
Apple announces iBooks 2, iBooks Author to "reinvent textbooks" - FluidDjango
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/01/apple-announces-ibooks-2-to-reinvent-textbooks.ars
======
wallflower
Perhaps iBooks 2 is a continuing step towards the bringing the fictional Young
Lady's Illustrated Primer of Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" towards
reality.

The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is an adaptive AI tutor. To realize TYLIP,
hard AI problems will need to be solved. Yet, it is possible the iPad 3/iBooks
2 is a step towards a simpler Primer.

"TYLIP is...a book that is powered by a computer so advanced it’s almost
magical, and it teaches children everything. It does this through a fully
interactive story. It teaches you how to read, how to do maths, it teaches you
morals, ethics, even self-defense."

[http://mssv.net/2006/05/01/the-young-ladys-illustrated-
prime...](http://mssv.net/2006/05/01/the-young-ladys-illustrated-primer/)

[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cU8NFy0sa_Y/TuWAj8ZBMVI/AAAAAAAABl...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cU8NFy0sa_Y/TuWAj8ZBMVI/AAAAAAAABlg/zuHvbmyEp1E/s1600/A+Young+Lady%2527s+Illustrated+Primer.png)

~~~
pstuart
This has been on my mind as well -- my oldest child has just become a bookworm
and I'm intending to get all my kids iPads this year if they can be more than
just for games and movies.

While strong AI would be nice, well crafted content alone could take one very
far. Then add in what Khan Academy is doing for tracking learning and you
might be 90% there.

~~~
davidw
Kindles (the eInk ones, not the Fire) might be a good push in the "for
reading" direction. You really can't do much else with them, but they're
really great for reading, as well as super light, and have amazing battery
life.

I got a Kindle Fire, and reading on it is just not the same as with the 'real'
Kindles - you always have 'other things' like email and Facebook lurking just
a few clicks away. And the battery life is something you have to keep in mind,
and of course an LCD screen just isn't as nice for reading.

------
gfodor
It's hard to overstate how important I think this is. There are a few reasons.

First, this brings a focused, clear path for educational content on the iPad.
By opening the Books marketplace to more rich multimedia applications, Apple
has made it possible for many of the dreams of interactive learning advocates
to go mainstream. Imagine learning math by interacting with functions directly
or doing symbolic manipulation directly. Or learning to code by actually doing
it alongside a narrative. It's hard to imagine an area of study that would
_not_ benefit from creative use of technology in teaching it. (No, just adding
videos and audio is not enough.)

Second, it opens the door to getting iPads in every classroom. By making it so
there is a clear incentive for schools to buy iPads for all their students
(cheaper, more useful textbooks) you get an iPad in the hands of every child.
It goes without saying this is a big deal.

Finally, it opens the door for real competition for textbooks. By capping the
price of textbooks at $15.00, students can easily decide to have several
different treatments of the same topic on their iPad. If you manage to create
content that is more clear, enjoyable, or even correct, parents and students
will be one tap away from getting access to it, cheaply, if their officially-
sanctioned book is not doing the job. This turns traditional textbook
publishing on its head, because it empowers parents to overturn the textbook
choices their school makes from the bottom up. If the entire math class has
switched over to using an alternative textbook to learn a topic (just through
word of mouth), this might tip the scales so the best content ends up being
adopted by schools. Creative, upcoming authors will find that usurping the
mainstream textbooks is now possible. I can imagine maverick publishers
basically taking the same table of contents from a mainstream textbook and
modernizing the treatment of the topic, so students have an easy way to move
forward in their class at the same pace but with a much better learning tool.

And this is just what is on the top of my head, before forward thinking
content creators have gotten their hands on this new platform.

~~~
r00fus
I agree with everything you said but worry about the market dynamics of
capping the price at $15. As far as I've seen, Apple has never done this
before (putting a price floor of $0.99 for paid apps is quite different).

Will this result in each "chapter" being $15 eventually? Will this favor the
rich student over the poor one in terms of coverage (underfunded school wants
basic book that covers entire course, but marketplace offers much better books
that are more surgical in coverage - rich kid gets better content while poor
kid does not).

~~~
alanfalcon
Apple never actually capped textbooks at $14.99 (from my understanding). What
they've done is launch with all the textbooks at $14.99 or less. They're
setting a precedent and I'm sure they're hoping it pressures all textbooks to
follow suit, but nowhere did I read anything about Apple requiring all future
textbook offerings to follow the launch pricing.

~~~
mdwrigh2
According to The Verge article[1], it looks like Apple requires the price to
be $14.99 unless iBooks is the sole distribution mechanism.

[1]: [http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/19/2718357/apple-
ibooks-2-tex...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/19/2718357/apple-
ibooks-2-textbook-partners/in/2482474)

------
palebluedot
I see many comments about the cost of an iPad - that is not the real issue
here. The real issue is these textbooks and knowledge will be funneled through
DRM, and a single provider (Apple). Even if Apple gave away the iPads, I will
still have issues with DRM on textbooks. And even if these books end up being
DRM-free, will they still be proprietary to Apple's platforms?

If most/all schools adopt this and require it, and the books are DRM hindered
to a proprietary platform, then that means that it will become a defacto
requirement for every student to own an Apple device, in order to receive
education.

It may work, and would certainly be good for Apple... but I don't like it.

~~~
masklinn
School could very well distribute DRM-less texbooks (iBooks works as a regular
eBooks reader, and I expect the ibooks 2 format is just EPUB3 with a few
extensions), though I really doubt publishers will ever be on board with the
idea.

The DRM would also be added by the ibookstore, so you should be able to get a
non-DRM'd ebook out of the author application thing: a commenter noted he'd
exported an ibook, changed the extension and had no trouble loading it into a
non-apple ebook reader (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3485150>)

~~~
palebluedot
Yes, I agree - Many public schools charge a 'book fee' each year, for
textbooks. Just roll it into that - who cares if the textbooks are shared
then, because each student is paying for it, regardless. And if it is in a
non-proprietary format, that would alleviate the other concern of lock-in.

But one article mentioned that students could not resell the books - which
implies DRM.

Outside of high school and into college, the publishers obviously want to
prevent reselling/sharing of the books.

~~~
cwe
This has been the biggest problem with ebooks in general in my mind. Kindle
books are DRM'ed, I couldn't sell them once I'm done with them, which keeps me
buying physical books. So I see it as the problem that really needs to be
figured out (and is why I was hopeful for bitcoin at one point, it seemed to
have a DRM system that allowed for transfer of ownership). Apologies if this
is slightly off topic.

~~~
masklinn
> Kindle books are DRM'ed, I couldn't sell them once I'm done with them

You couldn't really sell them either if they weren't DRM'd: who'd buy a C-c
C-v for a used "digital book"?

DRM _could_ actually enable resale (or some sort of renting), if the DRM
schemes supported it: buying a DRM'd book for $15 gives you a license to its
content, reselling to the publisher revokes your license and lets you get some
money back, and you can transfer the license to an other owner for a subset of
the original price (with the publisher taking a cut of the trade for
incentive).

Let's say a textbook is $15, you could resell it to the publisher for $7, or
"trade" it for say $9 (with the publisher taking $1 or $2 on top).

Now here comes the rub: what's in it for for-profit publishers, especially
publicly owned ones? Nothing, instead of selling two licenses they've now sold
half a license, or a license and a fraction of one. Why would they bother
unless they're forced to?

I'd rather have better-priced ebooks to start with.

> which keeps me buying physical books

Only works if 1. you want to resell them (I've yet to re-sell one of my books,
couldn't care less about resale value) and 2. you lose less by reselling it
than the price of the ebook (pretty likely considering you can often get the
bloody physical book for less than the ebook in the first place).

------
martingordon
For those commenting on the price of iPads, I suggest you wait for the other
shoe to drop in a few weeks when Apple makes their iPad 3 announcement. I
think Apple will likely employ a similar strategy to that of the iPhone and
keep the iPad 2 around as a lower-cost alternative to the new iPad.

~~~
beatle
I agree with this.

iPad 3 499

iPad 2 399

Refurbed iPad 1 $99-$299

~~~
ChrisLTD
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Apple actively manufactures or
sells the first generation iPad.

~~~
martingordon
They don't manufacture them anymore, but they do sell leftover stock as
refurbs (<http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/ipad>). The only
first generation model they currently have is a 64 GB WiFi going for $499, or
$200 off of original retail.

I don't see them firing up iPad 1 production in order to hit the $299 price
point, but I can see them keeping the iPad 2 around at $299 when the iPad 4
hits, similar to the current 3GS/4/4S phone lineup. The economies of scale of
extending a year-long manufacturing cycle to three years is too great to be
ignored and it gives Apple the added benefit of being able to hit lower prices
without sacrificing the quality of their product.

------
gdilla
The apple specific nature of this new authoring platform is a departure from
the eBook ePub standard, presumably because Apple thought the UX of eBooks
could be way better. A similar rationale for why they introduced iOS apps, how
it outperforms mobile web, to the ire of many developers who prefer to work
with build once, run everywhere environments.

If you make a killer textbook in the new iBook Author tool, you can't publish
it for the Kindle Fire. Contrast that to ePub, a file you could deliver to
B&N, Apple, Amazon (they require some weird conversion process), etc, and it
would be more or less available to all.

~~~
maercsrats
I'm probably going to get downvoted for this but I'll say it anyway: there
isn't a tablet market, there is only an ipad market. Apple want to make it
easier to make books for ipads because: 1. that's what they sell and 2. that's
what people are buying.

A quick aside, my mom is a 7th grade reading/writing teacher in a small
(around 18K in the county) west-TN town. Her little school has an ipad cart.
Every student does their writing (typing really) on an ipad. Both kids and
teachers love it. The news today will probably thrill all of them.

~~~
rtrunck
I would have been more inclined to agree until the Kindle Fire came out. That
is starting to change things.

~~~
dangson
I don't have a Kindle Fire, but I imagine it isn't very useful for textbooks.
Thinking back to my school days, textbooks were huge and closer to the size of
an iPad than to a Fire. The Fire's screen is great for blocks of text, but
it's way too small to clearly display charts and tables.

~~~
ChrisLTD
In landscape mode it should be able to fit a decent sized chart or table on
screen.

~~~
ceejayoz
Next to the relevant text section, as with a paper textbook?

~~~
ChrisLTD
No, but that would be tough on the current iPad as well, given the relatively
low resolution compared to printed books.

~~~
ceejayoz
I really don't think a chart/video next to some explanatory text would tax an
iPad screen. News websites often use a similar layout and work fine.

------
grantheaslip
Imagine if the company behind this was, say, Microsoft — I’m guessing there
would be a lot less defense of propriety, DRM-laden educational material.
Really, imagine an HN thread discussing a proprietary Microsoft-backed
textbook platform. Besides the level of polish, what’s the fundamental
philosophical difference?

Don’t get me wrong, this looks really neat, and I think this is a glimpse into
the future of education. I’m just a bit sick of Apple getting a free pass on
things that people would be up in arms about if they came from almost any
other tech company.

~~~
milesskorpen
They've actually announced the format is very similar to ePub 3, so not
exactly proprietary.

------
jstsch
Wow, that looks pretty well done. The iBooks App is in the App store right now
too. The format is HTML-based, with some proprietary extension ( -ibooks-
layout-hint: anchor; in CSS etc). But don't expect an Android reader anytime
soon...

~~~
fredley
If Apple really wanted to improve education, they'd make the file format open.
That way even schools without tens of thousands of dollars of Apple gear could
benefit.

~~~
johnnyn
From iBooks Author, you can export in iBooks, PDF, or text format. The iBooks
format is pretty much a well organized version of the epub format. I just
exported one, changed the extension to .epub, and loaded it into an ebook
reader.

~~~
ezy
It's worthwhile to note that PDF export only outputs in a fairly useless
landscape, two textbook pages per pdf page form. I have to think that this is
done in this horrible way by design. Similar for your .epub "hack", I'm sure
that will not be supported by Apple, ever.

On the other hand, the textbook makers currently have such a lock on school
districts that I don't feel really bad about this. iPads will only get
cheaper.. I'm almost positive kids will complain when they get the shitty
scratched up hand-me-down iPad2 the school district has had for 5 years when
iPad7 is available -- but I've had worse experiences with paper textbooks. :-)

------
mladenkovacevic
I apologize if this might sound like a naive question: but why haven't
textbooks been published on the internet all these years?

I mean why couldn't some non-profit organization theoretically have created
some HTML standard and template for textbooks with the ability to do videos,
interactive input, notes...etc other bells and whistles...then hired expert
textbook writers, and just cranked out a few online quality textbooks for use
in high schools, colleges or whatever. Then all you'd need to consume the
content is any kind of HTML reader/browser on any type of computing device.

What has really been preventing this from happening? I just don't get what
business Apple has in "reinventing" textbooks or e-book formats or why we had
to wait all these years for them to do it (and lock it into their ecosystem).

~~~
jdminhbg
For high schools, the main cost in production is lobbying the state standards
board. For colleges, buying decisions are made by people (professors) who
don't have to actually spend the money. There's no advantage to undercutting
someone on price.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
But does the Apple/iPad/iBooks solution somehow circumvent those nuisances?

~~~
jdminhbg
I don't know. I'm a lot more sure that those are the reasons that nobody's
created a bunch of open source textbooks than I am that Apple can somehow
break through. I guess there's a chance that the Apple aura is enough of a
draw to break through the established system?

------
ugh
Yes, the education angle seems appropriate given what this event was all
about, but can I also say that it’s extremely boring?

What’s much cooler are the books that are possible with the tools Apple
provides now. They are like Al Gore’s _Our Choice_ (whose UI was phenomenally
awesome), only even better (when looking at some details), also better
integrated and (at least nearly) standards based.

Oh, and their authoring tool makes it easy for nearly everyone to make books
like that and easily distribute them. That’s just cool, independent of any
education bullshit that’s going on.

------
fredley
As it stands, this is not great. The cost of an iPad is $500. It'll probably
need replacing every couple of years, and that's assuming your kid doesn't
break it all the time (if I'd had one of these at school it would have been
smashed up constantly). Each textbook is a minimum of $15. Over the course of
a high school education, this is going to cost each child ('s parents)
thousands of dollars.

This will only benefit kids at the richest schools, which will not fix
America's education problem.

~~~
omfg
That's one assumption. The other is that over the course of a 4 year high
school or college run. The cost of a 499 iPad + 15 dollar books is
significantly cheaper than say 6-7 60+ dollar books per semester.

Schools can loan out iPads that they get at a discount from Apple, or colleges
can even include them in the cost of tuition. I know quite a few people in
college right now that receive a Macbook Pro as part of their college tuition
(with no option to decline it and save on tuition). So an iPad would be
significantly cheaper than that, and arguably just as useful for most college
curriculums.

~~~
streptomycin
> That's one assumption. The other is that over the course of a 4 year high
> school or college run. The cost of a 499 iPad + 15 dollar books is
> significantly cheaper than say 6-7 60+ dollar books per semester.

Only if you assume that iPads never break, all textbooks will be published
with iPad versions (otherwise you'd need an iPad and some normal textbooks),
you can't buy used textbooks, and you can't sell your textbooks when you're
done with them.

~~~
omfg
I'm not sure the need to re-sell a 15 dollar eBook.

Damaging the iPad is a concern, so is theft. But there are too many scenarios
there to analyze the economics of each. For instance, say an iPad + eBooks
replaces a laptop with textbooks, the iPad is cheaper to replace than a
laptop. What if you lose your book bag full of 5 new 80 dollar text books,
then it's a wash. The cost of 8 semesters worth of textbooks might be more
expensive than the cost of 3 499 iPads + eBooks. So forth.

Textbooks + iPad versions. More of a problem in college than high school where
the schools often have long term contracts with the publishers.

All in all, it seems like a step in the right direction. Also, one can imagine
that Apple is going to keep the iPad 2 on the market at a reduced cost when
the iPad 3 comes out, similarly to what they've done with the iPhone. So over
time it'll become even more cost effective.

------
johnnyn
This is such a game changer. Just another great lock-in tool for iBooks and
Apple.

~~~
cxz
I don't think these digital textbooks will take off on a closed platform. The
iBooks format is based on ePub so I think there's every chance you'll see
these books reaching other devices over time.

~~~
betterth
Don't be so sure, the tablet market is still totally dominated by the iPad,
and the education-angle for tablets is all but completely Apple.

Now, with all the major textbook publishers behind them, they're moving FAST
into education.

How long until another platform even has a large enough install base and
education push to be competitive? And that competitor will have to get the
publishers behind them too, and then that system would have to get bigger than
the Apple system...

I don't see it, I think Apple is already years ahead of their competition --
most notably because there is no competition for this.

Now the competitors have to -start- entering this market, ---start- making
competing products, start building those relationships with authors and
publishers...

It'll be an uphill battle and really only Amazon today seems to have any
chance at all, and they've not really expressed too much interest in the
market yet.

------
superos
I tried to follow this announcement through the web today and I noticed a few
things I would like to comment on as an educational technologist.

1\. It did not impress me (iBooks). Looked like gorgeous Apple design on
'CDROM' type educational software we used to have in the old days.

2\. I liked the glossary and notes/annotations that turned into summary cards
for learning.

3\. Interactive features are added using Keynote(?)

or

4\. You need to know 'HTM5' and Javascript to do interactive stuff (this is
not GarageBand for eLearning as someone told me it would be).

5\. The way iBooks Textbooks are now part of iTunes U does add a lot to iTunes
U. Now it can disrupt LMS (Learning Management Systems) vendors as well.

6\. I still love eInk.

Then some worries.

7\. What happened to epub and similar standards?

8\. Is this new format a lovely zip file we can extract and inspect?

9\. Is it possible to read iBooks on other devices/platforms?

10\. Am I allowed to share my iBooks with friends and relatives?

11\. Will my grandchildren be able to read my iBooks in 50 years time?

~~~
efields
(edited for readability)

1\. Go to an Apple store and use it. Its nothing like a CDROM encyclopedia.
Encarta comes to mind. The richness of Apple's Textbook experience is
definitely immersive and, like most of their products, can't be perceived
until you actually use it for a while.

3\. Interactive features can be a movie, HTML(5), 3D, or, yes, a Keynote
presentation. Imagine a richer image gallery type experience, but with text,
transitions, effects, etc. All this can be done w/ Keynote (and a little bit
of visual design know-how) right now.

4\. Not basic Keynote-style interactive stuff like I described above. You need
to be able to produce and edit movies to add a movie. You need to be able to
use 3-D software to make a 3-D model. This is obvious stuff. Multiple
disciplines go into making even paper textbooks.

6\. eInk IS great... for long-format reading. K-12 and Undergrad textbooks
never really involve that much long-format reading. Plus Apple is trying to
really show that there are alternative ways to learn besides reading. Getting
immersed in the subject matter — whether that's through video, audio, games,
text, or anything — is the real threshold to learning.

7\. iBook is based on the ePub3 standard. I think they're one in the same, but
with different headers.

8\. See above.

9\. No. Never will be.

10\. No. Probably will never be able to.

11\. No. Textbooks won't exist in 50 years as all knowledge will grow into
your brain from a bionano parasite injected into all humans upon birth.

OK, now to take 9,10, and 11 more seriously:

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, textbooks are hugely expensive and are
NOT designed to last forever. They contain proprietary information owned by a
publisher who has the right to let you not share it. I'm sure some version of
these books will be stored in the Library of Congress forever. And much of the
material is probably available online or at the library in one way or another.
Isn't that fine?

Apple is ushering in a new wave of education materials reform that costs LESS
than the current model and is practically weightless. Who cares that you can't
pass it on or share it. Its practically disposable.

~~~
arafalov
Actually, it is probably yes on 11 (50-year down the track). Unless Apple
encrypted the format, it is epub3 - zip file with html, xml, and other
standard-based formats in there. Unzip, extract, modify, recreate under
emulator. Same story as OpenOffice.org. Much better than than MSWord formats
and - frankly - much better than books from 50 years ago, which if you wanted
to do any "modern" thing with (e.g. searching), you would have to rip apart,
scan, do text-recognition, layout-reconstruction, etc.

Now, if Apple has put a real DRM/Encryption in there, it would be quite
another story. Even then, 50 years down the track, any digital modern
encryption will probably be a 10-second crack away.

~~~
masklinn
> Now, if Apple has put a real DRM/Encryption in there, it would be quite
> another story.

I'm pretty sure iBookStore ebooks are DRM'd (same as Kindle files) (EPUB has a
provision specifically for DRM, FWIW) but according to an other commenter the
.ibook output of iBook Author is an epub3 book, you can just change the file
extension and drop it into an ebook reader (though Apple has apparently added
e.g. CSS extensions for nifty effects, which your ebook reader likely won't
support).

------
wisty
I love Apple, but the Kindle is so much better as a reader. It can't play
Angry Birds, and the slow refresh rate makes it harder to flick back and
forwards, forcing you to focus.

~~~
roc
What makes for a good reader doesn't necessarily make for a good _textbook_
reader.

Very few textbooks are read linearly. All would benefit from solid
interactivity, search and annotating capabilities.

~~~
masklinn
Exactly. The basic reading experience is better on a Kindle, but once you use
the glossary, take notes (and get them back as small cards, that was
beautiful) and build interactivity into the text (from search up to
interactive tests, video content, image slideshow or even 3D models and micro-
applications) it starts creaking under the weight.

Random access speed (when going to a specific page, or to return a list of
results) is also nice for a textbook, while it's not very useful for a novel.

nb: the more I think about it, the more those e-textbook sound like modern
Hypercard stacks.

------
arafalov
It is interesting the number of arguments around the lock-in factor and how it
is great for Apple at the expense of everybody else. The fact is that the
format underneath should be ePub3 with extras. ePub3 (with various extras) is
and be available on various platforms.

For a traditional publisher to switch to a digital/interactive workflow is a
lot of hard-core changes. Target platform and the part of the workflow Apple
has has announced is - probably - not that big. They will have a lot more
issues around decided the type of content to migrate, kinds of assets/widgets
to use, information design of an interactive eBook, firing the track driver
company, etc.

If somebody later provides a good alternative technological solution, the
change required would be on the last 20% of the production pipeline. And
several companies tried to provide a solution earlier, they just did not catch
on because they did not have enough of a pieces to make it compelling
(enTourage eDGe anyone?).

Of course, in a meanwhile, Apple will massively benefit from the early bird
factor and may create de-facto lock-in by just being the first to actually
offer a good solution (which includes democratization of the publishing tools
by making the Author application free). This was the payoff of all the costs
that went into making iPhone, the developers went to it, therefore the iPad
already had huge momentum behind it from day one. Now Author builds on iPad's
momentum.

But that's different from a real lock-in, such as Windows (temporarily) not
sharing the details on how to make a browser to be default and making IE
browser a default for all web-related stuff. Or the lock-in of the secure
boot.

------
pflats
This is an outstanding value-add for iPads. There are a ton of school
administrators/school boards out there that love to try new technology in the
classroom. They've been chomping at the bit to buy iPads for a while now, just
waiting for the right reason.

I'd venture that being able to present it to the general public as both a
cost-cutting measure and a technology initiative will greatly increase
adoption.

~~~
stuntmouse
It's "champing at the bit."

~~~
ceejayoz
Chomping has 20x the Google results. It may be wrong, but it's the common
usage these days.

------
neilparikh
This is pretty innovative, but one big issue come to mind.

You're going to have to make sure students don't use this to browse the
internet and/or play games during class. Let's say the teacher is giving the
students a lecture, and refers them to a page in the textbook for more
information. They're not going to be able to check if ever student is gaming
or browsing the web on their iPad.

Right now students can still play games using their other devices, but in that
case, the teacher can take it away for the day. Here, the iPad contains all
their textbooks. If they take away, the student can longer use their
textbooks.

Obviously, not every student is going to to do this, but it brings in another
opportunity for the student to not pay attention.

------
neovive
How does this apply to the publishing of non-textbooks? Can you create
interactive storybooks? It seems that this is clearly textbook focused, but
are there restrictions on using this for other types of books?

~~~
johnnyn
I believe you could potentially publish any type of book to the iBookstore.

Here's the Help section for "publishing to iBookstore":
<https://gist.github.com/1641657>

And this is from the iBooks Author homepage: "Available free on the Mac App
store, iBooks Author is an amazing new app that allows anyone to create
beautiful Multi-Touch textbooks — and just about any other kind of book — for
iPad. With galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, and more, these
books bring content to life in ways the printed page never could."

------
mdellavo
While I am envious that upcoming generations will not know the absolute joy of
lugging around Chemistry, Physics and Math tombs, I am a little weary that
this plan will eliminate the used text book market. I, for one, certainly
bought more than one used textbook for less than 50% of the price of a new
text. I also had professors recommend going to the off-campus, unaffiliated
book store for used texts rather than going to the for-profit on-campus book
store in the student union.

~~~
Hemospectrum
The used textbook market was on shaky ground well before ebooks arrived on the
scene. Every year, publishers force new editions on the market, making changes
to the exercises (so old editions are incompatible with new ones) but making
no substantial changes to the actual learning material. Some instructors
prefer to assign old editions so their students can find cheaper copies, but
most don't care, and others are even contractually obligated (via the school)
to use only the newest edition.

------
lachyg
Does anyone know of a link that explains this well, with pictures and in depth
analysis that I can send to the headmaster of my old highschool? He loves this
kinda stuff.

~~~
robgough
I would presume that at some point Apple will update their "case
studies"/profiles to reflect this new tech. This may not be as in depth as
you'd like though.

<http://www.apple.com/education/profiles/>

~~~
lachyg
Ah, this is perfect. Apples just updated their site!

------
americandesi333
If you are interested, check out the comparision of Inkling Textbook vs. Apple
Textbook
[http://youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http://www.youtube.com/wat...](http://youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qo3nYQu6FM&start1=85&video2=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_f7G921RY4&start2=15&authorName=Apple+iText+Vs.+Inkling)

------
Kilimanjaro
Just downloaded iBooks Author and let me tell you how easy it is to create
books from the templates they provide. Great piece of software indeed.

Spent no more than ten minutes doing copy/paste and now I have a beautiful
digital edition of "War is a Racket" in my iPad. I'll do the same for my whole
collection of Sherlock Holmes books I got from the gutenberg project.

Believe me it is that simple.

~~~
Kilimanjaro
Btw, this same software can be used to create beautiful magazines, which I
believe can be a whole new market on itself, even to compete with newsstand or
at least to provide renewable content by subscription.

------
proofpeer_com
It seems the textbook category is not available in the UK. Or is it?? I can't
see it.

------
twodayslate
I love the $15 price for textbooks. That is great and would really help keep
prices down for students as most books are $100+ now.

My question is, can these be put onto a Kindle? Also, is there an iBook app
for Windows/OSX?

------
yequalsx
Unless the books published by iBooks Author can be played on devices not made
by Apple I don't see how this is a big deal. I know books can be exported to
PDF but a PDF doesn't have the same capabilities as an iBook2 on an iPad.

I tried creating a document in iBooks Author and I'm disappointed. It doesn't
allow one to embed a Youtube video. One can get around this by creating a
Dashcode widget and using the widget to play a Youtube video but this seems
like too much work. As a teacher, why would I go through all this trouble just
to create a book than can only be properly viewed on Apple devices? I'm not
requiring my students to by Apple products.

I must be missing something. What?

~~~
masklinn
> It doesn't allow one to embed a Youtube video. One can get around this by
> creating a Dashcode widget and using the widget to play a Youtube video but
> this seems like too much work.

> [...]

> I must be missing something. What?

That what you're doing is, sorry to say, absolutely stupid. Embedding a
youtube video? Why not just frame wikipedia pages while you're at it? You're
trying to embed not only content which may not last in time, but content which
will bring down your network when 30 students launch the video at once. And
you're creating a book which requires an internet connection, which is bloody
terrible.

Why don't you just embed the video itself, which is surely supported?

~~~
yequalsx
Only .mv4 is supported. I hardly think that 30 students watching a Youtube
video is going to bring Youtube down. Given the ubiquity of internet
connections I don't think this is too hard a requirement.

Presently, all digital mathematics content made available to students from
publishers requires an internet connection. And is an iPad app going to
contain an entire semester's worth of video content? How many gigs would that
take? The iPad doesn't have enough disk space to hold more than a couple of
books with all of the lecture videos contained within it. As such, isn't a
better idea to allow <embed> tags and have Youtube videos played from within
the iBook accessing the internet? I think so.

Your first sentence is rude. I don't think it is appropriate for this website.

------
serge2k
About the only thing I can think of that would be worse than the current
textbook industry is a textbook industry controlled by a company like Apple.

------
mfringel
I would like to thank Apple for providing school bullies with a single high-
value target.

------
drewda
Another case of Apple trying to crush Adobe, which already offers an e-book
platform: <http://www.adobe.com/digitalpublishing/ebook/>

------
baconner
+1 for the $15 price cap on textbooks -10 for the cost of devices needed to
use them.

~~~
tatsuke95
Exactly. This is great and all, but the easiest solution to the over-priced
textbook system is $14.99 textbooks that can be _printed and re-printed as
needed_ , not $15 that require a delicate, pricey device to view.

~~~
thomasjoulin
about $500 for an iPad + 10 iBooks is $649. 10 Text Books would have been
about $900...

~~~
baconner
Fair point. Total cost may be lower with this approach than the current
situation where textbook manufacturers leverage their position and IMO
significantly overcharge their often captive audience. So assuming the ipads
can be kept in working order as long as paper books its cheaper.

But its not as cheap as it could be if the format was open so other device
manufacturerers could compete to build the best low cost hardware for schools.
As it stands its mainly just moving the lions share of the income from
textbook publishers to apple.

The right thing to do IMO is to focus on a standard open format so there can
be increased competition not just on the cost of the books but on the hardware
as well. Schools need sustainable barganing power to get the best materials
for their students now and in the future. Vendor lock in takes that leverage
away.

Such open textbook innovation is already happening without apple. I applaud
Apple's effort to innovate on the format to provide richer more teacher
customizable content but I can't get behind the lock in even if its somewhat
cheaper up front.

------
nirvana
People have been talking about the economics of the iPad seemingly implying
that it is more expensive. For schools right now textbooks are really
expensive and textbook management is expensive as well (a lot of bulk to move
around and account for, etc.) Since school districts have to pay for all this,
lets do some rough numbers....

Lets assume you're talking about a high school, they have four grades, 9, 10,
11 & 12 and are on a semester system. How many classes does each student take
a semester? 10? 7? (My high school was run like a college so my experience
isn't typical. We took 10 classes each semester and had 2.5 textbooks per
class (english classes often had 6-7 books) Each class requires how many text
books? 1.2? 2?

If we assume lower numbers for a typical high school, 4 grades, 1.2 text books
per class, 2 semesters per year, 7 classes per semester and a textbook cost of
$80 is 4 x 1.2 x 2 x 7 x 80 = $5,376 in text books to put one student thru the
whole four years.

Alternatively, the school could buy one iPad, and with an average textbook
cost of $15 and everything else the same the calculation is: 4 x 1.2 x 2 x 7 x
15 + $500 = $1,508.

We can assume in both cases, the iPad and the Texbooks last 3 years (6
semesters, and 6 different students) before having to be replaced.

To me, the iPad solution looks cheaper, and all the other benefits- less
weight, more interactivity, etc, come for free.

Edit: Left out a term in the second calculation, so corrected, and using
asterisks for multiplication resulted in bad formatting, so fixed.

~~~
mdwrigh2
> We can assume in both cases, the iPad and the Texbooks last 3 years (6
> semesters, and 6 different students) before having to be replaced.

I suspect this assumption is flawed. Textbooks will last much longer than an
iPad, especially once you start considering theft.

The downside of this setup to me is that the students would need the iPads at
home to do homework. So either you let the students take them from the class
room (where I suspect they will get stolen relatively frequently), or require
students to own their own iPad (which isn't really feasible). If this solution
had a way of viewing the books via a computer as well, then it starts to
become feasible.

~~~
nirvana
I'm assuming the students take the textbooks home from school and would do the
same with the iPad. I don't believe textbooks would last longer than an iPad,
I believe they wouldn't last nearly as long. Textbooks fall apart, this is how
the textbook industry gets revenue from replacement. iPads generally don't
fall apart. I doubt there would be much iPad theft, and if there was, it
wouldn't be too hard for Apple to provide technical solutions that make the
schools iPads difficult to use and thus resell on the secondary market, much
the same way the "Find my iPhone" lets you remotely wipe your phone.

If school districts opted for this feature, the iPad could simply stop working
if not connected to the internet for a week, and when it does connect to the
internet, it checks to see if its been stolen and if so, wipes itself and
renders itself inoperable.

This would be relatively easy for Apple to implement and is the kind of thing
they would do if they're entering into agreements to sell large numbers of
iPads to school districts.

Thus stealing a school iPad makes little sense- the machine would have no
value after a week.

Edit: He proposed a problem with my perspective, I proposed a solution. So,
naturally, I'm being down voted.

~~~
mdwrigh2
> I don't believe textbooks would last longer than an iPad, I believe they
> wouldn't last nearly as long.

According to some answers on Quora[1], textbooks are replaced closer to every
7 - 10 years, so, again, I suspect you're wrong in that they won't last as
long. They're quite durable.

> I doubt there would be much iPad theft, and if there was, it wouldn't be too
> hard for Apple to provide technical solutions that make the schools iPads
> difficult to use and thus resell on the secondary market, much the same way
> the "Find my iPhone" lets you remotely wipe your phone. If school districts
> opted for this feature, the iPad could simply stop working if not connected
> to the internet for a week, and when it does connect to the internet, it
> checks to see if its been stolen and if so, wipes itself and renders itself
> inoperable.

I agree that there are some solutions, but given how much there is to be
gained by someone figuring out how to bypass it, I wouldn't be surprised if
someone figured out how to.

Even given that textbook theft and iPad theft will be equivalent in dollars
(that is, for every iPad that's stolen 5 - 10 textbooks are stolen), I would
still question that calculation. For example, the $15/textbook only holds when
iBooks is not the sole distribution channel. When it is, publishers can set
their own price.

Now, don't get me wrong, I would love for this to work. I think this is a
great idea. I'm just frustrated that it only works on the iPad, rather than
being open and having a _great_ app for the iPad. Being able to transition
into it by using laptops, computer labs and iPads simultaneously would just be
so much easier.

~~~
culturestate
Re: theft, when I was in high school, if you didn't return your textbooks or
returned them in in poor condition you were billed for their replacement cost
and were not allowed to graduate until you settled the bill. I imagine the
system would be much the same with iPads.

~~~
mdwrigh2
1) What if the family can't afford it? Do you just deny them graduation?

2) I'm not necessarily saying that they get stolen when they go home. A room
full of iPads just sitting there over the summer is a very tempting target for
thieves.

~~~
culturestate
To your first point, yes, that's how it worked. You don't pay, you don't get a
diploma. I personally had to pay something like $120 to replace a physics
textbook that I apparently didn't return at some point, despite the numerous
angles 18-year-old me tried to play to get out of it.

To the second, most school districts, as far as I know, have central
warehouses for textbooks, so why wouldn't at least a portion of a warehouse be
converted to secure iPad storage?

------
shmerl
All this are just dirty tactics from Apple to lock users into their iTunes
infrastructure. One wouldn't be able to use those textbooks anywhere outside
iTunes, therefore it's defective by design and authors shouldn't fall for it.

