Apple Jumped into the world of digital textbooks yesterday, looking to bring digital products to schools in ways that will boost sales of its products.
The company introduced iBooks 2, which enables interactive features for digital textbooks; iBooks Author, which lets people build interactive textbooks; and its iTunes U app, which allows free downloading of lectures and other course content.
Apple has been working on digital textbooks with publishers like Pearson PLC, McGraw-Hill Cos Inc, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Those companies alone are responsible for 90 percent of all the textbooks sold in the U.S.
The move will help Apple compete with Amazon and other content and device makers that have been venturing into the same $8 billion market with their e-reading devices.
“I give such incredible marks to Steve Jobs and Apple for having this vision and pushing it through the iPad,” said Terry McGraw, chief executive of McGraw-Hill. He said he’d been talking to Jobs and his team since last summer about recreating textbooks as apps.
He said making textbooks available on iPads will open up the market beyond high school and university students to everyday consumers. “I think without a doubt this will open up a learning agency for anybody and anywhere.”
The early goal is to let students to buy their textbooks directly through Apple rather than through their school districts. The books in the pilot launch are priced at $14.99 each on the iPad, with a range of interactive features.
More in the video below.
Related articles
- Apple’s iBooks 2 for iPad, A New Way to Buy and Read Books (sociableblog.com)
- Apple reinvents textbooks and curriculum with iBooks 2, iBooks Author, updated iTunes U (venturebeat.com)
- Apple Releases iBooks 2 for iPad (techie-buzz.com)
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