For your Black Friday amusement

My brother and I are geeking out at the family homestead in the late late hours after Thanksgiving. Both of us have laptops out, sharing the wireless connection on the Airport hub, chatting about internet and computer junk while we surf. I just asked, "What makes the U2 iPod so special?" The answer, according to him, is that it comes with a $50 "gift certificate" toward the purchase of "The Complete U2" collection. Also, "It's black."

I already have my iPod, so this doesn't really concern me. With the holiday season upon us, and knowing that some of my faculty friends have asked me about iPods for their kids, let me tell you what I discovered on a quick trip to the Apple Store for Education.

The 20 GB iPod is about $269, and ships in 2-4 business days.
The 20 GB iPod U2 sells for $329, and ships in 1-3 weeks. Oh look, it also comes with a poster.

There's a mild irony here. After all, this is the Apple Store for education, so we presume that the audience is somewhat intelligent, or at least aspires to be.

To recap: for the extra $60, you get a $50 "gift certificate" that can only be redeemed toward the purchase of a $150 music anthology. Otherwise, you're out the $60, unless you consider the black and red design worth the premium. Oh, let's not forget that poster.

As my brother says: "We really need to talk to the people who go for this stuff. If we could figure out why they'd buy this, we could sell them pretty much anything we wanted to."

But Steve Jobs has already beaten us to that punch, hasn't he?