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Apple's January Media Event to Involve Digital Textbooks and Education?

Macist said:
Apple needs to make an eInk Kindle-like device pronto. Wrap it in aluminium and get people to pay the Apple tax - you can't read for very long on an iPad.
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Using a text book is not the same as reading a novel.

I find it odd that people can browse the web for hours on an iPad, but then claim that they can't read a book on it.

Do people remember what computer monitors were like 20 years ago? Yet, people used them.
 
I think this is great.

I've always wondered what we could do to make education more appealing or cool to young people. Seems like a good start to make it more popular to be smart.

-Frank
 
thenerdal said:
For images and multimedia, it's not really a textbook, now is it? I think Apple should wait until E-ink catches up so that it can be multitouch and faster. It would be a better textbook alternative than an iPad right now.

I believe e-ink is better for textbooks than LCD
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Do you also believe you can convince everyone else of this fallacy?
 
Idk I use my ipad for all my textbooks and prefer it to a regular text book due to search functions and the biggest is the lower cost of ebooks. If you are one of those people that get eye strain well sucks to be you. If your like me that can read chapter after chapter on my ipad without any issues then it would be nice. I just really hope whatever they come out with that they have the majority of textbooks available and an option to read it on your computer(pc and mac). Not a huge issue but I prefer to get all my textbooks from the same place. Currently most of mine come from the kindle app or coursesmart.
 
thenerdal said:
For images and multimedia, it's not really a textbook, now is it? I think Apple should wait until E-ink catches up so that it can be multitouch and faster. It would be a better textbook alternative than an iPad right now.

I believe e-ink is better for textbooks than LCD
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That's what the publishers want. For people to wait and spend more money!
 
whatever said:
That's what the publishers want. For people to wait and spend more money!
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Just wait until they make some sort of e-ink device that's in color, touch screen and does animations. There is already a color e-ink device out, there's already a multitouch e-ink device out and there's a e-ink device that can play animations.

Combine all three and we have the best textbook replacement out there. Far better than an iPad.

Not saying an iPad isn't a great device, just saying, it's not a great device to read off of.
 
thenerdal said:
Just wait until they make some sort of e-ink device that's in color, touch screen and does animations. There is already a color e-ink device out, there's already a multitouch e-ink device out and there's a e-ink device that can play animations.

Combine all three and we have the best textbook replacement out there.
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"Just wait"
 
thenerdal said:
This is stupid. Digital Textbooks are only good with E-ink displays, otherwise you're gonna cause eye strain.
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I used a Sony Reader well before I got an iPad and the eye strain scenario was more evident when I tried to read it in the dark!

iPad illuminated display FTW.

No eye strain yet, although I don't read out in the sun by the pool.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

You sound like someone ten years ago saying his great the fax machine is, and how it's ten times better than email. E-ink is a step back, and is only slightly popular because of its cheapness.
 
soco said:
Do we need an event for this? I guess if it's going to re-educate (no pun intended) us on how we think of these books appearing on the bookstore, or even introduce a new bookstore, it could be interesting.

I think I'm more excited for an update on sales numbers.
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People were saying the same thing at iTunes introduction. The "stupid music store" they called it, and now look what it developed into.

Personally, as a college student who spends ~$500 on textbooks every semester I am frustrated with the level of interactivity (or lack thereof) that comes with printed material. I was searching a textbook for biological terms the other day while preparing for a final and it literally took me 45 minutes to find 2 words. With an ebook, it would have taken me 45 seconds.
 
codyc815 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

You sound like someone ten years ago saying his great the fax machine is, and how it's ten times better than email. E-ink is a step back, and is only slightly popular because of its cheapness.
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How is it a step back? It's a low power technology and it can run for up to a month on a single charge.
 
thenerdal said:
Well yeah. Steve Jobs had to wait for technology to catch up before making the iPhone. James Cameron had to wait for technology to catch up before making Avatar.
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Funny that Steve used an IPS instead of waiting for E-Ink...

If anybody wants to wait for E-Ink before they start creating etextbooks, nobody is going to stand in their way.

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gorskiegangsta said:
People were saying the same thing at iTunes introduction. The "stupid music store" they called it, and now look what it developed into.

Personally, as a college student who spends ~$500 on textbooks every semester I am frustrated with the level of interactivity (or lack thereof) that comes with printed material. I was searching a textbook for biological terms the other day while preparing for a final and it literally took me 45 minutes to find 2 words. With an ebook, it would have taken me 45 seconds.
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It will be great when you can ask Siri to find passages in books...
 
Drunken Master said:
Huh?

He could have made Avatar in 2002.

It sucked anyway.
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No he couldn't.... the technology wasn't there yet. You don't know what you're talking about.

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TMay said:
Funny that Steve used an IPS instead of waiting for E-Ink...

If anybody wants to wait for E-Ink before they start creating etextbooks, nobody is going to stand in their way.
Click to expand...


IPS is LCD....
 
The problem with iPads for college is battery life. There is no guarantee that a full charge will last the entire school day(classes + studying) all the way until you put it back to charge again. Maybe what is needed are iPad docking stations in every classroom so that worrying about battery is something relegated to the past. Also the current iBook app is not good enough. It has notes and highlights but when you go to the Annotations summary all you get is a cumulative list with no indication of which section a note or highlight belongs to. That's fine if you only have 5-10 notes/highlights but what if you have 50? Also it has no ability to search on notes/highlights.
 
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