Apple's January Event to Focus on Publishing and eBooks

[MacRumors]

A rumored Apple event to be located in New York City later this month was originally reported to be "media-related" and not about an Apple television or iPad update. TechCrunch now reports the event will be focused on publishing and the iBookstore.

According to the source the event will not involve any hardware at and instead will focus on publishing and eBooks (sold through Apple's iBooks platform) rather than iAds. Attendance also be more publishing industry-oriented than consumer.

One possible topic of the event is an expansion of the iBookstore to sell textbooks. In his biography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson said the textbook industry was one Jobs looking to revolutionize with the iPad.

Article Link: Apple's January Event to Focus on Publishing and eBooks

[Inakto]

10 Hour battery + textbook on iBookstore = Very light schoolbag

[Hastings101]

Well, I never really expected that because iBooks hasn't exactly felt like an important part of iOS. Maybe Apple's looking to change that?

[mp0890]

Maybe I'll wait until then to buy books for this semester...

[DTphonehome]

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Makes sense. I wouldn't expect a NY-based event to be anything major. It's not Apple's home turf, but is the publishing capital of the US.

[backinblack875]

an media event for ibooks?? doubt it. Gotta be something else

[ob81]

I will have to wait and see on this one. If it is text books, it makes sense that apple try to reach the biggest college audience possible with an announcement. Don't see why it has to be in NYC yet though.

[Eidorian]

I will stick with the local library.

[Sankersizzle]

Well this is disappointing, although, I'm not sure what I was expecting.

[Peace]

Isn't this something Apple touted when the first iPad came out ?

[gorskiegangsta]

Originally Posted by backinblack875

an media event for ibooks?? doubt it. Gotta be something else

Introduction of "The Daily" had its own media event. Besides, who says it's going to be just about iBooks. Maybe they scored some compelling magazine partnerships. I would personally love to see foray into textbooks as well.

If Apple is smart, they can totally undercut Barnes & Noble and Amazon by scoring some major "print media" deals and further expanding iBookstore and Newsstand.

[Tinyluph]

iBooks for Mac?

[backinblack875]

Originally Posted by gorskiegangsta

Introduction of "The Daily" had its own media event. Besides, who says it's going to be just about iBooks. Maybe they scored some compelling magazine partnerships. I would personally love to see foray into textbooks as well.

If Apple is smart, they can totally undercut Barnes & Noble and Amazon by scoring some major "print media" deals and further expanding iBookstore and Newsstand.

true, but the daily was held by the daily, not apple.

[smoledman]

Current textbook apps for iPad are very bad. I expect Apple not only to unvail iPublishing, but a new TextBook app to defeat all current apps. It will become THE way college students study. Imagine having a searchable annotations per textbook instead of having to use little sticky notes!

[Gregintosh]

Hopefully we will be able to read iBooks on our macs now, its kind of ridiculous that you need an iOS device to read a book and that a beautiful 11, 13, 21, or 27 inch screen on a Mac is deemed unworthy of displaying text.

A web-based interface would also be nice if someone decides to use another platform for mobile devices, kind of like Amazon now provides.

Apple needs be as ubiquitous as Amazon in this department to catch up. Otherwise, even Apple fans like me will buy books from Amazon forever.

(I feel safer buying from Amazon Kindle store since I know I can always access/read my Amazon content from anywhere and any device, where as with iBooks I know I'll only be able to read them on my iPad/iPhone).

[ferdinandcc]

Originally Posted by smoledman

Current textbook apps for iPad are very bad. I expect Apple not only to unvail iPublishing, but a new TextBook app to defeat all current apps. It will become THE way college students study. Imagine having a searchable annotations per textbook instead of having to use little sticky notes!

Inkling is very nice. I'd love to hear that they purchased Inkling and are incorporating its functionality into iBooks (as long as they can do it without ruining the experience).

[codyc815]

If it does involve textbooks, I wish they would have done it earlier in the month. Classes for me start on January 17, and I'll probably have my books bought by then. They're missing a large window by doing it a week after classes start.

[corymcnulty]

Part of me says Apple will announce a feature that would allow users that paid a certain amount of money to read any book they want in the iBooks library. It would be like an online library.

[KPOM]

Maybe they will also expand iBooks to work on Macs and PCs? That's one big advantage that the Kindle platform has over iBooks right now.

[Worf]

As a college student, considering how popular Apple products are with us, and our collective hatred for overencumbering textbooks, digital textbooks would be a welcome change. Hopefully these eBooks would be accompanied by an iBooks app for Windows/Mac desktops.

[Cougarcat]

Originally Posted by codyc815

If it does involve textbooks, I wish they would have done it earlier in the month. Classes for me start on January 17, and I'll probably have my books bought by then. They're missing a large window by doing it a week after classes start.

From the techcrunch piece:

Attendance will also be more publishing industry-oriented than consumer.

I don't think they will be releasing much, if anything, for consumers at this event. It's for the publishers.

[Object-X]

Sure hope this is true and that Apple can apply the same rules to textbooks as to regular ebooks. E-Textbooks sort of suck right now. I don't like the renting model. Charging over $200 for a single textbook is a rip off, and charging over $100 for 6 months of digital access isn't any better. At the very least they should give you the PDF copy. I wouldn't mind the rental model if it applied to all textbooks like the way some music services work.

[titan1um]

iBooks on iCloud? iBooks for Mac? With synchronization with all devices, similar to the Kindle line of apps.

[lifeinhd]

As a college student, I have to say, unless the pricing is SUPER competitive, as in books are 50% less than I can purchase used, I'm gonna stick with paper. Why? Resale value. Can't resell an e-book too easily, now, can I?

[MisterK]

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Maybe Apple will do for book publishing what they did for Podcasts. Only this time, you can sell your work. Maybe an update to Pages to allow easy ebooks for amateurs without publishing companies. The return of 'Zines and amateur comics, digital school and community newsletters. Add textbooks and now it's worthy of an event. I'd love to get my community newspaper in iBooks or Newstand.