

Inkling: interactive textbooks on the iPad. - shadytrees
http://www.inkling.com/
Four textbooks available so far: http://www.inkling.com/about<p>Having used Raven's biology text, which is a good textbook but would've tremendously benefited from something like this because of how much data you need to retain for biology, this makes me pretty excited for THE FUTURE.
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todayiamme
I am in the target market for this and something disturbs me. It looks so
great and neat that I wonder what will happen to the noise to signal ratio. I
am not exactly the Buddha in terms of concentration and the last thing I want
is to be plugged into an interactive environment (the app itself and the
iPad). I'll play around, have urges to read a million things at a time; do
quizzes; watch videos; write notes to share instead of writing them to learn
and in general do everything on it, but learn. What makes it even more
dangerous is the fact that it _looks_ like I am learning something.

That's the problem with a lot of products I see. It's not that I don't have a
use for them. It's the fact that I _don't_ want to get used to them.
Sometimes, the bare bones is just how things should be. Of course, it's
awfully convenient to have things in this package, but it won't serve the
purpose that well.

This is why I plan to buy the color kindle someday, if they come out with a
decent system to take annotations. It scratches my itch for books with an
occasional physics/ math/ computer text, while offering me an environment I
can curtail. Hopefully, someday I will have more fine tuned control over
myself, but until then I plan to stay away from such things.

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scott_s
This is a legitimate problem, but not unique to this product. Anyone who uses
a computer to get work done already deals with this.

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xtacy
I haven't tried it; can people comment about iPad screen resolution and how
readable it is? I've seen those magnified pictures, but how easy is it on the
eye?

~~~
muhfuhkuh
I can literally stare into the thing for hours: reading books/articles,
surfing, watching video. It's makes no further strain on my eyes than does an
LCD monitor (though, full disclosure: I use a P-MVA screen, which is
supposedly "better quality" as LCDs go), and I _have_ to look at that for
hours a day for my work.

I think the people who don't like looking at the iPad screen for more than a
few minutes base their patterns on personal or ideological beliefs, or are
personally invested in another platform like OLED or e-ink (i.e., fanboys).

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xtacy
I was at a Peter Norvig lecture recently and he talked about ideas for his
next book, to have it interactive with videos and such. He said that this
would be a great way for authors to get implicit feedback from readers and see
which sections they're reading and what they're not. (Analytics for book
authors!)

Imagine having a lisp shell right next to the exercise so that you edit the
program, execute it and see the output! The possibilities are endless---it
just has to be done right.

EDIT: One of the main reasons authors stick with publishers is that they
cannot handle mass printing. It becomes just too difficult. With this model,
it would be easier to distribute the content directly to the user, rather than
dealing with a (possibly grumpy) publisher.

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shadytrees
Four textbooks available so far: <http://www.inkling.com/about>

Having used Raven's biology text, which is a good textbook but would've
tremendously benefited from something like this because of how much data you
need to retain for biology, this makes me pretty excited for THE FUTURE.

~~~
wmf
It amazes me that this information is so hard to find on their site.

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hartror
Now all you need is Windows 3.11 and one of those newfangled CD-ROMs and you
too can run Encarta!

    
    
        or
    

The 1990s called and they want their ideas back!

    
    
        /end_sarcasm
    

This looks like a nicely polished product, the major barrier to uptake is
going to be getting someone to use it as part of the syllabus. Difficult given
that it will require the school to require everyone who takes the class to
have an iPad.

~~~
ben1040
_This looks like a nicely polished product, the major barrier to uptake is
going to be getting someone to use it as part of the syllabus. Difficult given
that it will require the school to require everyone who takes the class to
have an iPad._

Not exactly. One of the books listed there, for example, is a popular text I
had for an intro biology course at my university. To me, it seems more that if
your professor has adopted one of the books, you can buy the iPad version
instead of the dead tree copy.

As an aside, I wish I had an iPad version of that biology text when I took
that class, if only because it was a monster book that weighed down my
backpack.

~~~
hartror
Ahh I didn't realise that they were existing text books!

The very pretty video didn't highlight that point, perhaps they should be
pitching the front page video to customers rather than investors?

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wyclif
Great product, but the choice of name/branding is spectacular for a book-and-
reading based startup:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inklings>

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rodh257
Sounds great, but would be better on something with a better (ie more
readable) screen. The application needs to be device agnostic.

If these guys can come through with the goods, it would be ideal:
<http://www.notionink.in/>

Make it a HTML or something app so people with other devices (windows, android
tablets/ereaders) can make use of it. (perhaps an idea for a startup would be
a website/program that lets content producers create these without HTML
knowledge. That is, a builder for interactive HTML5 based text books.)

~~~
jforman
The platform was actually designed to be device agnostic - the content is
expressed in X(HT)ML.

The iPad is our first target device because Apple did tablets right. You'll
have to wait to see what comes next :)

~~~
rodh257
Oh I see, I just saw the link to the app store and assumed.. So you are saying
that it is easily ported to other devices, but still requires a native
application? What requirements stop you from making it an online thing, that
people could use with their home computers as well? Or is it just a personal
preference?

Nevertheless I like the site and the idea.

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chwahoo
Based on the website, this looks awesome. But it would seem to compete fairly
directly with iBooks. It's bound to be a time-consuming/costly process to
prepare content for this platform. I wonder how inkling has convinced
themselves and their partners that Apple won't pull the plug on their venture.

~~~
nanairo
I don't see why Apple would pull the plug. Sure, the app store has its
problems (and I dislike those too) but it seems to me their only danger is
that they are competing with Apple directly.

There is already Kindle and iBooks... and there may very well soon be more. I
don't think Apple really cares that much, who sells the books. Especially if,
as in this case, they still get their 30% share.

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nanairo
Wow! This is really impressive!

It seems all that we were promised for the age of the ebook and then some! It
looks like a product of love and plenty of polish.

My only worries is that they may risk becoming the artisan version of the
ebook (on iPad) world: wonderfully handcrafted, but slow to scale. By the look
of it porting a book to Inkling is not trivial!

I'll keep my fingers crossed for a great future for Inkling. :)

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exit
i wonder how this is implemented. as a browser for local html archives?

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kurumo
Is nobody bothered by the prices of the actual books?

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iaskwhy
I can only see the price of the biology book, $149.99, which is cheaper than
the paper one, $178.75 on Amazon[1].

[1] <http://www.amazon.com/Biology-Peter-Raven/dp/0072921641>

~~~
ashearer
That brings up the 7th edition for me, while the app is based on the 9th
edition. The 9th edition hardcover price is actually cheaper than the 7th
edition, at $154.00:

<http://www.amazon.com/Biology-Peter-Raven/dp/0077350022>

But the "in-app purchases" section of the App Store page lists the online
price as $119.99, so online still works out substantially cheaper than the new
hardcover. I'm not sure where the higher price came from.

Regardless, you can do even better at other sellers or used if you're willing
to get the 7th edition of the hardcover. At other sellers linked from Amazon
the price goes down to about $100, and the used price is around $5. (Amazon
does make this more difficult by displaying a lot of noise in the form of
other books named "Biology" by different authors, even though the URL
specifies "Biology-Peter-Raven".)

Edit: App Store web page for Inkling with textbook and chapter prices:

<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/inkling/id379351586?mt=8>

~~~
iaskwhy
Sorry, I saw that price on the cart screenshot[1], on the homepage!

[1] <http://www.inkling.com/_img/generic/feathome-cart.jpg>

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mhb
It looks great, but what makes this different than a (curated) walled garden
section of the internet?

~~~
ra88it
Is somebody arguing that it _is_ different?

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mhb
The implication of this being news is that they're demonstrating something
new. It may have escaped the notice of some, but I thought it was pretty well-
established that you could use an iPad to surf the internet.

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Infomus
Now I want an Ipad

