Where's Nate?

living large in the four-oh-eight. wicked large.

6.12.2007

buried.


In the whirlwind of WWDC, Apple rolled out the first major revision of apple.com in several years. And it's fancy and sleek and whatever. But direct navigation to several key sites from the home page have disappeared. It appears that Apple Education is now buried.

Here it is, below the fold on the Mac tab:


Am I missing something? I sure hope so.

I'll admit it. I'm bitter. I poured four years into working on the education market on behalf of the fruit company. (Specifically on apple.com/students.) To see one of Apple's most loyal audiences relegated to a secondary (actually, tertiary) position makes me sad. With NECC, the largest and most important education technology conference right around the corner, it will be interesting to see how the market reacts. It won't be pleasant. But that's the way the corporate world works.

When a company drops "Computer" from the name and focuses all of it's engineering resources on the development of consumer products like phones and MP3 players, is there room for a traditional market like education? Maybe not.

2 Comments:

  • At 10:49 AM, Anonymous Reed said…

    I agree that sucks that the education link got buried. I do like the sleek look of the new website but I am having a tough time adjusting to the new format. I think for the average user the new format is better because it is a lot simpler with only six main categories to choose from. I think the new website is a good start and it will probably evolve overtime. By the way the search function in the upper right corner is pretty neat. Type in "students" or "education" and then your section is on the front page again! I don't know how many people use the search box but it can be quite handy with the new design. Give the new design time and see what changes they make.

     
  • At 2:29 PM, Blogger davemorin said…

    i whole heartedly agree with you my friend. this is a tragic slap in the face to a market that has carried apple through the years. maybe it is time for a few younger technology companies to take the reigns :)

     

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