Apple Launches iBooks 2 with Interactive Textbooks

[JWD]

This is a great announcement. I wish I was back in school learning from a iPad, that's way cooler.

I agree with many readers here, you should be able to read your .epub files on your mac. Now that they updated iBooks it doesn't look like it'll happen. I guess don't think people will read on their iMacs, MacBooks etc. Funny that you can purchase .epub files from your computer but not .ibook (textbooks)... both which you can't read on your Mac computer. I don't know why you can only buy one but not the other...

I also don't like a whole new app for iTunes U. This should be integrated in other apps.

 

[marcusj0015]

This is a great announcement. I wish I was back in school learning from a iPad, that's way cooler.

I agree with many readers here, you should be able to read your .epub files on your mac. Now that they updated iBooks it doesn't look like it'll happen. I guess don't think people will read on their iMacs, MacBooks etc. Funny that you can purchase .epub files from your computer but not .ibook (textbooks)... both which you can't read on your Mac computer. I don't know why you can only buy one but not the other...

I also don't like a whole new app for iTunes U. This should be integrated in other apps.

To be completely honest, theres A LOT of apps that Apple could/should integrate into each other.

iBooks/Newsstand/iTunes U, Music/Video and more.

 

[grahamnp]

In the long run if tablets become a standard educational tool, they can be financed or leased at a relatively low cost through the school.

In the long run yes, definitely. Books don't have much of a future IMO. I'm more interested in the present though. I'm very sure technology like this will prevail but I just don't see it making much of a splash right now.

 

[Joell]

so apple will be focusing on high school level books
what about college textbooks?

 

[LeandrodaFL]

I predicted this revolution 2 years ago and no one believed me.

Of course, Steve tought about the whole thing like 5 years ago.

 

[vladi]

To be completely honest, theres A LOT of apps that Apple could/should integrate into each other.

iBooks/Newsstand/iTunes U, Music/Video and more.

Thats not an Apple model to integrate. Single action, single app is their strategy.


iBooks is a nice concept but not very strong one. All the expensive textbooks are really speciallty textbooks which will not come to iBooks anytime soon and even if some of them find their way in they will remain expensive.

Like I said before this is not a really strong concept, all it takes is one website to do the same thing and offer Wikipedia in textbook package wrapped in pretty layout and interactivy (which is essentially what these iBooks textbooks are) and there you go. Then just wrap that whole site into an free app, since iPad's browser doesnt support HTML5 interactivity, apply to the AppStore and watch it get rejected.

Actually they gave me a really good idea here.

 

[marcusj0015]

Thats not an Apple model to integrate. Single action, single app is their strategy.


iBooks is a nice concept but not very strong one. All the expensive textbooks are really speciallty textbooks which will not come to iBooks anytime soon and even if some of them find their way in they will remain expensive.

Like I said before this is not a really strong concept, all it takes is one website to do the same thing and offer Wikipedia in textbook package wrapped in pretty layout and interactivy (which is essentially what these iBooks textbooks are) and there you go. Then just wrap that whole site into an free app, since iPad's browser doesnt support HTML5 interactivity, apply to the AppStore and watch it get rejected.

Actually they gave me a really good idea here.

Combining iBooks and newsstand is exactly like combining clock and timer...

 

[adityashah1989]

Available in the UK book store?

 

[jclardy]

Build the ipads into the desks, lol. Well I'm not totally being flippant, maybe every desk could have an ipad built into it and each student would log into it and a cloud server would hold their information, this would solve the problem of locking down the ipad so the student can only view textbooks and not browse the internet or something.

As for the cost, if the schools owned the ipads I think this would be offset by the lower textbook prices, buying a textbook for $100 that you use for 4 years still sounds more expensive than buying that textbook for $14.99 four times, that's almost half the cost, and that's not including the cost of workbooks, etc that would only be used for one year. The other thing is that since textbooks are indirectly paid by parents taxes possibly the ipad can be made as tax deductible when itemized as a dependent childs education requirement. On top of all of that, I'll bet Apple is considering a low cost ipad just for this use, or possibly they will do a deeper subsidy than their current education subsidy, or both. There are a lot of ways to get around the cost of an ipad, especially when you add up what traditional textbooks cost now.

The only thing that bums me out a bit is Apple's profit driven altruism. I give them a TON of credit for revamping the textbook system like this, but at the same time Apple made sure this stayed within their ecosystem and benefited them greatly. I don't expect Apple to do anything for free at all, but I wish there was a way for Apple to work for this to be some kind of open standard useable on any device or even laptop AND they were able to profit from it.

Yeah I was thinking of some of these things, like maybe an 8GB iPad 2 for education use sold for $250-$300 after iPad 3 is released. The only problem with that is the textbooks are actually quite large in size, but if they were for classroom use you would only have a few books per iPad anyways.

With accounts I was mainly referring to the iPad not being very multi-user friendly. Unfortunately logging in/out of iCloud isn't ideal seeing as each student would have to do it at the start and end of every class, and if they forget then their notes are saved to someone else's account.

It would be nice if there were some kind of iPad master control software where a teach could "assign" students an iPad in each class and the iPad could display the users name on the screen while it is in a docking station. The iPad would then be automatically linked to that user account for notes and such and the teacher would automatically log all of them out after class was over. Unfortunately only Apple could really do this as it needs to be at a system level, and I doubt they will. Essentially centralizing user data to the schools servers so that it isn't stored on each individual device.

 

[SKTHEPREZ]

My response.

You can't afford a book that can be handed to next year, but iPads are no problem?

Well, as a parent, I would much rather purchase an iPad and a 5-6 14.99 iBook textbooks on it, than buy 5-6 textbooks at $100+ for my own child if I want them to actually get an education. I break even the first year, plus I have an iPad to play on when my student is in bed.

 

[ablashek]

But there is still one more issue, the iPad's themselves. Public schools couldn't expect everyone to buy and bring their own iPad's to school. They could have an iPad for every student that they borrow for their time at the school, but I could still see problems with theft happening as we are talking about everyone in the school carrying around a $500 device that can easily be taken and sold. Maybe if students had to check them out when they want to take them home and carry some kind of security tag on them.

They could have class sets of iPad's, but again this means that the kids couldn't take them home every night for homework/studying. Also notes taken on the devices would be synced to whoever owned the account on the device, not to mention would be stuck on iPad as there is no Mac version of iBooks and the iPhone/iPod version doesn't support textbooks. So if the kid didn't have an iPad at home it would mean their notes are stuck in the cloud.

Also purchasing books is another issue. It seems it has to be done through an iTunes account, which is fine, but in high school text books are currently provided to students for free, so I don't think most would enjoy paying for them. Maybe schools can buy registration codes to give out to students so they can download them on personal accounts?

For college courses I could see this working a lot better as you can build it into tuition and for the most part college students are at school to learn, where as in public high schools you have kids from all over the spectrum.

Overall though, the textbooks i've tried have been awesome, and I think it would be worth the investment in infrastructure needed to let everyone use an iPad in schools.

Another thing, what is stopping kids from starting a game in the middle of class? I find myself sometimes switching to a game while reading a book for some fun. Its too tempting, and i have a hard time beliveing kids will be keeping their books open while in class!

 

[Squeak825]

I was just thinking today how much of a bust the iBook Textbook launch and products was. 5 years later and it is effectively dead. Apple was unwilling to listen and learn to the realities of the K-12 market, and it hit them hard here. Interesting.