Apple announces iBooks 2, iBooks Author to "reinvent textbooks"

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/01/apple-announces-ibooks-2-to-reinvent-textbooks.ars

by FluidDjango • 15 years ago

116 181 15 years ago

johnnyn4• 15 years ago

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

cxz• 15 years ago

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.

betterth3• 15 years ago

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.

fredley4• 15 years ago

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.

keeran• 15 years ago

"We wanted to get started with partners early, so we're starting with high school textbooks priced at $14.99 or less. "

edit: source http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/19/live-coverage-of-apples-...

omfg2• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

> 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.

johnnyn4• 15 years ago

iBooks Author gives teachers the opportunity to create and update their own textbooks, which has been a common desire for teachers. They'll finally be able have their textbooks match the curriculum they have in mind. It might not fix America's education problem, but it's a step in the right direction.

fredley4• 15 years ago

For those that can afford it.

saturdaysaint• 15 years ago

I'll be surprised if the iPad doesn't dip to $400 this year, and I'd be shocked if schools don't get bulk discounts on top of that. And there's no reason to assume that $15 is the absolute minimum price - we'll see free alternatives in the near future.

I'm jealous of the kids - I remember lugging around 30 pounds of books and a bulky binder everywhere, and even then making frequent locker runs. And I have few fond memories of textbooks in technical subjects, where a few simple demonstrations (now embedable!) could often go further than a mountain of diagrams and words.

drumdance• 15 years ago

On that note, is the iPad + keyboard close enough to a laptop that it can replace it for students in college? Obviously not for engineering students, but possibly good enough for liberal arts?

maercsrats2• 15 years ago

I just moved to IN so I need to double check the school system here but I do know about the TN system. My knowledge will vary county to county but in general I think this is true. I also made a comment above but will reprint some of it here.

I'm sorry but, what the hell are you talking about? Many schools require students to have laptops in high school now. Teachers are constantly being told that then need to use more and more technology in their classrooms to better engage their students. If there aren't students who can afford machines then they are given one in class.

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.

smspence3• 15 years ago

Where did anyone say that kids' parents will have to buy these? And where are you getting this "thousands of dollars" figure from?

Most high school students don't have to buy textbooks at all. The school provides them. And nowadays, most schools already have iPads and laptops (school-owned, the parents do not buy them) that the students use in the class room. I imagine this is something that the schools will be interested in buying.

A close friend of mine is a 4th grade teacher, and it is amazing how much technology they have in the class room now. Laptops and iPads for almost every single student. This is not a school for "rich kids" either. It is an elementary school in a small town in Iowa, and not a "rich" area in any way.

I just laugh and roll my eyes when I read all the comments here that act like someone is going to hold a gun to a poor parent's head and force them to go without buying food because they have to buy iPads and "thousands of dollars" worth of books. Where is this coming from?

jonhohle4• 15 years ago

The licensing and economics isn't clear to me.

Can a school district buy 1,000 iPads ($500,000) and purchase one iBook to put on all devices ($15)? (total $500,015). The original cost of those books, which would last about a decade, is about $100, so the textbook investment seems a lot cheaper ($100,000).

Or are kids supposed to bring their own iPads ($500 is a lot for some families expecting "free" eduction) and the district provides licenses for the books ($15,000 for one subject per year for the above example, $150,000 over 10 years). That's still more expensive than paper books.

TheFuture• 15 years ago

The richest kids? No way, this is far more beneficial to the poorest kids in the worst school districts in the US (and world)!

The richest kids can already go to private schools and get a great prep education.

The poorest kids are stuck in terrible public school districts because of their zipcode, yet the per pupil spending can be as high as private schools.

Now if these kids are given a choice, say, here's a voucher for $10k, enroll in a virtual school, get an $500 iPad loaded with $100 worth of material. That's a BARGAIN! And it will only get cheaper.

The future of education is choice and private schools. It can still be public in terms of it being funded by public funds, but there's no reason to have the government running schools. They're doing a terrible job, and it has to stop because it's so important that we have good schools.

jstsch• 15 years ago

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...

fredley4• 15 years ago

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.

runaway2• 15 years ago

It sounds like it is open. HTML-based with a couple vendor-specific properties that anyone can interpret if they like. Anything I'm missing?

johnnyn4• 15 years ago

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.

archivator2• 15 years ago

Well, virtually all eBook formats are HTML based (EPUB and Mobi definitely are). EPUB3 even supports embedded JavaScript.

It wouldn't have been impossible for Apple to push the CSS extensions to {CSS3}+1 and be using an open format. But no, it has to be Apple-branded and proprietary..

masklinn6• 15 years ago

'far's I know, iBooks and iBookStore uses EPUB + DRM. Those textbooks would be EPUB3 with extensions and a custom file extension.

lachyg2• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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/

lachyg2• 15 years ago

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

gdilla2• 15 years ago

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.

archivator2• 15 years ago

It's worth mentioning that EPUB3 is based on HTML5 and supports scripting - http://idpf.org/epub/30/spec/epub30-overview-20111011.html#s...

Of course, if you need more reasons for a switch to EPUB3, it also has brilliant accessibility and will be supported by a multitude of readers, not just iDevices.

superos3• 15 years ago

Thanks for that reminder. We might see iBooks versus all other vendors using EPUB3 then.

maercsrats2• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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

moultano• 15 years ago

>there isn't a tablet market, there is only an ipad market.

There is certainly a laptop market. It would make sense to make the books compatible with the devices students already have.

mladenkovacevic3• 15 years ago

Who cares though. That's like arguing over which paper stock is the most prevalent in the market today and then putting the manufacturer of that paper stock in the driver's seat of the publishing industry.

The iPad rules now.. but maybe net-books will make a miraculous comeback soon. Or maybe some other kind of device will take over.. flexible digital displays? Is there anything sooo complex about a textbook (even a digitally super-duper fancy one) that really can't be done on a platform that will adapt to any device? (aka the internet)

SpikeDad• 15 years ago

I'd have to disagree with you on the build once, run everywhere philosophy. If you're talking about mobile apps, there's really no such thing. And textbooks (at least as Apple sees them) are a subset of mobile apps.

It takes specialized environment to make a device specific application and now text book. However, I have read that Apple is keen on ePub 3 standard so perhaps we'll see an export function to make an ePub 3 formatted book in the future. Right now, the iBook Author tool seems to have only PDF as the export function.

dunham2• 15 years ago

It also exports an ".ibooks" file, which is an epub file with a different filename extension. This is the file that gets shipped to ibooks.

It looks like standard epub, with some additional files (so it _should_ degrade.)

Apple put some ncx extensions (looks like thumbnails) into a separate file, and referenced it from a meta tag in the .ncx file. They added their usual com.apple.ibooks.display-options.xml file, that they have for their fixed-layout epubs, but I think they're using CSS for layout in the new files.

The xhtml/css generated from their app doesn't render well in a browser or calibre. I suspect that's because of their use of avant-garde css features (e.g. @page ). I think these files would be able to degrade to other epub readers with some css tweaks.

baconner2• 15 years ago

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

tatsuke952• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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

betterth3• 15 years ago

You've just missed two critical points:

1) The point of iPad learning isn't words on paper, it's finding new ways to engage students using platforms that naturally excite them. By claiming what we need is "cheap words on cheap paper", you're essentially ignoring all technology. Even paper was too expensive for schools in the past, and technology will catch up.

2) Ebooks reach MUCH further than paper. Is your biology book available in rural India? With smartphone penetration in the developing world hitting all time highs and expected to expand even more dramatically, this kind of system opens up the possibility for globalizing education and giving any school with this device great tools. Will the iPad/iDevice lead the charge in the developing world? Probably not, but this is opening the doors, defining the systems and getting the entire chain into it, from publishers, to authors, to teachers and students. It's a great first step.

ZeroGravitas• 15 years ago

I believe that price cap only applies to the current High School Textbooks. It's university textbooks where the price gets really crazy.

pflats2• 15 years ago

I assure you, high school texts are not much cheaper.

martingordon2• 15 years ago

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.

beatle3• 15 years ago

I agree with this.

iPad 3 499

iPad 2 399

Refurbed iPad 1 $99-$299

ChrisLTD4• 15 years ago

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

swilliams• 15 years ago

I did download the new iBooks and some sample textbooks on my iPad 1. It's definitely on the slow side, but not terrible. Though that may change over time as future iOS versions are released.

jonhendry10• 15 years ago

Also, compare the price of an iPad to the price of three or four high school textbooks, which I'm sure aren't cheap either.

wisty• 15 years ago

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.

peteretep• 15 years ago

And this is the reason that I as a Mac fanboi still don't have an iPad. However, I have no trouble reading the Kindle on my iPhone when I forget my real Kindle, leading me to believe I'm going to enjoy reading on an iPad 3, a lot, especially NYT and The Economist, which suck on Kindles.

betterth3• 15 years ago

Kindle is better for TEXT only.

iPad is incomparably better for anything that uses more than straight text.

Even today's textbooks would be very poor on Kindle compared to iPad.

But today's bestsellers are much better on Kindle than iPad, in my opinion. I like the e-ink for long periods of text reading.

ceejayoz6• 15 years ago

> 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.

All of which is fine for a bog standard textbook, but Apple's working to make these things more useful - full color interactive experiments, video, etc.

roc• 15 years ago

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.

masklinn6• 15 years ago

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.

ugh2• 15 years ago

Textbooks need fast navigation and color. Textbooks also aren’t read like novels. All this is true of current textbooks, even without any animations, videos or interactive elements.

E-ink is a bad fit for them. All it has going for it is the lower price of available devices (which is a major plus) and that some people claim they get eyestrain from reading on LCDs (hardly an issue with textbooks).

wallflower• 15 years ago

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://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cU8NFy0sa_Y/TuWAj8ZBMVI/AAAAAAAABl...

pstuart• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

danilocampos• 15 years ago

I thought the primer was driven by an actor in a booth, not an AI. Should I re-read?

msbarnett• 15 years ago

Yeah. The primer decided all of the content, the actor was for emoting instead of poor voice synth, iirc.

mfringel• 15 years ago

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

pflats2• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

It's "champing at the bit."

ceejayoz6• 15 years ago

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

palebluedot5• 15 years ago

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.

masklinn6• 15 years ago

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)

palebluedot5• 15 years ago

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.

shmerl8• 15 years ago

The problem is not only DRM, but lock in into Apple. Using iTunes is not acceptable, it's not interoperable.

jonhendry10• 15 years ago

I doubt many K-12 kids care. And it's not like they get much flexibility in other areas of their educations.

Anyway, now that iPads are usable without iTunes or a computer at all, I don't see how iTunes is relevant.

palebluedot5• 15 years ago

Interesting that I am receiving downvotes for this comment (although there seem to be some upvotes as well).

It isn't a bash against Apple - I would have the same concerns if it was Amazon or Google, if there was DRM and/or device lock-in.

And I think ebooks could be very good for students - however, limiting it with DRM and device lock-in is not how it should be done.

shmerl8• 15 years ago

Do you think someone here really considers vendor lock in a positive thing?

nirvana7• 15 years ago

I didn't see anywhere an indication that Apple wouldn't support open, non-DRM ebooks. They do now. If you want to build a publishing business making textbooks without DRM, Apple will be happy to support you. Distribute however you want. If you want to make them free on the iBookstore without DRM, Apple will likely support you.

When I went to college, the text books were a proprietary system with built in DRM.

The professors and the text publishers had deals, involving kickbacks I'm sure, and professors were known to demand that you used the current Edition (which was really no better, and often worse than the previous).

They enforced this by asking questions that involved answers that were different in different editions or that weren't covered in previous editions.

Further, all the books had physical DRM. The glue they were bound with and the cardboard the covers was made out of was designed to disintegrate over the course of a semester, even with good care. I kept my books on a shelf next to my desk in my dorm and never took them to class, and still couldn't sell them at the end of the semester because they'd fallen apart.

Once again, Apple's taking a proprietary industry that is used to charging high prices and trying to democratize it and bring prices down.

Apple did this successfully with the music industry before getting them to give up on DRM.

This is a good forward step with the textbook industry.

Plus by definition if you create software which supports new features you have lock-in.

Apple supports the ePub 2 standard. Apple is as interoperable as they can be. Its amazon that created a proprietary ebook standard. Apple's evolving the standard forward, but I've not seen anything to indicate that these aren't just ePub 3 books.

palebluedot5• 15 years ago

That is not DRM. That is shoddy craftsmanship, poor quality, etc. But it is not DRM. DRM specifically limits your rights - Digital Rights Management - with regard to the content.

Plus by definition if you create software which supports new features you have lock-in.

Not necessarily, if it is an open standard - and if it is an open ePub 3 standard, then that is great. However, if it is DRM inhibited, then it is enforced lock-in. However, interoperability is key, so it needs to be both an open platform, and DRM-free. And it would be disingenuous to argue that the book format is an open standard, if it has non-open DRM locking it down. The DRM becomes part of the book, and cannot be separated from the standard, at that point.

I am not arguing that the college textbook industry does not need reform, or is not prohibitively expensive. It does, and it is. I am arguing against DRM in textbooks, and device lock-in.

epistasis• 15 years ago

Schools (and corporations) have embraced lock-in from Microsoft and Oracle with open arms, for both longer lock-in time periods, and for greater investment amounts. It's a problem there too, but this is a much smaller problem than locking into Exchange for the next 5 years.

yequalsx3• 15 years ago

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?

jonhendry10• 15 years ago

" 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."

You might create a book if you worked for a school district that as policy provides iPads to the students. That's the value proposition Apple is offering: schools spend a ton of money on buying textbooks and buying new editions every so often. If Apple can make it cheaper to use iPads, then the school benefits by switching to iPads.

yequalsx3• 15 years ago

That's a fair point. I'm in higher education and our school doesn't buy books. I've created video lectures using Camtasia using a Wacom tablet and pen. The notes are in PDF format and I've created my own exercises. Students for one of my classes don't need to buy a book because I've got everything done for that course.

I'd like to use something like iBook Author but only if I can export it in a device independent way.

masklinn6• 15 years ago

> 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?

yequalsx3• 15 years ago

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.

nirvana7• 15 years ago

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.

Zakuzaa• 15 years ago

Plus you also get an ipad for life.

nirvana7• 15 years ago

That would be the case if we were talking about college, where, 20 years ago textbooks were easily $100, and you had more of them per class. I think the economics work even better there...

But I'm using High School as the example and assuming the district is paying the costs and keeping textbooks and iPads on average for 3 years.

Some people have claimed that iPads won't last very long... but Apple offers AppleCare+ (at least for the iPhone, I expect they'll offer even better warrantees for school districts.)

AppleCare+ will replace a damaged device up to three times for $49 over the course of 3 years, IIRC.

I think the economics are great for high schools, but positively spectacular for colleges (and I'm assuming college textbooks are no longer as cheap as $100, and that the resell situation is as bad- we'd be lucky to get $15 on resale, and the books were bound with glue designed to fall apart over the course of a single semester.)

mdwrigh26• 15 years ago

> 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.

nirvana7• 15 years ago

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.

beatle3• 15 years ago

>especially once you start considering theft

>where I suspect they will get stolen relatively frequently

I think your assumption is even more flawed. Textbooks are replaced every 3+ years or so, that's a given. You're worried about something that might happen.

anon_student• 15 years ago

Textbooks lasting three years, from my experience, is incorrect. I attend one of the "better" public schools in California, and textbooks here are currently from two "waves": around 1979 for many books, and 2003-2004 for others (a few, of course, are newer or even older). These books are just as beat up as you'd expect, but the funds simply don't exist to replace them.

If you calculate ~25 years for a physical textbook, it doesn't look anywhere near as appealing to use an iPad. Which leads me to find it unlikely that the iBooks textbooks will be adopted in public school. However, private schools (which could require deposits on the iPads, and could also simply charge for them if needed) may well find this announcement useful.

bradleyjg• 15 years ago

The recommended k-12 textbook replacement cycle is generally six years. Of course, there is damage and loss that has to be taken into account, but districts generally try to stretch their purchases out at least that long.

nirvana7• 15 years ago

I believe that they go 6 years between changing the edition or textbook they are using. I don't believe the actual text books last that long. Surely some last longer and some don't last nearly as long.

The 3 years I chose was based on the average time that textbooks lasted in my high school. (I worked in the text book department during school, and that was the time period, though it may have been 3.5 years.)

CraigRood2• 15 years ago

You are assuming that textbooks are gifts to the children and are never returned and re-used.

nirvana7• 15 years ago

No, I'm not. In both cases I'm assuming they are owned by the school and giving the costs to provide them for one child through the four years of school.

neilparikh2• 15 years ago

Textbooks can last for way more than 3 years. Right now, my math textbook is in great condition, and just by looking at how many names it has in it, it probably has been used for at at least 4 years, and at this rate, it'll probably last for another 3 or 4 years, and that's a conservative number too.

My school has 4 classes per semester, and a lot of times electives, like construction, art, mechanics etc. don't have textbooks, so even if we go by 7 classes per semester, we can probably cut the amount of classes that require textbooks in half. And if you factor in the fact that textbooks can last 6 years (going by my anecdotal evidence), you can get the textbook and iPad price quite similar. In this case, schools may go with the iPad anyway, given the push made by made schools to provide students with digital literacy.

neovive• 15 years ago

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?

johnnyn4• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

jonhendry10• 15 years ago

If a new e-textbook is under $15, what's the point of seeking a used one? Even if that were an option, you wouldn't save much, and I would expect e-textbooks to be updated more frequently, so you might be missing something if you bought last year's e-textbook.

I suspect with lots of students they sell their old textbooks to save space as much as to recoup some of the cost (or get some money for beer).

Hemospectrum• 15 years ago

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.

twodayslate• 15 years ago

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?

shmerl8• 15 years ago

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.

mladenkovacevic3• 15 years ago

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).

jdminhbg2• 15 years ago

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.

mladenkovacevic3• 15 years ago

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

grantheaslip• 15 years ago

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.

milesskorpen2• 15 years ago

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

superos3• 15 years ago

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(?)

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• 15 years ago

(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.

arafalov3• 15 years ago

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.

richbradshaw• 15 years ago

I've just made a .ibooks file, and if you unzip it it's just a normal epub3 file (I think). The mime type is application/x-ibooks+zip.

If it's not epub (not 100% familiar with format), it's just xhtml, css, svg, some plists and all your assets (jpgs, pngs, etc)

superos3• 15 years ago

That is interesting. So far so good :-)

pooriaazimi• 15 years ago

> 6. I still love eInk.

I do too, but for a novel. For a next-generation textbook, I'd rather have videos, animations, interactive materials. It sucks at sunlight, but again I study at my room and maybe that'll change in a few years.

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

Do you think that publishers that sell you a physical book for $119 would let you inspect their digital books and possibly re-sell them?

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

It might be. I think it depends on what publishers want (DRM'ed or non-DRM'ed).

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

In the future, I'm sure you will.

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

If YOU bought them, sure (that is, if Apple is still around). If your school bought them for you, probably not.

gfodor• 15 years ago

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.

r00fus2• 15 years ago

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).

Someone• 15 years ago

Technically, they did cap prices after the "I am rich" app.

Back to the subject: I expect prices will rise to whatever the market accepts.

On the one hand, that may be less than what it currently accepts, because a) people expect lower prices for non-physical goods and b) there may be more competition.

On the other hand, production prices for 'books' might increase by orders of magnitude if publishers insert lots of interactive stuff (but I guess many textbooks already ship with CDs or URLs, so that effect may not be that large)

Tycho• 15 years ago

Hmm but since private schools already exist, a more granular way for families to improve their child's education by choosing to spend more money on it is surely only going to be an improvement. (no idea why you were down voted)

jonknee• 15 years ago

The music store is a very obvious example of Apple using a price cap.

alanfalcon• 15 years ago

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.

mikeash• 15 years ago

Last I saw, regular books on iBooks could be priced at a maximum of $39.99.

Historiopode2• 15 years ago

This is the reason to be interested in such matters, but I fail to see much of interest in this initiative from the strict perspective of textbook quality. (I will admit, however, that I am alien to the current e-textbook market and technologies.)

While fancy galleries, embedded videos and the such are quite nice, I would dare to suppose that they are not exactly novelties in the ebook field. I might be austere, but Apple-style animations seem toyish, distracting and out-of-place. "Dynamically updated data" seems to be only pushable to Dashcode HTML widgets, which might be lacking in flexibility (but I might be wrong). There does not seem to be a framework for mathematical interactions that could aid comprehension, for example, nor one for on-the-fly manipulation of text structure that allows the student to fold blocks/etc., e.g. to focus on a particular paragraph/conceptual element.

Briefly stated: is Apple's "reinvention" merely reduced to a basic authoring tool and a branded store, which can tangentially (but importantly) channel external efforts in the sector?

milesskorpen2• 15 years ago

I think it is a big change that students need to buy their books. Right now, schools frequently buy books and then keep them for years upon years, just renting them out to students. This change will increase textbook competition, and increase the rate of change of material.

It also means that generating different versions of text books (Texas vs. rest of the US) might make a lot more sense.

ugh2• 15 years ago

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.

americandesi333• 15 years ago

If you are interested, check out the comparision of Inkling Textbook vs. Apple Textbook http://youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http://www.youtube.com/wat...

proofpeer_com• 15 years ago

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

drewda• 15 years ago

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

arafalov3• 15 years ago

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.

Kilimanjaro2• 15 years ago

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.

Kilimanjaro2• 15 years ago

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.

neilparikh2• 15 years ago

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.

serge2k• 15 years ago

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.

Apple announces iBooks 2, iBooks Author to "reinvent textbooks"

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