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Apple announce i-textbooks for schools
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paulbrock
19-01-2012
So Apple's latest foray into content involves having students having ipads at school and getting all their new interactive textbooks on there.

Anyone can publish one of these interactive textbooks, and several big textbook companies are on board.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57...?tag=mncol;txt


The catch? You have to own a Mac to publish a book, and you can only read them on iPads or other Apple hardware.

I'd prefer a more open format myself, something like HTML5 that students could view on any device, but then that won't make Apple money, will it...
Roush
19-01-2012
Originally Posted by paulbrock:
“something like HTML5 that students could view on any device, but then that won't make Apple money, will it...”

Using HTML5 wouldn't make the authors and publishers any money either as there's no DRM...
IvanIV
19-01-2012
Seems like a luxury thing for schools to use high-end tablets to read books.
alanwarwic
19-01-2012
Is it not just a tool to create epub 3 files?
paulbrock
19-01-2012
Originally Posted by Roush:
“Using HTML5 wouldn't make the authors and publishers any money either as there's no DRM...”

Any reason why they couldn't be put behind a paywall?
Roush
19-01-2012
Originally Posted by paulbrock:
“Any reason why they couldn't be put behind a paywall?”

Yes, the content would be downloadable and would then be unprotected.
Roush
19-01-2012
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“Is it not just a tool to create epub 3 files?”

I would imagine that it essentially is yes, but the DRM wrapper used in iBooks is a proprietary Apple format, so you'd need Apple's publishing tool to secure publications.
paulbrock
19-01-2012
Originally Posted by Roush:
“Yes, the content would be downloadable and would then be unprotected.”

I would imagine finding something that works on all devices as well as having DRM is not a particularly difficult problem to crack.
Lumstorm
19-01-2012
Originally Posted by paulbrock:
“I would imagine finding something that works on all devices as well as having DRM is not a particularly difficult problem to crack.”

Yes but that would go against the idea to get Apple products into schools, they want to teach kids to be good consumers and buy only Apple products.
psionic
19-01-2012
Originally Posted by IvanIV:
“Seems like a luxury thing for schools to use high-end tablets to read books.”

Presumably these are fee paying schools with affluent students. I'll hold my breath on them being made available to kids at the local comprehensive. But they do get Asus netbooks at least.
thedrewser
20-01-2012
I would have thought the university market would be the most profitable as I can picture lots of students carrying around iPads and using textbooks on them rather than cart the bagful of heavy textbooks around.
John259
20-01-2012
Haven't Amazon already got this market sewn up with Kindle?
thedrewser
20-01-2012
Originally Posted by John259:
“Haven't Amazon already got this market sewn up with Kindle?”

If I'm reading it right it's not so much that you can read textbooks, but the fact they are interactive etc with built in video clips, test questions etc so they become learning experiences rather than just reading material.
John259
20-01-2012
Originally Posted by thedrewser:
“If I'm reading it right it's not so much that you can read textbooks, but the fact they are interactive etc with built in video clips, test questions etc so they become learning experiences rather than just reading material.”

Ah, fair point if that's the case.
alves
20-01-2012
Originally Posted by psionic:
“Presumably these are fee paying schools with affluent students. I'll hold my breath on them being made available to kids at the local comprehensive. But they do get Asus netbooks at least.”

I'm not so sure. A friend of mine who has children at a primary school has been told the school are trying to budget for "iPads and Kindles".

Crazy, imo.
lazycalm
20-01-2012
Originally Posted by John259:
“Ah, fair point if that's the case.”

I think it is - the idea is definitely to produce more interactive app type things, rather than just digital versions of text books.

Politics aside, Al Gore's Our Choice App was a bit of an inspiration apparently:

link here
IvanIV
20-01-2012
I will risk sounding like an old fart, but we did not have any interactive books and we managed. Now it is supposed to be fun and interactive and it feels like kids know less. It could also benefit lazy or incompetent teachers who want to eliminate some work in the class.
alanwarwic
20-01-2012
Everything is already around in EPUB and PDF.

But Apple moves 'older farts than us' forwards so some of it could be good.
akonobi
20-01-2012
There's just one problem. I hate Apple and its OS. I will never buy an Apple product and that's final.
pi r squared
20-01-2012
Originally Posted by IvanIV:
“It could also benefit lazy or incompetent teachers who want to eliminate some work in the class.”

Equally, it could support good and outstanding teachers who want to add another element to their teaching.
Originally Posted by IvanIV:
“Seems like a luxury thing for schools to use high-end tablets to read books.”

I don't know how much these e-books would sell for, but I'd hazard a guess that a school - with its combination of VAT exemption, bulk discount and educational discount - could probably buy in a number of iPads for around the £300/ea mark. The last set of text books I bought in for my department set us back about £20/ea. In a school with twenty or so departments, it's entirely feasible that an iPad + eBooks could weigh in at a similar price to a textbook for each department. Of course, the cost of going from textbooks to iPad + eBook is non-trivial...

I understand Apple's thinking from a corporate point of view on this one - kids see iPad at school, see that it's funky, bug mummy and daddy to buy one and another inflated profit margin goes into Apple's coffers. As an Android boy I appreciate I am biased, but I would be more in favour of at least a certain degree of platform agnosticism: a model similar to Amazon's 'sell the Kindle but offer the Kindle app for a tonne of platforms, and recoup the cost from the Kindle store rather than forcing everyone to have a Kindle' would be more pleasing for me, but I'm thinking the chances are pretty slim.
John259
20-01-2012
Originally Posted by pi r squared:
“I would be more in favour of at least a certain degree of platform agnosticism...”

Agreed, and perhaps something not-for-profit. Wikibooks? http://en.wikibooks.org
Gormond
20-01-2012
I know from personal experience that finding digital University textbooks is almost impossible and they are so big and heavy there is no way you can lug them around with you so you end up leaving them at home.

If they were all on the iPad this would solve that issue either via iBooks or via the Kindle app.
lazycalm
20-01-2012
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“Everything is already around in EPUB and PDF.

But Apple moves 'older farts than us' forwards so some of it could be good.”

I didn't think EPUB and PDF offer the same level of interactivity as this sort of thing does.
spaceman05
20-01-2012
Originally Posted by IvanIV:
“Seems like a luxury thing for schools to use high-end tablets to read books.”

my 9 and 10 year old kids get to use ipad`s, ipod`s, imac`s at school( wonders what they will be asking for next christmas), my daughter came home the other day and told me she had P.E(physical education) that day, and it consisted of playing on a nintendo wii
Gormond
20-01-2012
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“Everything is already around in EPUB and PDF.

But Apple moves 'older farts than us' forwards so some of it could be good.”

This is not true, none of my textbooks are available in digital format.
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