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With the purchase of a laptop, students can choose to get a free 8GB iPod touch worth $299. First reported by MacRumors, Apple's online store now confirms the deal. Apple, which used to knock down knocks down the price of its wares by as much as 20 percent to students, has also been offering consumer-electronics giveaways instead of in addition. Until recently, the company was giving away iPod Nanos. But you can't get that $299 towards an iPhone.

Which strikes us as odd. Te program's intent is to entice young, well-educated potential customers to get used to working in the relative luxury of OS X. Wouldn't getting them hooked to a monthly bill, like those ubiquitous credit-card offers on college campuses, be a better idea? Especially considering that the company's still-minuscule market share in cell phones was reportedly down in the last quarter.