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Inkling: interactive textbooks on the iPad.

65 points| shadytrees | 15 years ago |inkling.com | reply

Four textbooks available so far: http://www.inkling.com/about

Having used Raven's biology text, which is a good textbook but would've tremendously benefited from something like this because of how much data you need to retain for biology, this makes me pretty excited for THE FUTURE.

32 comments

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[+] todayiamme|15 years ago|reply
I am in the target market for this and something disturbs me. It looks so great and neat that I wonder what will happen to the noise to signal ratio. I am not exactly the Buddha in terms of concentration and the last thing I want is to be plugged into an interactive environment (the app itself and the iPad). I'll play around, have urges to read a million things at a time; do quizzes; watch videos; write notes to share instead of writing them to learn and in general do everything on it, but learn. What makes it even more dangerous is the fact that it looks like I am learning something.

That's the problem with a lot of products I see. It's not that I don't have a use for them. It's the fact that I don't want to get used to them. Sometimes, the bare bones is just how things should be. Of course, it's awfully convenient to have things in this package, but it won't serve the purpose that well.

This is why I plan to buy the color kindle someday, if they come out with a decent system to take annotations. It scratches my itch for books with an occasional physics/ math/ computer text, while offering me an environment I can curtail. Hopefully, someday I will have more fine tuned control over myself, but until then I plan to stay away from such things.

[+] scott_s|15 years ago|reply
This is a legitimate problem, but not unique to this product. Anyone who uses a computer to get work done already deals with this.
[+] xtacy|15 years ago|reply
I was at a Peter Norvig lecture recently and he talked about ideas for his next book, to have it interactive with videos and such. He said that this would be a great way for authors to get implicit feedback from readers and see which sections they're reading and what they're not. (Analytics for book authors!)

Imagine having a lisp shell right next to the exercise so that you edit the program, execute it and see the output! The possibilities are endless---it just has to be done right.

EDIT: One of the main reasons authors stick with publishers is that they cannot handle mass printing. It becomes just too difficult. With this model, it would be easier to distribute the content directly to the user, rather than dealing with a (possibly grumpy) publisher.

[+] shadytrees|15 years ago|reply
Four textbooks available so far: http://www.inkling.com/about

Having used Raven's biology text, which is a good textbook but would've tremendously benefited from something like this because of how much data you need to retain for biology, this makes me pretty excited for THE FUTURE.

[+] wmf|15 years ago|reply
It amazes me that this information is so hard to find on their site.
[+] hartror|15 years ago|reply
Now all you need is Windows 3.11 and one of those newfangled CD-ROMs and you too can run Encarta!

    or
The 1990s called and they want their ideas back!

    /end_sarcasm
This looks like a nicely polished product, the major barrier to uptake is going to be getting someone to use it as part of the syllabus. Difficult given that it will require the school to require everyone who takes the class to have an iPad.
[+] ben1040|15 years ago|reply
This looks like a nicely polished product, the major barrier to uptake is going to be getting someone to use it as part of the syllabus. Difficult given that it will require the school to require everyone who takes the class to have an iPad.

Not exactly. One of the books listed there, for example, is a popular text I had for an intro biology course at my university. To me, it seems more that if your professor has adopted one of the books, you can buy the iPad version instead of the dead tree copy.

As an aside, I wish I had an iPad version of that biology text when I took that class, if only because it was a monster book that weighed down my backpack.

[+] rodh257|15 years ago|reply
Sounds great, but would be better on something with a better (ie more readable) screen. The application needs to be device agnostic.

If these guys can come through with the goods, it would be ideal: http://www.notionink.in/

Make it a HTML or something app so people with other devices (windows, android tablets/ereaders) can make use of it. (perhaps an idea for a startup would be a website/program that lets content producers create these without HTML knowledge. That is, a builder for interactive HTML5 based text books.)

[+] jforman|15 years ago|reply
The platform was actually designed to be device agnostic - the content is expressed in X(HT)ML.

The iPad is our first target device because Apple did tablets right. You'll have to wait to see what comes next :)

[+] chwahoo|15 years ago|reply
Based on the website, this looks awesome. But it would seem to compete fairly directly with iBooks. It's bound to be a time-consuming/costly process to prepare content for this platform. I wonder how inkling has convinced themselves and their partners that Apple won't pull the plug on their venture.
[+] nanairo|15 years ago|reply
I don't see why Apple would pull the plug. Sure, the app store has its problems (and I dislike those too) but it seems to me their only danger is that they are competing with Apple directly.

There is already Kindle and iBooks... and there may very well soon be more. I don't think Apple really cares that much, who sells the books. Especially if, as in this case, they still get their 30% share.

[+] nanairo|15 years ago|reply
Wow! This is really impressive!

It seems all that we were promised for the age of the ebook and then some! It looks like a product of love and plenty of polish.

My only worries is that they may risk becoming the artisan version of the ebook (on iPad) world: wonderfully handcrafted, but slow to scale. By the look of it porting a book to Inkling is not trivial!

I'll keep my fingers crossed for a great future for Inkling. :)

[+] exit|15 years ago|reply
i wonder how this is implemented. as a browser for local html archives?
[+] kurumo|15 years ago|reply
Is nobody bothered by the prices of the actual books?
[+] ra88it|15 years ago|reply
No. The prices seem to be less than the paper versions, and the books can be purchased per chapter. Seems like a good start.
[+] mhb|15 years ago|reply
It looks great, but what makes this different than a (curated) walled garden section of the internet?
[+] ra88it|15 years ago|reply
Is somebody arguing that it is different?