Yesterday’s “announcement from Apple about creating tools for interactive textbooks is actually a landmark announcement for four major reasons,” Tim Bajarin writes for Tech.pinions.
“The first is how these tools can impact education,” Bajarin writes. “These tools will completely re-define how textbooks can be created and distributed. It is ideal for higher Ed textbooks but Apple and their major publishing partners are even doing high school level interactive books that should push iPads into education circles even faster.”
“The second thing iBook Author does is lay the groundwork for non-education publishers to create interactive eBooks as well,” Bajarin writes. “This free authoring tool is a major step towards making Apple not only a publisher in their own right but a distributor as well as delivering the hardware platform optimized for enhanced eBooks in general… It won’t be long until mainstream authors start using these tools and use the iBookstore as their preferred distribution medium.”
“The third thing these tools do is give Apple a serious competitive advantage over other tablet vendors… This move really distances them from any other tablets on the market,” Bajarin writes. “The 4th thing these tools could do is quite interesting. It has the potential of doing to the publishing industry what Apple did to the music industry… One more thing. If Apple was concerned about Amazon’s Kindle Fire and even Amazon’s role as a publisher and distributor of eBooks, they aren’t anymore.”
Read more in the full article here.
Help the iPad revolution – Donate your old iPad to a school when upgrading.
This is a great idea.
As someone who always upgrades on day and date of new iPad/iPhone releases, I think I will donate my old ones.
Kind of refreshing to see and write a response that’s not snarky. 🙂
+1
…or religiously moralistic or political.
Thanks for the refreshing “breeze” through these parts!
Allright Breeze, excellent idea!
Now who’s going to collect and distribute the old iPads? I don’t think just dropping it off at the local elementary will be enough.
Seriously, this is a great idea and somebody should figure out the logistics.
Alternatively,
Apple could issue a rebate for recyclabe onlder models and collect them for redistribution, at time of new purchase.
Nice idea, breeze – the Apple ‘Support Education” rebate! Apple refurbs/verifies the products and handles the redistribution.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/ibooks-author.html
http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html
http://www.apple.com/feedback/
I LOVE the idea of the donation of old ipads towards this cause (and of an Apple sponsored “support education” rebate) on so many different levels.
Helping schools, helping education, recycling, and putting the best technology on earth in the hands of all students.
This is one idea that really needs to get beyond the confines of this thread!
MDN: Any chance you might get involved to help further this movement and concept to Apple?
Excellent idea. I would definitely do the same after my yearly upgrades!
Actions do speak louder than words. Apple always delivers, let’s hope publishers do too.
This is like saying that the Teutels invented the motorcycle. This is the natural progression of e-books and PDF’s (PDF’s and Word documents have had hyperlinks). What Apple did is to make these existing technologies elegant, accessible and usable by the masses. This is what Apple does.
just my $0.02
Once you see Apple do it you can say its the natural progression. We all have a vision of HOW it should work, but it takes Apple to actually do it. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Outstanding implementation is where Apple shines.
Execution is the chariot of genius.
That’s not even a valid analogy, ramluseng. Choppers were invented a long, long time ago. They were abandoned for multiple reasons – poor handling, uncomfortable riding position, and no rear suspension (hardtail). The Teutels did not really improve the genre – they just rode the wave of chopper nostalgia and re-popularization initiated by Jesse James and others.
If you want to use a motorcycle analogy, it would be closer to reference BMW’s creation of the Sport Adventure category.
I’ve already heard a lot of hate against Apple with this digital textbook project. Over and over I hear the complaint that Apple should have built the free authoring app to include ANDROID TABLETS and that Apple has no right to be building a platform agnostic authoring program to give to schools. Wall Street is already claiming that Apple’s project will be a massive failure because no one can afford iPads and any school programs should be started with the Kindle Fire with a $200 base price. Wall Street is already using one of the lowest priced tablets as a starting point and wants to work further down in price for schools and students.
Most of the hate directed towards Apple is about Apple secretly trying to build an “Apple wall” around the educational system where iPads reign supreme and shuts out Android for the poverty-class masses.
However, when I listened to the event it was clearly stated that Apple mainly designed iBooks and the iBooks Author for those iPads that were already in use at educational facilities and give them an opportunity to be used to their fullest. I’m telling you that there are so many iHaters that would rather see the program fail just as long as Apple doesn’t get the upper hand and turn education into an Apple indoctrination system. Besides, it’s a well-known fact that Apple builds low priced software and sells low-priced media in order to sell it’s hardware. There’s nothing new here. What gets me is the jackasses who expect Apple to design software to promote its competitor’s hardware. WTF are these people thinking?
NOT!
The responses that I’ve seen have been pretty favorable everywhere. Albeit as with everything new, questions abound.
Yeah, just wait until iPad 3 comes out at the same prices and the iPad 2 8gb starts going for $249. Game Over.
I just read an article from Jason Snell , of all people, lamenting the inability to publish to multiple platforms. I mean, if you are writing for a publication specifically geared to Apple products, why would you be whining about having to rewrite your publications to be read on the other 5% of the tablets out there?????
By all means then, publish for all platforms, but charity begins at home. Apple made Safari and iTunes Mac Applications first, before they considered porting them over to windows….
All other platforms are not prohibited from designing and writing their own apps, you know?
And the bottom line:
” why would you be whining about having to rewrite your publications to be read on the other 5% of the tablets out there?????” especially when android is a rip off.
There isn’t another tablet platform that can truly handle iBooks. So the argument is moot.
Exactly
Apple will introduce a cheaper (and possbly smaller–little fingers will have no problem navigating small tablets!) iPad for the educational market. The grownups get the fully spec’ed, full priced version if they want it, which most of them will. Some school boards, not all, will find the value proposition irresistable.
a must. Apple has leadership. Get the price point down so schools can buy in VOLUME.
Very good comment.
A thought…. “I hear the complaint that Apple should have built the free authoring app to include ANDROID TABLETS “,,, but there are so many versions of software and hardware, just what do you write for??
Apple is working and building for the future not scrambling for dollars and market share (bragging rights) like the rest. Some companies are now skating to where the puck was….. last game. LOL
“a platform agnostic authoring program”
I don’t think this phrase means what you think it does.
apple has a k-12 section in iTunes U as well. So it’s not just college/hs level.
They will simply provide the iPad 2 at a reduced price for education.
Sounds about right. Intro the iPad 3 , down-price the 2 (ala iPhone 3GS is to 4S) and the content value proposition for education is a no brainer. At that point the other tablets are toast.
Apple has learned over the years that the key to new technologies is content. iBook Author is a way to ensure that cutting edge content is going to be readily available for iPads and that authors using it will be suitably rewarded for their efforts.
There will always be people who froth at the mouth at the very mention of any Apple device and will do all they can to put obstacles in the way, but there is no other solution with the elegance and sophistication of Apple’s but without a realistic viable alternative from other manufacturers, the iHaters can only make noise.
This is larger than the introduction of the iPod. This will reshape the landscape of education, learning, and dissemination of information. The sound you just heard is the collective groan of tablet wannabe Companies.
One of the first uses I thought of for iBook Author was making conference guides – both for professional conferences and fan “cons”. You could have links to session online sign-up, conference site maps, etc. Yes, you could do most of this via a webpage, but as an iBook you could have most of the information available offline as well.