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[teamaxe]

now this is legitimate. And it really does deserve praise.

I'm really impressed with Author so far. I'm thinking about writing a little ebook myself now. It's really nice.

teamaxe, yea they are just text but how does a rotatable 3d version of a cell or movable nucleotides justify getting an ipad and buying the (semi discounted) software to kids?

I'll admit that I'm not an educator, so I can't say if these text books will be effective. From my own experience, it is certainly more tactile to be able to touch these molecules or whatever and see them change. I am more involved with the learning process.

I still feel like its a old people/people out of touch with students dictating what they think the kids want in a way that makes them oogles of money.

Perhaps that is what is going on. I don't know, but I know that my kids are very, very attached to the iPad with absolutely no pushing from myself. I mean, it's just the next extension of a popup book in some respects. The highlight = instant flash card thing is super useful already. I'm hoping that they can put that into iBooks for pdfs for the technical manuals I've got on there.

 

[outunderthestars]

now this is legitimate. And it really does deserve praise.

teamaxe, yea they are just text but how does a rotatable 3d version of a cell or movable nucleotides justify getting an ipad and buying the (semi discounted) software to kids? I still feel like its a old people/people out of touch with students dictating what they think the kids want in a way that makes them oogles of money.

I am currently back in college in my mid 30's. During our biology course, the professor would have to stop 3-4 times per class to pull up youtube videos about the works of a cell membrane, etc etc to show the class. Static text does an incredibly poor job of presenting complex concepts and processes. Pushing more dynamic content to the student would surely increase the amount of information retained and understood.

I think that interactive textbooks are a wonderful idea, but I am less sure of the business model. The "walled garden" philosophy of the ipad seems at odds with the basic concept of the educational market. Will Apple block textbooks on controversial subjects? Will textbooks about sexuality, drugs, etc be banned?

 

[Particle Physicist]

Because you need a mac to run safari and cheapest mac laptop is 1000. sarcasm me thinks.

@meus, you're picking at straws. lol.

No you don't, safari is available on windows machines. You can also build your own mac and install OSX on it, but if we are taking cost of hardware into account, you still need a machine in order to run widows on as well. Stupid joke really.

 

[exarkun]

damn, team and outunders with the knowledge! Now I get it. It sounds like it could have a great purpose in the classroom. I do admit, it just could not be for me but if it does help younger kids study then I am all for it!

 

[outunderthestars]

damn, team and outunders with the knowledge! Now I get it. It sounds like it could have a great purpose in the classroom. I do admit, it just could not be for me but if it does help younger kids study then I am all for it!

It's going to be an interesting experiment, and I look forward to seeing the long term data from the school districts that are currently running pilot programs regarding ipads as textbook replacements.

 

[Tobor]

Apple and Amazon now have their own competing books standard formats. Not interested.

Nah, it's just ePub with a new name. I read on Ars that you can simply change the extension from .ibook to .epub and it will work in any ePub reader...and it is true.

I tested it myself, it loaded into Stanza and it is readable with no issues. you can't use the fancy interactive stuff, but normal books and images work fine.

 

[bbagwell]

I have three kids in grade school now and two of them use class-supplied iPads weekly (public schools).

I can see Apple putting together an education pricing model where students can buy iPads through their school at a nice discount. Time to get on board and ditch the old textbooks. Hell, they have to ask permission from the school to bring books home for study. So much nicer to have it wherever you need it.

 

[kame-sennin]

The killer app is iBooks author. Before this announcement, I was really really skeptical about Apple's plans to "revolutionize" the text book industry. Their talk of partnering with publishers seemed to show a focus on the wrong side of the market. The established publishers have nothing to gain by offering textbooks at a lower price point. "Fixing" the industry would only break their business model - no company can disrupt themselves.

But iBooks author actually enables content creation from individuals and small businesses who have an interest in disrupting publishing from the low end of the market. Smaller publishers and individual artists could not compete in the traditional textbook market because they lacked the resources for distribution. Now, the playing field for distribution has been leveled (somewhat). Authors can create content that, while it may be inferior to books coming from the major publishers, will be good enough for many customers. And they will be forced to beat the major publishers on price point, because they can't compete on the high end, which will drive prices down.

 

[FrontalMonk]

I haven't had a chance to check out iBooks Author, how does it compare to the other Mac offerings like Scrivener and Storyist that are out there? That is to say, I was following along with the liveblog and read about dragging/dropping interactive stuff, but how good is it for just straight up writing (storyboarding, character notes, etc.)?

 

[japtor]

While watching the presentation I was worried about the fixed layouts meaning no adjustable font size...and that's half true. From what I can tell in landscape you work with a fixed layout while in portrait you get to design the headers and sidebar thumbnails, but otherwise you get the free flowing resizable text. Of course that means that it looks like you can't do a fixed layout portrait book.

I haven't had a chance to check out iBooks Author, how does it compare to the other Mac offerings like Scrivener and Storyist that are out there? That is to say, I was following along with the liveblog and read about dragging/dropping interactive stuff, but how good is it for just straight up writing (storyboarding, character notes, etc.)?

I don't know about Scrivener and Storyist but those look more directed towards writing and laying out a story, while iBooks Author is more akin to a desktop publishing/print layout type of app (albeit directed entirely at iBooks/ePub). Like you'd write your story up in one of those apps, but use iBA for the output to the digital book itself.