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.