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Apple's 'iPad Mini' to Strengthen Education Presence Alongside iBooks 3.0
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Cross-platform is the way to go.
You gain traction by having availability, which makes the platform feasible (not everyone will buy books if they work on Apple devices only). Then you win people over by having superior experience in your own garden.
Just think how much more popular iMessage, FaceTime, Find Friends, etc. would be if they had (even if crappy) clients for other platforms? It'd get people to switch to Apple ecosystem more easily.
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I have a bunch of iOS devices and lots of content on them. I have no interest in getting Books from the iBookStore though. Got one or two to give them a try and i liked those but i find it way too limiting that those would always be tied to the iOS devices and only be available on those.
I would love it if Apple would offer things cross platform (like let´s say the kindle bookstore is) but yeah, with that heavy restriction to iOS it is kinda lame and i don't think Apple has a big chance of making a major dent in education when their stuff is not available cross platform.
No matter how much Apple would like it they will never have a big enough dominance that all pupils would use iOS devices only (and if Apple would ever get there they would have to start paying Monopole punishment and market manipulation fees regularly).
I would love it if Apple would offer things cross platform (like let´s say the kindle bookstore is) but yeah, with that heavy restriction to iOS it is kinda lame and i don't think Apple has a big chance of making a major dent in education when their stuff is not available cross platform.
No matter how much Apple would like it they will never have a big enough dominance that all pupils would use iOS devices only (and if Apple would ever get there they would have to start paying Monopole punishment and market manipulation fees regularly).
I thought everyone used amazon for books?
Too many restrictions on ibooks
Pricing is higher from what I've seen too
Too many restrictions on ibooks
Pricing is higher from what I've seen too
Really?? Apparently, that's not everywhere in the US... I've talked with several school districts, and the pricing is consistent with what was said earlier, for Macbooks.
iPads... I'm not sure they even give discounts on those. Then, again, the rep in my area may just be a crappy one. Though, you can also go through an online educational store (through Apple's website, I believe) and get the same pricing the rep gives. That's what several schools in my state are doing.
Kinda hard to believe they really want into education when they aren't even giving a price break to schools...
My number one choice is the Kindle app but I also use the Nook and iBooks apps. The Nook app is very flakey compared to the Kindle app. Most of the time it does not properly sync reading location between my iPhone and iPad. And as has been mentioned the iBooks books seem to be more expensive than Kindle books plus the selection is not real good. What iBooks does well though is it let's me read ePub books that I create with Calibre.
What ever you're smoking ...
pass it around. The iPad mini at this price and in this format is unlikely to make it into main stream education. Too expensive, too small and therefore to limited in it's usefulness.
Great for administrators doing the odd email or registers on SIMMs but as a serious research browser and document compiler ??? Keyboard is likely to be too big for screen or too small for fingers.
pass it around. The iPad mini at this price and in this format is unlikely to make it into main stream education. Too expensive, too small and therefore to limited in it's usefulness.
Great for administrators doing the odd email or registers on SIMMs but as a serious research browser and document compiler ??? Keyboard is likely to be too big for screen or too small for fingers.
Ibooks should be everywhere.......if my kids produce great materials they want to share it around with all their friends on every platform. Their mates thinks that cool, how can I do that they ask and off you go....
Apple has got to realise they are not the only player in the educational playground. In the UK they are just out of touch with reality. A surge on UK educational market with realistic prices now would oust MS for a long time to come. If they did, it would leave only MS Office Suite as the only reason to hang onto MS from a users point of view. IT managers with their must control everything hat on may not be so happy but they'd just have to realise that ICT is their to serve and drive educational ideas not suffocate it.
There is little point in producing ibooks just for iOS and ibooks editor for Mac OSX. Get it on every platform or have ibooks editor on MacOsX and ibooks on everything else.
Do you not take your iPhone out and about?
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Meaningless unless you know how many were put up for sale.
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Sorry but so what? They dont want their attempted new standard to run on all their devices?
No they wouldn't. The easiest way for any other company (and nearly all (or all?) of them do it) to compete with Apple is to offer a similar product at a lower price. Once that starts, it's a race to see who can stay in the game longest without going broke, while Apple merrily sits on its high profit margins.
Yes I do, but things like browsing, reading news, watching video etc is a much nicer experience on a tablet.
Also, battery life on the iPhone is not all that so extensive use throughout the day can drain the battery. If the battery dies on your iPhone, you can't receive calls!
Your "Do you not take your iPhone out and about?" comment/question reminds me of just over a couple of years back when people were making sarcastic remarks about the soon to be released iPad ... "Oh, but you can do such & such on an iPhone, so why would you need one of these iPad things?".
Horses for courses ...
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I agree. At only $50 less than entry level iPad 2, what is the point? It needs to be at least $100 less (or $299), ideally $150 (or $249), than iPad 2.
... well that's you. Not me.
When I'm out & about I don't carry bags with me so an iPad Mini would be handy because it'd fit in a pocket. My full sized iPad can not.
What is it with some of the doughnuts on here who come out with tricky comments to other people's posts? Did my post really offend you that much.
What are you getting lippy for?
Growing up in a different time ... what are you on about?
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Unfortunately Apple is in the hardware business, iBooks is about getting people to buy iOS hardware, the iPad. The more iBooks a consumer buy the more locking in to the Apple's iOS ecosystem, ensuring that when you replace you current iPad it will be with a new iPad, not any competitor.
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iBooks 3.0 - Cross Platform Compatible? unlikely.
It is Amazon who are interested in cross platform ebooks, Apple is interested in content that helps them sell more iOS device. Remember, Apple is a hardware company.
And if that's the goal, it's likely a big failure. Sure, there will be a few clueless users who use iBooks. But any consumer with a clue is aware of the kindle apps. Apple would like people to be locked into their ecosystem, but while good alternatives exist, their product will never be a real competitor.
And look at music and movies. Apple is in the hardware business yet they have a free app that plays music and movies on macs and pcs. And that doesn't seem to be hurting sales of Apple hardware any.
Apple needs to get it together and ship a cross platform app, otherwise the announcement tomorrow will be a dud and iBooks is doomed to eventual failure.
Question: If a school buys 100 copies of an iBook for their students, is the iBook owned by the student or the school? ie next year will the school be able to reissue those 100 licences to a new 100 students, like is done with a physical textbook, or will a new 100 copies of the iBook need to be bought?
Sadly there are not any advanced mathematics textbooks in iBooks really. For that matter there are very few available even on the Kindle platform depending on your specialization. As a PhD student in math I would certainly buy some textbooks digitally that I require for research but they are usually not available in this way.
I certainly realize that researchers and lifetime academics are not their focus, but I wouldn't mind if they started carrying more math textbooks in general.
I certainly realize that researchers and lifetime academics are not their focus, but I wouldn't mind if they started carrying more math textbooks in general.
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I have also studies mathematics is an advanced level, not quite PhD, but I know the kind of level you are talking about. How is the selection of Kindle ebook at an academic level?
Your post brings up an interesting issue, the long tail. As Apple controls iBooks so heavily many less popular book will never be on iBooks. I is my understand that Apple wants books sold via iBooks to be published using their iBooks Author software. An academic level textbook won't be popular enough to be relayed out in iBooks Author for the iBooks store. The long tail issue is the huge number of won't be popular enough book that are not included, sums to a huge lose of potental sales.
Well, at least teachers can't catch you when you're browsing during class becaus they can't see what's on you screen - yet. 
So apple would sell for $1000, others for $700-800 and that'd be it. Not as many people would own tablets. Maybe even to the effect of it being a not viable platform, and therefore a failure.
How do you get any file that isn't from an iTunes store on there. Sync it via iTunes or email it to yourself/dropbox
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Maybe the Edu version will be a LOT cheaper?
I can just see it tomorrow:
"The Good News, yes we are selling an iPad Mini. It's got a 7.85" screen and starts at $199.
The Bad News, we are only selling it to schools with a minimum 50 unit order."
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I disagree. I've been using iBooks since day one of the app and haven't had an issue with the lack of a CPU version. I suspect many others haven't had a problem either.
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ANd yet schools and businesses are buying the full size iPad which is even more expensive
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Not necessarily. Apple is seen as a luxury brand so folks might have proven willing to pay that much
Highly unlikely to the point of no way in hell. Apple isn't about supporting everything in the world. They do their cool stuff as a way to sell their hardware.
The day they start making ibooks etc for non iOS will be the same day they start OEMing iOS and Mac OS.
Which was how many units. Cause if this was another HP Slate with only 5k to sell that 'sold out' doesn't really mean poop
It is my understanding that the 'buy' is issued in redeem codes which can only be used 1 per Apple ID so they are tagged on the students accounts and thus they 'own' the book. This is part of the reason why those publishers are pricing at $12.99-$19.99 for those books. Their paper copies were generally bought for use for 5 years and cost 5x this 'ibook' price. So it's a wash for the school.