need to prepare your Mac for Lion. Your Mac must have an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor for your Mac to be able to run Lion. You can check to see what processor your Mac has by clicking the Apple icon on the top left of your display and choosing About This Mac. Your Mac must also be up to date with the latest version of OS X Snow Leopard. Click the Apple icon and choose Software Update to install version 10.6.8 if you haven’t done so already. After you have done those steps, you can open the Mac App Store and purchase OS X Lion.


