Will Apple Tranform Textbooks?
I was checking into a discussion on the College Open Textbooks Community site about Apple's move into textbooks. As you expect, that group has a very different definition of "open" than a company like Apple.
Apple announced this week that they plan to "transform" the classroom in a way similar to their assault on the music industry with iTunes and the iPod. Interactive digital textbooks seems to have been in Steve Jobs' plans for awhile, but it took a back seat to other efforts.
Jobs predicted that the iPad would knock out print books, and it has shaken things up. Textbooks seems to have been his next objective on that road.
At their announcement, Apple talked about three new apps as part of the larger iBooks 2 that gives students instant access to interactive digital textbooks through mobile devices.
An app called iBooks Author lets someone with some knowledge of Apple tools create books. It uses templated layouts that can have interactive 3-D models, photos and videos. (This is not really aimed at text-only books - interactivity is key.
The third app is for iTunes U which has been around since 2007. It allows teachers and students to connect using posted reading lists, streamed video of lectures etc.
The apps are free. Most importantly, for Apple to make this work, is partnerships with publishers. Houghton Mifflin, McGraw Hill, and Pearson are the first textbook publishing partners for iBooks 2. It was announced that high school e-textbooks will be sold for less than $15 in a partnership with the three major U.S. textbook publishers.
Audrey Watters makes a good point when she says:
"See, you can't really say that you're going to "change everything" when it comes to textbooks and announce that your partners are the 3 companies who already control 90% of the textbook market. You can't say that you're going to disrupt the textbook industry by going digital when Pearson -- one of those big 3 and, indeed, the largest educational company in the world -- made over $3 billion from digital content last year alone. That's not to say that digital content isn't shaking up the textbook industry. Like all publishers, our move from print to e-books is challenging these companies to rethink their revenue and distribution models. Add to the mix, the availability now of all manner of free content online, and it's clear that the necessity of purchasing textbooks -- at both the K-12 and the higher ed level -- is diminishing rapidly."
This new "iBook 2" and the apps is the first major "product" launch since Steve Jobs' death.
Apple announced this week that they plan to "transform" the classroom in a way similar to their assault on the music industry with iTunes and the iPod. Interactive digital textbooks seems to have been in Steve Jobs' plans for awhile, but it took a back seat to other efforts.
Jobs predicted that the iPad would knock out print books, and it has shaken things up. Textbooks seems to have been his next objective on that road.
At their announcement, Apple talked about three new apps as part of the larger iBooks 2 that gives students instant access to interactive digital textbooks through mobile devices.
An app called iBooks Author lets someone with some knowledge of Apple tools create books. It uses templated layouts that can have interactive 3-D models, photos and videos. (This is not really aimed at text-only books - interactivity is key.
The third app is for iTunes U which has been around since 2007. It allows teachers and students to connect using posted reading lists, streamed video of lectures etc.
The apps are free. Most importantly, for Apple to make this work, is partnerships with publishers. Houghton Mifflin, McGraw Hill, and Pearson are the first textbook publishing partners for iBooks 2. It was announced that high school e-textbooks will be sold for less than $15 in a partnership with the three major U.S. textbook publishers.
Audrey Watters makes a good point when she says:
"See, you can't really say that you're going to "change everything" when it comes to textbooks and announce that your partners are the 3 companies who already control 90% of the textbook market. You can't say that you're going to disrupt the textbook industry by going digital when Pearson -- one of those big 3 and, indeed, the largest educational company in the world -- made over $3 billion from digital content last year alone. That's not to say that digital content isn't shaking up the textbook industry. Like all publishers, our move from print to e-books is challenging these companies to rethink their revenue and distribution models. Add to the mix, the availability now of all manner of free content online, and it's clear that the necessity of purchasing textbooks -- at both the K-12 and the higher ed level -- is diminishing rapidly."
This new "iBook 2" and the apps is the first major "product" launch since Steve Jobs' death.
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