Apple expected to release tool for interactive textbooks at NYC event on Thursday
Reports of an Apple event in New York City set to take place later this month emerged several weeks ago. The company then sent out invitations for the gathering last week, noting that it would entail an "education announcement in the Big Apple."
ArsTechnica reported on Monday that its sources are claiming Apple will release a simple app that makes standards-compliant e-book publishing as easy as recording a song in GarageBand. The tool is believed to be much-needed, as several authors told the publication that they are frustrated by the current state of the industry.
According to the report, some industry executives are also confident that Apple will likely unveil a textbook publishing tool this week. Inkling CEO Matt MacInnis, who worked on education projects at Apple before leaving to focus on interactive e-books, voiced his belief that a textbook app from Apple is in the works.
"When you think about what Apple is doing... they are selling tens of thousands of iPads into K-12 institutions," MacInnis said. "What are they doing with those iPads? They don't really replace textbooks, because there's not very much content on offer."
The executive clarified that he doesn't believe the content will come directly from Apple. The Cupertino, Calif., company will instead likely provide content production tools, similar to its own Logic or Final Cut Pro software, the report noted.
"Publishing something to ePub is very similar to publishing web content. Remember iWeb? That iWeb code didn't just get flushed down the toiletâI think you'll see some of [that code] repurposed," MacInnis said.
Late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had intimated to biographer Walter Isaacson that he wanted to revolutionize textbooks ArsTechnica's sources said Jobs had worked on the project for years. The plans were reportedly set to be announced last October, but they were postponed at the last minute because of Jobs' failing health.
The Wall Street Journal corroborated on Tuesday some of ArsTechnica's claims, but it didn't go into specifics.
"The company is expected to unveil textbooks optimized for the iPad and that feature ways to interact with the content, as well as partnerships with publishers," the report read.
A person familiar with the matter told the Journal that Apple had been working with publisher McGraw-Hill on the announcement since June. Cengage Learning, a textbook publisher that has partnered with Apple before, will also be in attendance on Thursday, but the company declined to reveal what part it will play in the event.
"Apple today clearly has a strong position in hardware, and companies like Cengage Learning have a very strong position on the content side," Bill Rieders, Cengage's executive vice president of global strategy and business development. "To the extent there's a combination there, that could be exciting."
Earlier reports characterized Apple's plans for Thursday as "publishing industry-oriented" news, noting that major consumer-related announcements from the company are not expected.
29 Comments
As a prof currently writing a science/engineering textbook -- please let this not only be true, but (finally) include proper tools for publishing things other than fiction-style text-only documents!
An Apple 'Garageband for books'...I'd love to be a fly on the wall at Adobe this week.
I read what a commenter said about this on another site and that what Apple might be doing is nothing special since there are companies that have been trying to create electronic textbooks for years like the Kno company. I believe if Apple can offer less expensive iPads for schools and also create some tools to get textbooks on to them, they could have a huge advantage over other tablet ecosystems. iTunes U is a fantastic learning tool for collaboration and I always thought it was too low-key considering the knowledge available for free.
Apple could really put a hurt to Amazon's Kindle readers when it comes to education. I was always wondering why Apple never designed its own eReader that would compete against the Kindle eReaders. It does seem like a very useful technology with long battery life. Maybe it's just too limited for Apple's use. I'd love to see Apple take control of the educational sector with some great hardware and software learning tools and take back what they lost to Microsoft years ago.
As a prof currently writing a science/engineering textbook -- please let this not only be true, but (finally) include proper tools for publishing things other than fiction-style text-only documents!
I figure it would leverage Apple's "iAd producer." So that means HTML 5 and CSS 3.
So multimedia and scripting are a given.
Depending on whether Apple makes the software tools slick and easy is if this takes off or not.
>> On the HUGE upside, if their teaching platform takes off it will mean that 3rd party companies can also improve on the platform, because MOST of it will be using standard technology and file formats available to everyone. Apple just wants it to be on their platform.I've been hoping for Apple to drop the other shoe on their multimedia usage of HTML5. They've been likely working on a "Flash Killer" so that iOS doesn't need another layer of junk slowing down the processor and using battery power.
>> That's why I highly doubt it will be something proprietary -- Apple has gotten that bug out of their systems (at least with development). To leverage iOS it's going to either be Objective C (too low-level) or the Web standards.
>> So Multimedia and every bang and whistle are a given -- it all depends on how well they make it easy for an instructor to create a multimedia training tool. And I figure they've got all sorts of tech to do that.
As a prof currently writing a science/engineering textbook -- please let this not only be true, but (finally) include proper tools for publishing things other than fiction-style text-only documents!
I lecture in university in a technical field. I too hope beyond hope that Apple introduces a package as intimated. I've used an iPad for tutorial presentations but my MBP for lectures due to the eclectic nature of my demonstrations etc. This likely wouldn't change but would probably be impacted by developments.
I have a short story on iBooks to which I applied only the most basic formatting. Having greater expectations would have been quite frustrating, though there are features in iBooks that I like.
I am reading 'A New Kind of Science' by Steven Wolfram. This publication is in the form of an application, probably because of the formatting control Wolfram required but doesn't feature some of the nice controls available under iBooks. This might now change.
An Apple 'Garageband for books'...I'd love to be a fly on the wall at Adobe this week.
Mmmm... .pdf has been a brilliant vehicle for Apple (and others where they chose to use it). Time for a revolution perhaps... \