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McGraw-Hill CEO Credits Steve Jobs' Digital Textbook Vision Amid Evidence of Pre-iPad Interest
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Oh how I wish....
I remember at the Universtity of Wyoming how we where being ripped off on text books. Circa 1980 the University book store had a total and complete monopoly on text books and charged accordingly. The one and only book store in laramie decided to start selling text books and undercut the price the UW book store was getting by a rather substantual amount. UW actually had the arrogance to sue the book store for selling text books. Needless to say the Judge laughed UW right out of court. You always come out of the short end of the stick when you sold your books back. Being able to get E-text books at a much cheaper price will be great and having them DRM out of exsistence is fine with me. The only down side I can see is the great used text books with all of the notes in the margines for the professors who have used the same lecture notes for the last 7,943 years. But I'll bet somebody comes up with an App' for that
I remember at the Universtity of Wyoming how we where being ripped off on text books. Circa 1980 the University book store had a total and complete monopoly on text books and charged accordingly. The one and only book store in laramie decided to start selling text books and undercut the price the UW book store was getting by a rather substantual amount. UW actually had the arrogance to sue the book store for selling text books. Needless to say the Judge laughed UW right out of court. You always come out of the short end of the stick when you sold your books back. Being able to get E-text books at a much cheaper price will be great and having them DRM out of exsistence is fine with me. The only down side I can see is the great used text books with all of the notes in the margines for the professors who have used the same lecture notes for the last 7,943 years. But I'll bet somebody comes up with an App' for that
Wrong, if you look up March 2010 threads on the iPad plenty were discussing digital textbooks.
Didn't Macrumors post an article back in 2010 with this video?
McGraw CEO spilled the beans one day before the iPad 1 launch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp3r-2ciZlk
McGraw CEO spilled the beans one day before the iPad 1 launch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp3r-2ciZlk
Encarta, this is the second time I am hearing about it in the past 48 hours; yesterday I was at a training where the mentioned the failure called Encarta, and how a collab (aka wikipedia) rendered it useless...
Encarta was quite successful in it's day & very useful, just a bit ahead of it's time much like Apples Newton.
proprietary, single vendor, ...
After the euphoria dies down, I hope that a lot of school boards consider that:
If Apple had announced an open specification, authoring tools and clients for other systems (Android, Windows, Linux), and a minimum hardware specification it would be a lot easier to swallow.
Instead, Apple seems to want to surround schools with its walled garden.
Didn't we learn anything from the Windows monoculture?
After the euphoria dies down, I hope that a lot of school boards consider that:
- it's a proprietary solution
- there's one vendor for both hardware and software
- that vendor isn't known for commodity pricing
- that vendor isn't known for sharing roadmaps and warning of changes in direction
- all of the hardware is foreign-made (This isn't meant to be a jingoist comment - just pointing out a concern if foreign nations have a pressure point on the US school system.)
If Apple had announced an open specification, authoring tools and clients for other systems (Android, Windows, Linux), and a minimum hardware specification it would be a lot easier to swallow.
Instead, Apple seems to want to surround schools with its walled garden.
Didn't we learn anything from the Windows monoculture?
Professors
One of the things that will be interesting to see is the rate of adoption among professors. Professors in most collegiate and high school settings have huge control over their curriculum, and therefore the textbook. How is apple going to overcome the barrier of professors/teachers who want to adhere to the status quo?
Just food for thought...
One of the things that will be interesting to see is the rate of adoption among professors. Professors in most collegiate and high school settings have huge control over their curriculum, and therefore the textbook. How is apple going to overcome the barrier of professors/teachers who want to adhere to the status quo?
Just food for thought...
Of course if status quo is "you need a windows laptop" and the new status quo will be "you need an iPad" is that so much of an improvement?
"And the most important thing I think you can do for someone who is really good, who is really being counted on, is to point out to them when their work isn't good enough, and to do it very clearly and to articulate why, and to get them back on track. "
I don't think using sarcasm against interns really achieve that.
"...or you can just tell them that it sucks and later on change your mind and take credit for the idea"
I guess Apple wasn't 'successful' before 2001? Hmm... I was always pretty excited and interested in all things Apple since 1980's.
The mouse, the laptop, the CD player, hypercard, digital camera...
It does not make sense that a college (or high school) textbook has to be device dependent. Any computer or tablet (which is also a computer, but does not have a physical keyboard) should be able to read all textbooks.
Apple (and anyone else who attempt this) should be ashamed of themselves for trying to hijack the education system. Educators involved in this kind of scheme are obviously only interested in padding their bank accounts.
Digital text books is not a new idea, but this level of greed is unprecedented.
Apple (and anyone else who attempt this) should be ashamed of themselves for trying to hijack the education system. Educators involved in this kind of scheme are obviously only interested in padding their bank accounts.
Digital text books is not a new idea, but this level of greed is unprecedented.
The HUGE loser- independent used bookstores. But someone had to lose for Apple, Students, AND the book companies all to win.
It's simple. Steve was not one for braging to the public about his achievements. Apple worked on this (not just Jobs), and Apple revealed this to the public a few days ago. Also if Apple is seen to be resting on Jobs legacy it could hurt the stock price as the investors might worry about Apple's ability to push forward after Jobs.
So in short not mentioning Jobs was the right thing to do.
Ok -- let me understand this.... I have an iPad and I want to manage all the content on it. I have iTunes which handles Ringtones, Songs, Music, Movies, TV Shows, Home Videos, Audiobooks, Podcasts, Music Videos, eBooks, Photos, PDFs, Apps, Playlists,... everything... BUT YOU think it would be wise to have to fire up another program to deal with Textbooks? VERY INTERESTING.
Do you realize what a pain in the butt that would be, each and every time you wanted to manage your textbooks? WOW! I just can't believe you got PLUS-ONE'D on that notion. iTunes is the one and only answer to put content on the iPad. Otherwise, you're jumping through multiple hoops just to get your content on the iPad.
I could be wrong but I think he means like the App Store on iOS devices. There is an application for the iTunes Store and App Store on iOS devices. He wants to add an iBook Store to those two