At Apple's "Education Event" today at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the company announced a number of new partners for its iPad-based education programs. Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt — which together make 90 percent of the textbooks currently available — will be filling the new "Textbooks" category in iBooks 2 with high-school level textbooks, and are piloting the new iBook Author app as well. Their books will cover every subject and level of study for high-schoolers, and all will be available for $14.99 or less at launch. That price appears to be where Apple wants to keep things, too: publishers will be able to set their own prices, but only in return for selling them exclusively through iBooks, so $14.99 appears to be the standard option for now.
Apple's also working with the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation and DK Publishing to launch new books like Life on Earth, and to bring some of the publishers' current apps to the iBook store. Authors will have "total freedom in terms of laying out text and graphics" in the new, immersive textbooks (though there seem to be plenty of unifying design elements, like pinching to get to the Table of Contents). The new apps are available now, so you can go check out the companies' handiwork in the new iBooks 2 store. And, if you're like us, you can wish you were back in high school so you could throw away your huge backpack and get an iPad.
Check out our liveblog for all the news from the Apple event right here.
There are 80 Comments. Add yours.
If they don’t grab the mindshare/imagination of the kids, they’re doomed.
I hate Apple’s marketing department, but they’re scary efficient.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 10:36 AM EST reply Recommend (3) Flag actions
why do you hate them.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 10:37 AM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
‘cause they don’t “invent” anything new. They just prettify already-existing concepts and market it all to hell.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 10:43 AM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
I’m not an Apple user, but I am a marketer, and this is what makes Apple so good. They are an intuitive marketing company.
They are identifying untapped or poorly tapped markets and find a way to build a revenue stream. I’m kind of surprised it took this long for them to do this.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 10:55 AM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
That’s what I’m saying. Scary efficient.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 10:58 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Android: Not new, not “invented”, marketed to hell.
Windows: Not new, not “invented”, marketed to hell.
Samsung smartphones: Not new, not “invented”, marketed to hell.
Amazon Fire: Not new, not “invented”, marketed to hell.
“Prettifying already-existing concepts” = innovation. Which is really what consumer electronics is all about.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:02 AM EST reply Recommend (8) Flag actions
Everything that you said is correct except your definition of innovation.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 1:17 PM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:31 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
What’s your point?
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:59 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Why is making something that already exists better a bad thing in your mind? All progress is good.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 1:10 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
all they do is make things useable by regular people, make them Just Work, and make them work seemlessly. And then, they tell people about it.
Its dumb people that chalk it all up to marketing. All of it, except the “telling people about it” isnt marketing. Its engineering.
Or let me put it another way….
Who else is doing all of this stuff, making it easy to use, making it work seemlessly, and making it useable by My Mom other than Apple? If there is someone doing all of this, and we haven’t heard about it, i’d call that piss poor marketing.
When your marketing campaign for 10 years has been mostly a feeble old, sickly man in blue jeans demonstrating actual products, i laugh in the face of idiots who call it “all marketing”.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 1:51 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Doomed?
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 10:41 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Absolutely. Without turtleneck hitler Apple is nothing.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 12:46 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
sigh Do you work for Fox News? Is it really appropriate to compare a tech company’s former CEO to Hitler? Would you compare Hitler to Jobs in a Holocaust forum? Stupid…
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 1:04 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I can imagine Steve Jobs doing the whole Hitler “Nein Nein Nein crazy thing over Android a number of times” Destroying something if it take everything he has and his dying breath also sound a little tyrannic to me.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 1:19 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
It totally is, read that goddamn book. His mannerisms alone made him a perfect turtleneck hitler.
And I totally would compare him to hitler in holocaust forum, just for the lulz if anything.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 1:59 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Textbooks are a natural use case for tablets. Of course Apple is going to go after this market. How is this somehow a nefarious plot to corrupt our youth?
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 10:41 AM EST reply Recommend (4) Flag actions
There’s a law in Québec: basically, you can’t market directly to kids.
Any product, winning or losing, has to be “integrated” into the youth’s imagination and “knowledge of the world” for a brand to live and survive on the long run.
Which is what Apple is doing by pulling the Education stunt.
Scary efficient.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 10:44 AM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
So then this is a nefarious plot to corrupt the youth of Quebec? Alrighty then. Thanks for the clarification.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 10:53 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Québécois are just very protective of the “market neutrality and advertisement non-influence” when it pertains to their youth.
And we’re doing fine, thank you.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 10:57 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
No, quebecois are paranoid assholes. As an Albertan, from the bottom of my heart, FUCK YOU, QUEBEC!
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 2:17 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Why do you think we want to separate from you bunch of a-holes?
We think with society, you think with petrol.
Oh, and FUCK YOU too.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 2:34 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
That’s weird: kids buy their own textbooks in Quebec? I didn’t know they were responsible for providing their own education. Because otherwise, it would seem as though you are reading an intent in this that doesn’t exist.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 12:00 PM EST reply Recommend (3) Flag actions
No, but their parents do, and parents normally tend to buy what the kid is going to bitch endlessly about.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 2:35 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Then your education system is quite a bit different than what’s going on here. And I think it’s fair to assume that Apple was thinking of American education primarily (but not exclusively).
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 3:08 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
How can you call this a stunt? Put a tablet next to a textbook and tell me you don’t see how the two fit. You admittedly hate Apple, but how can you deny that this is a natural evolution of the textbook? Would you be this mad if Samsung did this?
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 1:09 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Samsung has just announced they will be holding an education event next month. There, they will announce SumsungTransformerU, a service that allows teachers to put their curriculum online, Samsung TransformerAuthor which allows people to make their own textbooks, and TransformerBooks 2, which will allow students to read textbooks on their Samsung Transformers.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 2:16 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Transformers are from Asus, lol.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 2:36 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Thank you. Dude is a fucking idiot.
Posted on Jan 20, 2012 | 11:32 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I’m mad that Apple might lock it down all to fuck. With their track record, honestly, it’s a danger I’m willing to soapbox about.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 2:36 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I don’t see how this is going to fly in a Public school system setting. When you make the kids buy the textbook themselves the system cannot force you to use an iPad. If the system provides your iPad, are you going to actually buy a textbook that you will never use again?
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 1:21 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
One more thing and give me iPad 3. NOW
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 10:42 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Wait so no college books? :(
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 10:43 AM EST reply Recommend (5) Flag actions
Agreed!
Comeon Apple, us College Students are feeling mighty neglected right about now.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 10:44 AM EST reply Recommend (6) Flag actions
I was thinking the same thing, i was hoping that this would at least change how i got books for my next four years in college. Hopefully college textbooks comes in the near future.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:08 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Yeah, Apple should target the college students who have to spend so much on their textbooks. It would spread like wildfire.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:09 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
No incentive for them. Professors pick the text book for the class (often times their own work). They set the price. Then they can make new editions each year to negate the used text book market. Considering how few the sell, and the trapped market for the text books, they’d rather keep their $75 cover prices.
For k-12, think of how many of the same text books (or minor variation for district to district) are sold. But they are still expensive, and because of that the school keeps them longer than they should, with out of date info. Now at 15 bucks a book, with say 6 classes, a school will pay 90 bucks per student per yer for all their text books but they will always be up to date. Now multiply that by 12 years and you are talking 1200 bucks per student (this is back of the envelope math) on Text books over their school life, but with all current info which is probably a lot less they are spending now. The problem is the cost of the iPad and replacing them, preventing loss and stolen, and who pays for them. Someone is going to do this, but its much more likely to be a cross platform publisher that allows for $100-$200 devices.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:20 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Professors have no influence on the price of textbooks. And it’s not true that they are independently responsible for course materials either. Departments prefer consistency from class to class, so while there is some variation allowed, the materials have to be agreed upon ahead of time with a department head. This also allows a university’s bookstore to order the appropriate materials without having to dedicate enormous amounts of space to constantly shifting curricula.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 12:03 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I’ve taken many courses in college where the professor wrote the textbook. In that case, he’s absolutely correct. There are slight revisions every year, requiring the student to buy the newest version, putting money right into their pockets. I’ve also heard (no proof) that if the professor doesn’t write it, there are incentives for the instructor to choose a certain text for the class. I’m glad I’m finally out of that crooked bureaucracy and into another (the real world).
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 12:24 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
That doesn’t mean that they did so at their own whim.
No. A revised textbook doesn’t affect the student who bought the textbook last year, unless that student is re-taking the course for some reason. Nor does a revised textbook add revenue to an author, at least not directly. Short of something completely self-published (which is clearly not what we’re talking about here), authors do not have the power to set prices on their textbooks, and their share of royalties is paltry. Selling 30-100 textbooks a year is absolutely not going to bring in the kind of money to support a reasonable lifestyle.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 3:12 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Except a revised edition destroys the used book market for the previous version, so students taking the class the next year have to buy a new book which gives the author and publisher more income, and it effects the student who bought the old version as they cannot get any money from the buy back.
Of course 30-100 text books isn’t going to get them a mansion, but there is still a financial benefit they are receiving even if its only a couple thousand dollars.
And while the professor doesn’t have a say in the pricing, under the conditions I have described, and the trapped audience for these texts, there is no real reason for publishers to provide a cheaper alternative since the benefit from the currently pricing structure, and outside state university mandating, do not have to change, and can’t be forced to.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 4:58 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Destroys for whom? You’re making so many assumptions here, I’m not sure which one I should pick apart first.
You’re smoking some fine rock if you think there’s much profit to be made for an author for, generously, 200 textbook sales a year. The reasons professors write books (or textbooks, in those rare cases) is not for money, since there is very rarely any money to be made, at least for them. I’m not sure how you and the other commenter got this wild idea about the publishing industry, but it’s laughably wrong.
Oh, so you think, within a semester (which is, at most, 3 1/2 months), a professor, while handling all that comes with being a professor, can push out a significant update to their textbook in time to not only prevent his current students from re-selling his textbook, but also keep incoming students to buy used? Let’s break down all of the things that are wrong with what you’re saying:
1) No professor who actually attends the lectures that he writes could pump out a new edition of his textbook and have it published in the short period of one semester, let alone do it for every semester.
2) Students who want to sell back their textbooks basically have to do it after the semester is over (common knowledge) to get the most value out of it, so regardless of the professor’s intentions, the resale market continues to thrive for these students.
3) The students who choose to buy used textbooks can still buy used even if a new edition is on the market. Nothing is stopping them from taking that risk, and indeed, they often choose to take that risk. In my personal experience, professors are keenly aware of this, and often do not issue the most up-to-date textbook for a course unless there’s a pretty good reason for it. Like, if that new edition contains more than just a minor grammatical correction. The fact that many schools own the bookstores that prop up the student resale market should give you pause in your theory.
4) The idea that there’s any university anywhere in America in which anything but a vanishing minority of professors have published textbooks that they can assign to their class is one that can’t be supported by anyone who has actually attended a large university with published professors. The very concept of this argument is based on a myth.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 5:27 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I wrote a longer reply but I lost it due to operator error.
Anyway I have seen editions that have changed due to updates of facts, tables,stats and corrections that can be done by an editor. Editions do not always require grand rewrites. Also many course are offered annually, so there is time for the new edition. Finally the best way to maximize your buy back money is not selling it to the book store, but selling it to someone who is taking the course. That way they buy it for less than the books store and you get more than the bookstore was going to give you. Also the bookstore often knows if the course is not going to use the same text the next time the course is offered and in those case will not buy the book back.
That being said, I don’t think that professors are making mad bank of the text book racket, but they are making something. Nor do I think there is vast majority of professors doing it, but there some.
Colleges have a trapped market that will pay the price for the books because they have to, and there is no incentive or reason for the publishers to change this at the college level.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 6:22 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
And how do any of those examples fall under the nefarious shadow of money-grubbing professors? There’s something evil about trying to produce an accurate text to teach with?
Did you go to college? Grad school? The vast (VAST) majority of courses run semester to semester and do not run contiguously between semesters. Even classes where it would make total sense, like certain seminars, are fall/spring affairs. I don’t get the sense you are speaking with experience, or certainly not the kind of experience that mirrors what 99% of college students experience.
I can’t get into whether it is true that you would get the best rate by seeking an individual buyer, but I can say that way is certainly harder, and certainly narrows your market down, since you are responsible for locating this person and convincing this person that your price is the best price. So I would say, again, this sort of situation is very much in the minority of how most students sell books. I know it happens, for sure, but most students do not have the time or inclination to take that approach.
How is that relevant? Are you now arguing that students can only buy used books from university bookstores?
Virtually nothing, actually. Royalties are tiny, dude.
There are so few professors who write textbooks and actively teach that this argument is completely ludicrous.
The incentive at the grade school level is no different than the collegiate level. Actually, it’s worse, since public school students don’t buy their own books, so they can hook schools (and by extension, taxpayers) into their prices. The resale market exists at the university level precisely because of the greater freedom college kids have at accessing their learning materials. If anything, the collegiate level represents the greatest threat for disruption, because college kids are more able to buy iPads for themselves, and colleges are more equipped to curate content for the students, with much better funding and without the burden of statewide regulations.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 7:13 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Yes I went to College. I BS in computer Engineering from a top 20 university and Masters in Information Technology from Virginia Tech, so I am not talking out of my ass. Not every course is offered every semester. For example Chemistry is offered in the fall with Organic Chemistry in the Spring. If you want to take orgo you need Chemistry first. If you don’t take Chemistry in the fall you need to take it the next year.
I never said it there was a nefarious reason to update the text books, what you can’t seem to wrap your brain around is why offer the text for 15 dollars every year when people will have to buy the latest edition for 100 because that’s what’s required.
As far as my point about the book store not buying things back, you don’t seem to understand my point. Your point was that how does updating the version the next matter since you have to sell it back to book store at the end of the current semester to maximize value. The University won’t buy the book back if they know they won’t be using it the next year. This is another way that updating the version damages the used market.
Tiny is not 0. It’s something, but my point is was the publishers have no incentive to change. It doesn’t matter if they buy their own iPads, if no one offers a text book for it. Again there is no reason for them to offer it for 15 bucks digitally when people have to have it and will buy it for 100.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 7:32 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Why offer textbooks for $100 when you can charge $200?
That wasn’t my point? My point was that there’s no monetary incentive for a professor who (in an extremely rare case) wrote a textbook for a course he’s teaching to then update his textbook simply to force kids to buy the latest edition. You can’t make money off 40 book sales, or even 400. Your thought process about how the publishing industry works in the education sector is flawed at every single level.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 9:01 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Of course core curriculum is going to be decided by the whole faculty regardless of who teaches the class. Physics I is going to have the same text no matter which Professor teaches it at the university, and it’s usually going to be one used in lots of universities. But an upper level course on very narrow subjects, the professor is going to have a lot more say on the what text book he is going to use.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 5:07 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Upper level? Like graduate work? Because graduate students aren’t using textbooks so much as books, so you’ll have to clarify what you mean.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 5:28 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
My masters course required books that I would consider text books. They were all priced over 50 bucks (usually around 100), with the occasional one being a normal reference book priced in the 30s.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 6:10 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Yeah, so you think a professor that teaches maybe 40 students a year (usually less, but then we’re getting into the specifics of the graduate work) is making any kind of money off those books? Exactly how much do you think any kind of author, let alone a relatively unknown PhD, is making for selling a handful of textbooks on an esoteric subject? Come on.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 7:17 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Also, not for nothing, you’re only paying $100 for your graduate textbooks? Consider yourself fortunate. I’ve seen undergrad textbooks go for considerably more.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 7:22 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Actually I didn’t pay anything. My company paid the bills. But it’s not a pissing contest about who’s books cost the most. But with this I am done.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 7:34 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
somebody shout courier
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 10:58 AM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
I’m still not convinced. Especially because they haven’t announced any programs to help students even access iPads more easily (Unless they’re distributed through the school, but that means that Apple would have to set-up a enterprise-like distribution system)
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:03 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Wouldn’t that be the most likely assumption in the first place? It’s not like Apple hasn’t previously been the learning tool of choice in schools before (unless you didn’t grow up in the 80s).
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 12:08 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Oh come on, high school? What about college? It’s so much worse in college, I’d love to pay 15 for my college textbooks instead of 200.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:12 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Sounds like it’s up to the publishers. There’s nothing about this program that would technically limit it to any group of people. I think the reason they’re also offering free course materials is for the same reason: Duke et al chose to offer it for free. Any other school could do the same.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 12:10 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Verison 1.0 usually is not feature complete.
Apple’s tarck record suggests that they will tackle that problem when they have a complete soultion that Just Works and will announce it only when its 100% ready to go.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 2:13 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Did I get that right? $14.99 or less???
High-school or College?
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:16 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Normally I enjoy Apple conferences and announcements, but this whole thing felt uneasy. Let’s not kid ourselves – Apple products (iPads especially) are luxury items. There’s nothing wrong with any of the products announced today, they all look amazing, but when they throw words around like “helping students” or cutting together clips of teachers talking about education as if they’re doing service to society, it feels really disingenuous. $500 personal gadget in K-12 and highschool? Are they kidding? Don’t these people know what public schools are like? Make iBooks2 available for cheaper devices like Kindle Fire and maybe it will have a bigger impact. Even then it’s too expensive for underprivileged lower middle class americans who need it the most.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:27 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Can’t you see that if this takes off, then someone will no doubt make an open version of this for Andoid, Kindles, even browsers…. It can only be a good thing.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 12:01 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Weren’t computers luxury items in the 80s or 90s? Really, for a good amount of the population, PCs are still luxury items. Unless you think of them as a tool that fills an important need. That’s what’s happening here.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 12:12 PM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
Oh don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it’s not awesome. I just think that today’s event to be disingenuous because it claims to revolutionize textbooks and education…. but only for the privileged.
I can see it working out in private schools and rich european nations but for typical american public school? no way in hell. At least not in this decade.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 1:17 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
the average salary for a tenured teacher in California is $75,000. Thats AVERAGE, meaning that you probably know one who isn’t making that much.
85% of all costs of education in California are labor – teachers and administrators.
The UC system now has 1 administrator for every 1 professor.
There is a readon that american public schools are sinking – they are beholden to the teacher and administrator unions who ensure that they are taking the lion’s share (85%) of the funding and putting it into their pockets, while the kids get screwed.
In Los Angeles Unified, the dropout rate is 60%. Think about that. If they spend $0 on education, the dropout rate could only go up 40%, which is LESS than the current dropout rate.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 2:10 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
You could say that about literally any advance that requires modern technology. Buying a computer still costs money. You don’t think of it in this way when it comes to PCs because it’s so essential to have a computer at home.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 3:05 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
As a HS teacher, the annuncement is interesting, and Apple working within their environment to improve the state of education at the same time they improve their bottom line. $15 per student/class/year will probably come to about what districts spend on textbooks now, with vastly improved (due mainly to timeliness) texts. But the iPad still makes a cost prohibitive barrier to entry for most schools. Give us a cross-platform iBooks reader, so the text can be on any computer, and a way to lock the books to a district acct., not an iTunes acct. Or make them HTML 5 (just sayin…)
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:40 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Crap, bad typo, and I outed myself as a teacher.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:41 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Why would Apple do that? Their goal isn’t to improve education, it’s make people buy more Apple products. It would be a seismic shift in corporate strategy.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:43 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
What’s going to stop these publishers from making these textbooks available for other Tablet OS’s and apps? Why wouldn’t they want to expand their reach? I can see the Apple specific app iBooks Author being great for creating ibooks. Looks nice and kudos to Apple for that, but can’t see textbooks being exclusive to Apple hardware…unless I missed something in the text.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:42 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
I just wanted to say that I live in a country where we get all our books for free. University also free.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 11:50 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
The rich get richer. Kids who have parents that can afford to buy iPads suddenly have access to better learning materials and methods of learning that keep them ahead of the curve. Meanwhile, poor kids and underfunded school districts have to stick with regular textbooks that will only decay in usefulness now that all attention will be focused on this new medium of interactive textbook.
And don’t forget that textbooks were nice because nobody steals them. Now every kid is gonna have a 500 dollar ‘rob me’ sign in their hands.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 12:06 PM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
Kids who have parents that can’t afford this have parents that can afford $5000 in spinner rims, multiple big screen TVs, cable TV or satellite service.
don’t blame money what is most obviously a culture issue.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 2:05 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Almost vague enough to avoid being racist.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 5:32 PM EST via mobile reply Recommend (3) Flag actions
I’m sure college books will come later, and when they do, no more beating around the bush on getting an iPad.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 12:10 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
What’s smart about this for Apple is that all the kids will need iTunes accounts to download their textbooks. The Apple ecosystem gets ever stronger.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 12:47 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
lets see…
thousands of books at $50-$100 each is not a prohibative barrier to entry.
but a few hundred items at $500 is?
Apparently, all those griping about the price of iPads are English teachers that need a maths course.
for a school of 1000 high school kids:
15 separate courses, needing 500 books of each, each book around $75 = $562,500, with many of those book obsolete each year or every other year… if your obsolescence is 25% each year
that’s $1,125,000 for 4 years of high school textbooks.
1000 iPads, 15 courses and 1000 of those books (for each kid for the whole time in school) = $725,000
and each of these kids now has a perfectly serviceable computer (for those who can’t afford computers) which is effectively virus proof. And this doesn’t take into account all of the actual other things that came along with all of this.
Fire a few of the bloated tenured teachers (10 in California, on average), and you’ve already paid for this… for 4 years.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 2:03 PM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
In a perfect world you are right, but in a world where students lose their textbooks, Ipads are a problem. you lose a book, the parents replace it. Many parents can’t even afford to replace the book, so the school is out 50-80$. Lose an iPad, and you are out 500$ That’s a big difference. And since there is not a big demand for textbooks, you are going to have theft up big time.
Also, Most textbooks versions last 6 years, more in inner city schools. That is 60$ for 6 years, not a yearly course fee paid to Apple that will far exceed that. Apple is not doing this to help kids, they are in it because it’s big money.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 4:19 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
This will turn into an unedited nightmare. No fact checkers or professional editors? Android market for books.
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 2:59 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
ipad only textbooks
iphone is not big enough, like a child at Six Flags
Posted on Jan 19, 2012 | 5:02 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Don’t get too excited about all the Apple iBooks self publishing news. As soon as you publish you create and publish your book through Apple’s "iBooks Author" you give up your rights to publish that book through any of the wide variety of popular eBook publishers. I don’t work for this company but my personal suggestion would be to use Smashwords.com. If anyone has tried going through the process of getting an ebook published and up for sale on more then one site then you know that each site has a different system and different requirements that make the entire process long and frustrating for each of them. Smashwords.com helps you easily get your ebook properly formatted and submitted to a ton of the major ebook retailers including: Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and the Diesel eBook Store to name a few. They also sell your ebooks on their own online store and make your ebook available for sale in just about every format that exists and to top it off they do all of that for free!
Posted on Jan 20, 2012 | 3:14 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
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