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[Blackhead]

Who: Apple
Where: Guggenheim Museum, NY
When: January 19, 10 AM EST
What: Education
Why: Macworld, The Verge, ArsTechnica, Engadget

The story so far
In the beginning
Steve Jobs

Jobs had many other ideas and projects that he hoped to develop. He wanted to disrupt the textbook industry and save the spines of spavined students bearing backpacks by creating electronic texts and curriculum material for the iPad.

Murdoch and Jobs hit it off well enough that Murdoch went to his Palo Alto house for dinner twice more during the next year...

Most of the dinner conversation was about education. Murdoch had just hired Joel Klein, the former chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, to start a digital curriculum division. Murdoch recalled that Jobs was somewhat dismissive of the idea that technology could transform education. But Jobs agreed with Murdoch that the paper textbook business would be blown away by digital learning materials...

In fact Jobs had his sights set on textbooks as the next business he wanted to transform. He believed it was an $8 billion a year industry ripe for digital destruction. He was also struck by the fact that many schools, for security reasons, don’t have lockers, so kids have to lug a heavy backpack around. “The iPad would solve that,” he said. His idea was to hire great textbook writers to create digital versions, and make them a feature of the iPad. In addition, he held meetings with the major publishers, such as Pearson Education, about partnering with Apple. “The process by which states certify textbooks is corrupt,” he said. “But if we can make the textbooks free, and they come with the iPad, then they don’t have to be certified. The crappy economy at the state level will last for a decade, and we can give them an opportunity to circumvent that whole process and save money.”

Jobs also attacked America’s education system, saying that it was hopelessly antiquated and crippled by union work rules. Until the teachers’ unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform. Teachers should be treated as professionals, he said, not as industrial assembly-line workers. Principals should be able to hire and fire them based on how good they were. Schools should be staying open until at least 6 p.m. and be in session eleven months of the year. It was absurd, he added, that American classrooms were still based on teachers standing at a board and using textbooks. All books, learning materials, and assessments should be digital and interactive, tailored to each student and providing feedback in real time.

Now
Apple to Teach A Few Lessons about Textbooks

Apple Inc. fans should have something new to cheer this week, but it's not likely to be the latest iPad or a TV...

When Apple introduced the iPad a couple of years ago, one of the product's promises was that it could change the classroom experience...

Mr. Jobs, who reportedly had been meeting with publishers such as Pearson PLC, believed all books should be "digital and interactive, tailored to each student and providing feedback in real time," according to Mr. Isaacson's book.

"Who better than Apple to revolutionize textbooks?" said International Data Corp. analyst Al Hilwa. "Everyone, including the industry and universities, have to come together, and

The event this week will be the first hosted by the company since Mr. Jobs died in October...

While the textbook industry is ripe for innovation, it already is a crowded market and has been tough for changes to occur. Many publishers and education companies are working on digitizing content, and Kindle maker Amazon.com Inc. also has been pursuing the market...

Apple already has made a push into book publishing, launching its iBookstore. And the company has long been active in the education market, with its products used in many classrooms and by offering discounts to teachers and students. It also provides lectures, lessons and other educational content through its iTunes U...

McGraw-Hill Cos., Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are among the education-publishing companies most likely affected by an Apple textbook announcement. The companies have experimented with interactive approaches, such as allowing students to take quizzes as they read and hear audio for foreign-language study, but many digital textbooks have looked a lot like their physical counterparts.

McGraw-Hill has been working with Apple on its announcement since June, a person familiar with the matter said. It wasn't known whether Pearson and Houghton Mifflin also would participate.

Cengage Learning, one of the world's largest higher-education textbook publishers, has partnered with Apple in the past and will be attending the event. The company declined to say what its role is in Apple's announcement this week...

Apple to announce tools, platform to "digitally destroy" textbook publishing

While speculation has so far centered on digital textbooks, sources close to the matter have confirmed to Ars that Apple will announce tools to help create interactive e-books—the "GarageBand for e-books," so to speak—and expand its current platform to distribute them to iPhone and iPad users.

Along with the details we were able to gather from our sources, we also spoke to two experts in the field of digital publishing to get a clearer picture of the significance of what Apple is planning to announce.

So far, Apple has largely embraced the ePub 2 standard for its iBooks platform, though it has added a number of HTML5-based extensions to enable the inclusion of video and audio for some limited interaction. The recently-updated ePub 3 standard obviates the need for these proprietary extensions, which in some cases make iBook-formatted e-books incompatible with other e-reader platforms. Apple is expected to announce support for the ePub 3 standard for iBooks going forward...

At the same time, however, authoring standards-compliant e-books (despite some promises to the contrary) is not as simple as running a Word document of a manuscript through a filter. The current state of software tools continues to frustrate authors and publishers alike, with several authors telling Ars that they wish Apple or some other vendor would make a simple app that makes the process as easy as creating a song in GarageBand.

Our sources say Apple will announce such a tool on Thursday.

And Inkling CEO Matt MacInnis agrees that such a move would be very likely. MacInnis previously worked on education projects at Apple before leaving the company in 2009 to pursue his own ideas about creating interactive digital books...

Don't expect that content to come directly from Apple, however. "Practically speaking, Apple does not want to get into the content publishing business," MacInnis said. Like the music and movie industries, Apple has instead built a distribution platform as well as hardware to consume it—but Apple isn't a record label or production studio...

How Apple iBooks needs to compete with Amazon: Cross-platform support

Amazon has trailblazed; Apple has followed...

Imagine you've just bought a book. If it's a print book, you can stick it into your backpack, your purse, or even your cargo pocket -- take it anywhere, read it anywhere. When you're done, you can pass it to a friend.

If it's an ebook from Amazon, chances are likely you can read it on nearly any platform you can think of. You can read it on a web browser, on your Windows PC, on your Mac, on your Kindle, your Android Phone, iOS device, and so forth. There is nothing standing between you and your book. And, when you're done, you can loan it to a friend.

Now imagine you bought it from iBooks. You've got all the beauty and pleasure of the iOS deployment, but little beyond that. Apple hasn't released an iBooks reader for the web, let alone for its home Mac OS X platform. And there's no loan ability at all.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, "We love our iPhones and iPads, but we have lots of books we'd like to read on our personal computers as well...

Amazon also offers both catalog and financial incentives. Amazon's book listing is far more substantial than Apple's...

Financially, Amazon automatically matches the lowest price available for a product, regardless of where that price is offered: iBooks, B&N Nook, Smashwords, etc. When you shop at Amazon, customers know they won't experience sticker regret when they later find a better deal at a major outlet...

Apple should take careful note of Amazon's device reach and consumer-friendly price points. iBooks needs to carefully address these matters in its future planning.

How Apple iBooks needs to compete with Amazon: Better author tools

iBooks tools are frustrating. You can publish on Amazon with little more than an account, a doc file and a smile. For iBooks, you need validated ePub files, ISBN identifiers from the Library of Congress and a willingness to run the gauntlet of contracts, paperwork, and the hell that is iTunes Connect...

What Apple really needs is an internal initiative that matches (and exceeds, honestly) its World Wide Developer Relations for app development, but on the book publishing side of things. Apple needs a WWDC for publishing, evangelists and road shows, and internal Mac-driven tools that allow authors to expand beyond the current iBooks offerings. As Apple's product line moves more and more towards consumers, its support for independent authors (and developers) needs to evolve as well.

Apple needs to integrate author-to-author resources, like its devforums theoretically should for app programmers (Admittedly those forums have somewhat devolved into Apple personnel ordering people to file "radars", aka bug reports rather than providing the kind of warm human support many developers might hope for, but they're far better than no support at all).

I could easily imagine signing up for a yearly independent authoring program (complete with 2 tech support incidents if the program is paid), access to high-level Apple-supplied creation tools and bypassing the current ISBN-based publishing paradigm.

In the end, if Apple is to make its mark in iBooks, it has to both simplify publishing for independents and set its products apart in terms of expressive possibilty.

How Apple iBooks needs to compete with Amazon: KDP Select

When Amazon launched its recent KDP Select program, the independent publish world reacted strongly and negatively. KDP Select is built around exclusive Amazon listings, requiring authors to withdraw their titles from competing vendors like Apple's iBooks, Smashwords, and Lulu. If you want to participate in Select, you cannot sell your book in any form with any other vendor.

You must enroll books for a minimum of 90 days. During this time, Select allows authors to loan their books for, well, free -- and promote their books by giving them away, again, for free.

Sounds bad, right?

As a lure, Amazon has promised a shared pot of $500K per month for December 2011 and monthly through 2012, with a total commitment of six million dollars...

What's more, it's a zero sum game: the more authors who play in the arena, the fewer dollars there are for each...

To date, Apple has not focused highly on independent authors. This is a shame as more and more self-published works are emerging outside the bounds of traditional publishing...

Amazon's pre-emptive raid into the independent publisher's world is cutting off titles, both present and future, from iBooks, and other platforms. If Apple hopes to lure these authors to its store, it's going to have to react, and react strongly. Something has to draw them away from Amazon and from KDP Select.

Apple needs to provide these authors with a reason to stay away from exclusive Amazon listings, and potentially to list exclusively with Apple...

The problem is that, at least in our experience, Amazon sells better than iBooks, particularly for smaller titles. Items are more discoverable on Amazon and Apple does little to promote independents. If Apple were to provide some way for smaller authors to market more discoverably on the iBooks store, they could grow that indie community...

Apple's education event is getting seriously over-hyped

The goal is to sell more iPads to schools, not to destroy the textbook industry

"This whole event is being blown out of proportion."

That's a former Apple (AAPL) executive talking about the media drumroll for the education announcement the company is scheduled to make Thursday at New York's Guggenheim Museum...

No new iPad. No AppleTV. Simply Apple taking another industry under its wing and making money hand over fist. *boring*

Spoiler

Liveblogs on Thursday morning

 

[Buckethead]

I am excite.

Hoping for a "Export Notes/Highlights" feature on iBooks.

 

[The Elite]

Was hoping this would be an iPad event.

Still neat.

 

[giga]

iPad 3 event already?! Damn can't wait. Day 1.

 

[Deleted member 22576]

Did you know ratatat was the first band ever to play the guggenheim?

 

[LCfiner]

your new Introduction to Kinematics textbook in Angry Birds. Welcome to the future.

 

[Dr. Feel Good]

I think if pulled off correctly this could really do well. Why drop thousands of dollars on books over the course of 4 years when you can drop it on an iPad for $500 and then each digital book could consist of $50 purchases (or less even). That's a huge price difference for the students who pay out of their own pocket. Not to mention they get a nice snazzy iPad to use too.

Only problem is I don't see students being able to have both a laptop and an iPad and when it comes down to those two I think 90% of all students would prefer owning a laptop.

 

[Stinkles]

If the theory (disrupting textbook corruption) exposited in the OP is true, then this would be incredible. However, these things have a way of being disappointing, so I ain't holding my breath. Just hoping.

 

[Dany]

I like using post-its in my text books, creating bookmarks and highlighting in them.

That may seem trivial but its my #1 reason why I am pensive on whatever apple has to say about digital textbooks.

 

[Bluth]

I would buy an iPad if I could get all my textbooks on it. This is huge.

 

[rezuth]

I like using post-its in my text books, creating bookmarks and highlighting in them.

That may seem trivial but its my #1 reason why I am pensive on whatever apple has to say about digital textbooks.

You can do that in iBooks

 

[badcrumble]

I hope they do destroy the textbook industry.

Remember how the Texas Board of Ed gets a bunch of right-wing Christian crazies elected to it, all because it's one of the nation's biggest textbook markets (and therefore has vastly disproportionate control over what gets printed in ALL the nation's textbooks? Yeah. Electronic textbooks = no more having to print in volume = no state can tell another state what to have in their textbooks by controlling the industry anymore.

 

[Vanillalite]

I would buy an iPad if I could get all my textbooks on it. This is huge.

My GF who's sitting next to me studying with one of her nursing textbooks out just said the same thing. She was like if the books are cheap she'd buy an iPad in a heart beat. She already spends the cost of an iPad on books anyways.

 

[Kurdel]

I could see them making a cheaper 8gig iPad 2 aimed at students.

 

[Dany]

My GF who's sitting next to me studying with one of her nursing textbooks out just said the same thing. She was like if the books are cheap she'd buy an iPad in a heart beat. She already spends the cost of an iPad on books anyways.

But how much will the books be? They'd need to be severely discounted for this to ever work.

Buying a $500 device and then spending another $500 on books...no thanks.

 

[Vanillalite]

I could see them making a cheaper 8gig iPad 2 aimed at students.

Eh... that only matters if the books are all readily available and cheap IMO.

 

[Stinkles]

I like using post-its in my text books, creating bookmarks and highlighting in them.

That may seem trivial but its my #1 reason why I am pensive on whatever apple has to say about digital textbooks.

You can do that in software. And it's searchable and catalogued, and indexed.

 

[Alucrid]

Interesting. But how would he get schools to go along with this?

 

[Vanillalite]

But how much will the books be? They'd need to be severely discounted for this to ever work.

Buying a $500 device and then spending another $500 on books...no thanks.

Funny you replied with that because I replied to the post above yours and said it only matters if all the books are available and on the cheaplow.

 

[makingmusic476]

Woah. This would be huge. I wish I had this just a few years ago.

 

[Stinkles]

Interesting. But how would he get schools to go along with this?

The organizations, schemes and cartels that create this weird textbook situation are nowhere near as powerful as market forces. In fact they have spent decades ensuring above all else, that they don't have to compete in a normal market.

 

[Jintor]

I fucking hope so, though I'll be out of education by the time this rolls around hopefully. Digital textbooks are a logical step into the future if they're implemented correctly.

The main thing is that I need to be able to somehow flip through it in a comparable style to traditional books. That's not quite possibly yet on any device and something that is pretty necessary for textbooks of all description.

Also needs to be cheap as bro

 

[Technosteve]

Here's to iBooks catching up to Kindle app, but let's face it they suck at this book thing.

 

[Ohwiseone]

As a current college student who plays for a Stupid amount of money towards textbooks every semester, this could be really really well.

And as someone who has an Ipad, it would be better because I would essentially be down two 3 items.

I sure hope this is used well, and it is for the right price.

 

[Bboy AJ]

If this ends up like what The Daily was supposed to do to periodicals... who gives a shit.

I really hope it jump starts education reform.

 

[Buckethead]

They couldn't get book publishers to pass savings onto customers despite a high reduction in overhead for novels, why are people expecting lower pricing for educational books?

Maybe a seldom few but I'm not sold on that...

 

[entremet]

You can buy an iPad with the cost of just one semester of textbooks. That's crazy.

Half you won't even use.

 

[Vanillalite]

If this ends up like what The Daily was supposed to do to periodicals... who gives a shit.

I really hope it jump starts education reform.

I get that analogy, but the issues revolving around periodicals verses the issues around textbooks aren't really similar though. I fully admit The Daily was a blip on the radar though.

They couldn't get book publishers to pass savings onto customers despite a high reduction in overhead for novels, why are people expecting lower pricing for educational books?

Maybe a seldom few but I'm not sold on that...

I don't disagree, but with textbooks being so costly they have a larger range of price to work with. Not saying they'll do it, but the price range is easier to deal with IMO.

 

[mf.luder]

The revolutionize, I hardly doubt, comes in price. Do we honestly think that textbook makers are willing to slice the cost of their books? I'm no longer in school but would love to see the entire 'scene' change with more digital integration. One thing that would be neat is if schools got on board and adopted AirPrint printers so that students could print directly from iOS.

An extension of this would be if the textbook was being viewed on the device, the stunt has the option of printing out a few pages so they have a physical copy.

 

[Bgamer90]

Man... why couldn't this have come before I started college. I'm about to get out in 3 months.

I must have spent close to $3,000 on books; most of which were used.

Heck, even if things were the same price, having things all on an iPad would be so convenient.

 

[giga]

At an event in New York tomorrow, Apple will announce a set of tools that make it easier to publish interactive textbooks and other digital educational content, said two people with knowledge of the announcement, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

The plans, to be unveiled by Apple Internet software chief Eddy Cue, are aimed at broadening the educational materials available for the iPad, especially for students in kindergarten to 12th grade, the people said. By setting its sights on the $10 billion-a-year textbook industry, Apple is using the tablet to encourage students to shun costly tomes that weigh down backpacks in favor of less-expensive, interactive digital books that can be updated anywhere via the Web.

…

Apple also wants to empower “self-publishers” to create new kinds of teaching tools, said the people. Teachers could use it to design materials for that week’s lesson. Scientists, historians and other authors could publish professional-looking content without a deal with a publisher.

…

In some cases, the price of the iPad -- which starts at $499 -- is keeping school districts from making the purchases, said Bethlam Forsa, the head of content and product development for Houghton.

“The price is an issue,” she said. “The key area of focus is to ensure there is enough content out there to justify the price.” Just after the iPad was introduced, Forsa said the company committed to developing new educational material.

…

The electronic-textbook market is still nascent. On college campuses, even as the latest best-sellers have become popular for devices such as Amazon’s Kindle, digital textbooks were just 2.8 percent of total textbook sales in 2010, according to the National Association of College Stores.

A March survey of 655 college students by the Oberlin, Ohio-based trade group found that three-quarters of students preferred a printed textbook to an electronic version. That’s even though e-textbooks cost as much as 60 percent less than new print copies, which averaged $62 each in the 2009-2010 school year.

“E-textbooks have had a slow go of it,” said Charles Schmidt, a spokesman for the college stores group. He attributes the lackluster interest to students not being as technologically adventurous when it comes to education texts, professors sticking to traditional course materials, and publishers not offering compelling interactive content.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...book-push-to-bolster-ipad-use-in-schools.html

 

[Technosteve]

A nice reference book will last multiple life times, ebook will last until that file is no longer supported.

 

[celebi23]

Great OP Greyface! Subscribed

 

[LCfiner]

A nice reference book will last multiple life times, ebook will last until that file is no longer supported.

But I don’t think this isn’t about nice reference books. this is about textbooks that get updated and replaced every couple years, making old ones obsolete for homework/ assignments, etc…

 

[criesofthepast]

It may just be the last of screen real estate but I'm currently in a class where we have access to our textbooks in PDF form and reading on my iPhone is absolute hell. Im sure iPad is a bit better but still digital reading hurts my eyes after a while. I prefer paper for reading. This hopefully will bring the cost of paper books down and then everyone wins.

 

[LCfiner]

It may just be the last of screen real estate but I'm currently in a class where we have access to our textbooks in PDF form and reading on my iPhone is absolute hell. Im sure iPad is a bit better but still digital reading hurts my eyes after a while. I prefer paper for reading. This hopefully will bring the cost of paper books down and then everyone wins.

it’s definitely a screen real estate issue. reading on the ipad feels very different from reading on the iPhone. even with the lower resolution, I find it much easier to read on the web or comics on the ipad vs the iPhone.

I can only imagine a 266 ppi ipad being absolutely gorgeous to read on.

 

[VGChampion]

Guess not being a student this event doesn't do much for me. I'm sure whatever happens will be plastered all over anyways.

 

[iNvid02]

Guess not being a student this event doesn't do much for me. I'm sure whatever happens will be plastered all over anyways.

for sure, its apple. and knowing them they'll prob find a way to make this appeal to people who aren't students

 

[Chris R]

Would have been cool to just have all my textbooks on an iPad for 1/10th the price or whatever the books end up costing. Too bad I'm not in college anymore

 

[LCfiner]

for sure, its apple. and knowing them they'll prob find a way to make this appeal to people who aren't students

they’re going to make it so appealing, I’m going to go back to school just to buy their fancy e-books!

 

[thetechkid]

If I could get my textbooks for a fraction of the cost I would gladly buy an iPad.

 

[DR3AM]

is this where they will announce the ipad3?

 

[LCfiner]

is this where they will announce the ipad3?

nope. they’re announcing ipad 4

 

[giga]

I can only imagine a 266 ppi ipad being absolutely gorgeous to read on.

God damm, didn't even think about that.

 

[Windu]

aren't iBooks more expensive than other competing ebooks or they helped raise the prices? Anyway, I get all my books through places like coursesmart where I can view them on my web browser and they have a decent iOS app. Wonder if apple's solution will actually be cheaper. What I have learned though is publishers usually don't pass their savings on to consumers, so I wouldn't expect much.

 

[angelfly]

I'd never buy a DRM'd copy of a textbook. Either give it to me DRM free or don't bother.

 

[Fox318]

I hope this pushes Amazon to get more aggressive with their textbooks.

 

[realraptor]

High resolution and easy to read screen please!

 

[Chittagong]

lol, OT and live blog for an event announcing school books publishing stuff?

Jesus, only Apple I swear

 

[LCfiner]

lol, OT and live blog for an event announcing school books publishing stuff?

Jesus, only Apple I swaer

Betcha it'll still be more exciting than any Facebook event.