Perhaps iBooks 2 is a continuing step towards the bringing the fictional Young Lady's Illustrated Primer of Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" towards reality.
The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is an adaptive AI tutor. To realize TYLIP, hard AI problems will need to be solved. Yet, it is possible the iPad 3/iBooks 2 is a step towards a simpler Primer.
"TYLIP is...a book that is powered by a computer so advanced it’s almost magical, and it teaches children everything. It does this through a fully interactive story. It teaches you how to read, how to do maths, it teaches you morals, ethics, even self-defense."
This has been on my mind as well -- my oldest child has just become a bookworm and I'm intending to get all my kids iPads this year if they can be more than just for games and movies.
While strong AI would be nice, well crafted content alone could take one very far. Then add in what Khan Academy is doing for tracking learning and you might be 90% there.
It's hard to overstate how important I think this is. There are a few reasons.
First, this brings a focused, clear path for educational content on the iPad. By opening the Books marketplace to more rich multimedia applications, Apple has made it possible for many of the dreams of interactive learning advocates to go mainstream. Imagine learning math by interacting with functions directly or doing symbolic manipulation directly. Or learning to code by actually doing it alongside a narrative. It's hard to imagine an area of study that would not benefit from creative use of technology in teaching it. (No, just adding videos and audio is not enough.)
Second, it opens the door to getting iPads in every classroom. By making it so there is a clear incentive for schools to buy iPads for all their students (cheaper, more useful textbooks) you get an iPad in the hands of every child. It goes without saying this is a big deal.
Finally, it opens the door for real competition for textbooks. By capping the price of textbooks at $15.00, students can easily decide to have several different treatments of the same topic on their iPad. If you manage to create content that is more clear, enjoyable, or even correct, parents and students will be one tap away from getting access to it, cheaply, if their officially-sanctioned book is not doing the job. This turns traditional textbook publishing on its head, because it empowers parents to overturn the textbook choices their school makes from the bottom up. If the entire math class has switched over to using an alternative textbook to learn a topic (just through word of mouth), this might tip the scales so the best content ends up being adopted by schools. Creative, upcoming authors will find that usurping the mainstream textbooks is now possible. I can imagine maverick publishers basically taking the same table of contents from a mainstream textbook and modernizing the treatment of the topic, so students have an easy way to move forward in their class at the same pace but with a much better learning tool.
And this is just what is on the top of my head, before forward thinking content creators have gotten their hands on this new platform.
I see many comments about the cost of an iPad - that is not the real issue here. The real issue is these textbooks and knowledge will be funneled through DRM, and a single provider (Apple). Even if Apple gave away the iPads, I will still have issues with DRM on textbooks. And even if these books end up being DRM-free, will they still be proprietary to Apple's platforms?
If most/all schools adopt this and require it, and the books are DRM hindered to a proprietary platform, then that means that it will become a defacto requirement for every student to own an Apple device, in order to receive education.
It may work, and would certainly be good for Apple... but I don't like it.
School could very well distribute DRM-less texbooks (iBooks works as a regular eBooks reader, and I expect the ibooks 2 format is just EPUB3 with a few extensions), though I really doubt publishers will ever be on board with the idea.
The DRM would also be added by the ibookstore, so you should be able to get a non-DRM'd ebook out of the author application thing: a commenter noted he'd exported an ibook, changed the extension and had no trouble loading it into a non-apple ebook reader (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3485150)
Schools (and corporations) have embraced lock-in from Microsoft and Oracle with open arms, for both longer lock-in time periods, and for greater investment amounts. It's a problem there too, but this is a much smaller problem than locking into Exchange for the next 5 years.
I didn't see anywhere an indication that Apple wouldn't support open, non-DRM ebooks. They do now. If you want to build a publishing business making textbooks without DRM, Apple will be happy to support you. Distribute however you want. If you want to make them free on the iBookstore without DRM, Apple will likely support you.
When I went to college, the text books were a proprietary system with built in DRM.
The professors and the text publishers had deals, involving kickbacks I'm sure, and professors were known to demand that you used the current Edition (which was really no better, and often worse than the previous).
They enforced this by asking questions that involved answers that were different in different editions or that weren't covered in previous editions.
Further, all the books had physical DRM. The glue they were bound with and the cardboard the covers was made out of was designed to disintegrate over the course of a semester, even with good care. I kept my books on a shelf next to my desk in my dorm and never took them to class, and still couldn't sell them at the end of the semester because they'd fallen apart.
Once again, Apple's taking a proprietary industry that is used to charging high prices and trying to democratize it and bring prices down.
Apple did this successfully with the music industry before getting them to give up on DRM.
This is a good forward step with the textbook industry.
Plus by definition if you create software which supports new features you have lock-in.
Apple supports the ePub 2 standard. Apple is as interoperable as they can be. Its amazon that created a proprietary ebook standard. Apple's evolving the standard forward, but I've not seen anything to indicate that these aren't just ePub 3 books.
For those commenting on the price of iPads, I suggest you wait for the other shoe to drop in a few weeks when Apple makes their iPad 3 announcement. I think Apple will likely employ a similar strategy to that of the iPhone and keep the iPad 2 around as a lower-cost alternative to the new iPad.
The apple specific nature of this new authoring platform is a departure from the eBook ePub standard, presumably because Apple thought the UX of eBooks could be way better. A similar rationale for why they introduced iOS apps, how it outperforms mobile web, to the ire of many developers who prefer to work with build once, run everywhere environments.
If you make a killer textbook in the new iBook Author tool, you can't publish it for the Kindle Fire. Contrast that to ePub, a file you could deliver to B&N, Apple, Amazon (they require some weird conversion process), etc, and it would be more or less available to all.
I'm probably going to get downvoted for this but I'll say it anyway: there isn't a tablet market, there is only an ipad market. Apple want to make it easier to make books for ipads because: 1. that's what they sell and 2. that's what people are buying.
A quick aside, my mom is a 7th grade reading/writing teacher in a small (around 18K in the county) west-TN town. Her little school has an ipad cart. Every student does their writing (typing really) on an ipad. Both kids and teachers love it. The news today will probably thrill all of them.
Of course, if you need more reasons for a switch to EPUB3, it also has brilliant accessibility and will be supported by a multitude of readers, not just iDevices.
I'd have to disagree with you on the build once, run everywhere philosophy. If you're talking about mobile apps, there's really no such thing. And textbooks (at least as Apple sees them) are a subset of mobile apps.
It takes specialized environment to make a device specific application and now text book. However, I have read that Apple is keen on ePub 3 standard so perhaps we'll see an export function to make an ePub 3 formatted book in the future. Right now, the iBook Author tool seems to have only PDF as the export function.
Imagine if the company behind this was, say, Microsoft — I’m guessing there would be a lot less defense of propriety, DRM-laden educational material. Really, imagine an HN thread discussing a proprietary Microsoft-backed textbook platform. Besides the level of polish, what’s the fundamental philosophical difference?
Don’t get me wrong, this looks really neat, and I think this is a glimpse into the future of education. I’m just a bit sick of Apple getting a free pass on things that people would be up in arms about if they came from almost any other tech company.
Wow, that looks pretty well done. The iBooks App is in the App store right now too. The format is HTML-based, with some proprietary extension ( -ibooks-layout-hint: anchor; in CSS etc). But don't expect an Android reader anytime soon...
Well, virtually all eBook formats are HTML based (EPUB and Mobi definitely are). EPUB3 even supports embedded JavaScript.
It wouldn't have been impossible for Apple to push the CSS extensions to {CSS3}+1 and be using an open format. But no, it has to be Apple-branded and proprietary..
If Apple really wanted to improve education, they'd make the file format open. That way even schools without tens of thousands of dollars of Apple gear could benefit.
I apologize if this might sound like a naive question: but why haven't textbooks been published on the internet all these years?
I mean why couldn't some non-profit organization theoretically have created some HTML standard and template for textbooks with the ability to do videos, interactive input, notes...etc other bells and whistles...then hired expert textbook writers, and just cranked out a few online quality textbooks for use in high schools, colleges or whatever. Then all you'd need to consume the content is any kind of HTML reader/browser on any type of computing device.
What has really been preventing this from happening? I just don't get what business Apple has in "reinventing" textbooks or e-book formats or why we had to wait all these years for them to do it (and lock it into their ecosystem).
For high schools, the main cost in production is lobbying the state standards board. For colleges, buying decisions are made by people (professors) who don't have to actually spend the money. There's no advantage to undercutting someone on price.
Yes, the education angle seems appropriate given what this event was all about, but can I also say that it’s extremely boring?
What’s much cooler are the books that are possible with the tools Apple provides now. They are like Al Gore’s Our Choice (whose UI was phenomenally awesome), only even better (when looking at some details), also better integrated and (at least nearly) standards based.
Oh, and their authoring tool makes it easy for nearly everyone to make books like that and easily distribute them. That’s just cool, independent of any education bullshit that’s going on.
As it stands, this is not great. The cost of an iPad is $500. It'll probably need replacing every couple of years, and that's assuming your kid doesn't break it all the time (if I'd had one of these at school it would have been smashed up constantly). Each textbook is a minimum of $15. Over the course of a high school education, this is going to cost each child ('s parents) thousands of dollars.
This will only benefit kids at the richest schools, which will not fix America's education problem.
That's one assumption. The other is that over the course of a 4 year high school or college run. The cost of a 499 iPad + 15 dollar books is significantly cheaper than say 6-7 60+ dollar books per semester.
Schools can loan out iPads that they get at a discount from Apple, or colleges can even include them in the cost of tuition. I know quite a few people in college right now that receive a Macbook Pro as part of their college tuition (with no option to decline it and save on tuition). So an iPad would be significantly cheaper than that, and arguably just as useful for most college curriculums.
I just moved to IN so I need to double check the school system here but I do know about the TN system. My knowledge will vary county to county but in general I think this is true. I also made a comment above but will reprint some of it here.
I'm sorry but, what the hell are you talking about? Many schools require students to have laptops in high school now. Teachers are constantly being told that then need to use more and more technology in their classrooms to better engage their students. If there aren't students who can afford machines then they are given one in class.
My mom is a 7th grade reading/writing teacher in a small (around 18K in the county) west-TN town. Her little school has an ipad cart. Every student does their writing (typing really) on an ipad. Both kids and teachers love it. The news today will probably thrill all of them.
I'll be surprised if the iPad doesn't dip to $400 this year, and I'd be shocked if schools don't get bulk discounts on top of that. And there's no reason to assume that $15 is the absolute minimum price - we'll see free alternatives in the near future.
I'm jealous of the kids - I remember lugging around 30 pounds of books and a bulky binder everywhere, and even then making frequent locker runs. And I have few fond memories of textbooks in technical subjects, where a few simple demonstrations (now embedable!) could often go further than a mountain of diagrams and words.
The richest kids? No way, this is far more beneficial to the poorest kids in the worst school districts in the US (and world)!
The richest kids can already go to private schools and get a great prep education.
The poorest kids are stuck in terrible public school districts because of their zipcode, yet the per pupil spending can be as high as private schools.
Now if these kids are given a choice, say, here's a voucher for $10k, enroll in a virtual school, get an $500 iPad loaded with $100 worth of material. That's a BARGAIN! And it will only get cheaper.
The future of education is choice and private schools. It can still be public in terms of it being funded by public funds, but there's no reason to have the government running schools. They're doing a terrible job, and it has to stop because it's so important that we have good schools.
Where did anyone say that kids' parents will have to buy these? And where are you getting this "thousands of dollars" figure from?
Most high school students don't have to buy textbooks at all. The school provides them. And nowadays, most schools already have iPads and laptops (school-owned, the parents do not buy them) that the students use in the class room. I imagine this is something that the schools will be interested in buying.
A close friend of mine is a 4th grade teacher, and it is amazing how much technology they have in the class room now. Laptops and iPads for almost every single student. This is not a school for "rich kids" either. It is an elementary school in a small town in Iowa, and not a "rich" area in any way.
I just laugh and roll my eyes when I read all the comments here that act like someone is going to hold a gun to a poor parent's head and force them to go without buying food because they have to buy iPads and "thousands of dollars" worth of books. Where is this coming from?
iBooks Author gives teachers the opportunity to create and update their own textbooks, which has been a common desire for teachers. They'll finally be able have their textbooks match the curriculum they have in mind. It might not fix America's education problem, but it's a step in the right direction.
1. Go to an Apple store and use it. Its nothing like a CDROM encyclopedia. Encarta comes to mind. The richness of Apple's Textbook experience is definitely immersive and, like most of their products, can't be perceived until you actually use it for a while.
3. Interactive features can be a movie, HTML(5), 3D, or, yes, a Keynote presentation. Imagine a richer image gallery type experience, but with text, transitions, effects, etc. All this can be done w/ Keynote (and a little bit of visual design know-how) right now.
4. Not basic Keynote-style interactive stuff like I described above. You need to be able to produce and edit movies to add a movie. You need to be able to use 3-D software to make a 3-D model. This is obvious stuff. Multiple disciplines go into making even paper textbooks.
6. eInk IS great... for long-format reading. K-12 and Undergrad textbooks never really involve that much long-format reading. Plus Apple is trying to really show that there are alternative ways to learn besides reading. Getting immersed in the subject matter — whether that's through video, audio, games, text, or anything — is the real threshold to learning.
7. iBook is based on the ePub3 standard. I think they're one in the same, but with different headers.
8. See above.
9. No. Never will be.
10. No. Probably will never be able to.
11. No. Textbooks won't exist in 50 years as all knowledge will grow into your brain from a bionano parasite injected into all humans upon birth.
OK, now to take 9,10, and 11 more seriously:
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, textbooks are hugely expensive and are NOT designed to last forever. They contain proprietary information owned by a publisher who has the right to let you not share it. I'm sure some version of these books will be stored in the Library of Congress forever. And much of the material is probably available online or at the library in one way or another. Isn't that fine?
Apple is ushering in a new wave of education materials reform that costs LESS than the current model and is practically weightless. Who cares that you can't pass it on or share it. Its practically disposable.
I do too, but for a novel. For a next-generation textbook, I'd rather have videos, animations, interactive materials. It sucks at sunlight, but again I study at my room and maybe that'll change in a few years.
> 8. Is this new format a lovely zip file we can extract and inspect?
Do you think that publishers that sell you a physical book for $119 would let you inspect their digital books and possibly re-sell them?
> 9. Is it possible to read iBooks on other devices/platforms?
It might be. I think it depends on what publishers want (DRM'ed or non-DRM'ed).
> 10. Am I allowed to share my iBooks with friends and relatives?
In the future, I'm sure you will.
> 11. Will my grandchildren be able to read my iBooks in 50 years time?
If YOU bought them, sure (that is, if Apple is still around). If your school bought them for you, probably not.
I love Apple, but the Kindle is so much better as a reader. It can't play Angry Birds, and the slow refresh rate makes it harder to flick back and forwards, forcing you to focus.
It is interesting the number of arguments around the lock-in factor and how it is great for Apple at the expense of everybody else. The fact is that the format underneath should be ePub3 with extras. ePub3 (with various extras) is and be available on various platforms.
For a traditional publisher to switch to a digital/interactive workflow is a lot of hard-core changes. Target platform and the part of the workflow Apple has has announced is - probably - not that big. They will have a lot more issues around decided the type of content to migrate, kinds of assets/widgets to use, information design of an interactive eBook, firing the track driver company, etc.
If somebody later provides a good alternative technological solution, the change required would be on the last 20% of the production pipeline. And several companies tried to provide a solution earlier, they just did not catch on because they did not have enough of a pieces to make it compelling (enTourage eDGe anyone?).
Of course, in a meanwhile, Apple will massively benefit from the early bird factor and may create de-facto lock-in by just being the first to actually offer a good solution (which includes democratization of the publishing tools by making the Author application free). This was the payoff of all the costs that went into making iPhone, the developers went to it, therefore the iPad already had huge momentum behind it from day one. Now Author builds on iPad's momentum.
But that's different from a real lock-in, such as Windows (temporarily) not sharing the details on how to make a browser to be default and making IE browser a default for all web-related stuff. Or the lock-in of the secure boot.
This is an outstanding value-add for iPads. There are a ton of school administrators/school boards out there that love to try new technology in the classroom. They've been chomping at the bit to buy iPads for a while now, just waiting for the right reason.
I'd venture that being able to present it to the general public as both a cost-cutting measure and a technology initiative will greatly increase adoption.
This is pretty innovative, but one big issue come to mind.
You're going to have to make sure students don't use this to browse the internet and/or play games during class. Let's say the teacher is giving the students a lecture, and refers them to a page in the textbook for more information. They're not going to be able to check if ever student is gaming or browsing the web on their iPad.
Right now students can still play games using their other devices, but in that case, the teacher can take it away for the day. Here, the iPad contains all their textbooks. If they take away, the student can longer use their textbooks.
Obviously, not every student is going to to do this, but it brings in another opportunity for the student to not pay attention.
How does this apply to the publishing of non-textbooks? Can you create interactive storybooks? It seems that this is clearly textbook focused, but are there restrictions on using this for other types of books?
And this is from the iBooks Author homepage: "Available free on the Mac App store, iBooks Author is an amazing new app that allows anyone to create beautiful Multi-Touch textbooks — and just about any other kind of book — for iPad. With galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, and more, these books bring content to life in ways the printed page never could."
While I am envious that upcoming generations will not know the absolute joy of lugging around Chemistry, Physics and Math tombs, I am a little weary that this plan will eliminate the used text book market. I, for one, certainly bought more than one used textbook for less than 50% of the price of a new text. I also had professors recommend going to the off-campus, unaffiliated book store for used texts rather than going to the for-profit on-campus book store in the student union.
Does anyone know of a link that explains this well, with pictures and in depth analysis that I can send to the headmaster of my old highschool? He loves this kinda stuff.
[+] [-] wallflower|14 years ago|reply
The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is an adaptive AI tutor. To realize TYLIP, hard AI problems will need to be solved. Yet, it is possible the iPad 3/iBooks 2 is a step towards a simpler Primer.
"TYLIP is...a book that is powered by a computer so advanced it’s almost magical, and it teaches children everything. It does this through a fully interactive story. It teaches you how to read, how to do maths, it teaches you morals, ethics, even self-defense."
http://mssv.net/2006/05/01/the-young-ladys-illustrated-prime...
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cU8NFy0sa_Y/TuWAj8ZBMVI/AAAAAAAABl...
[+] [-] pstuart|14 years ago|reply
While strong AI would be nice, well crafted content alone could take one very far. Then add in what Khan Academy is doing for tracking learning and you might be 90% there.
[+] [-] danilocampos|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gfodor|14 years ago|reply
First, this brings a focused, clear path for educational content on the iPad. By opening the Books marketplace to more rich multimedia applications, Apple has made it possible for many of the dreams of interactive learning advocates to go mainstream. Imagine learning math by interacting with functions directly or doing symbolic manipulation directly. Or learning to code by actually doing it alongside a narrative. It's hard to imagine an area of study that would not benefit from creative use of technology in teaching it. (No, just adding videos and audio is not enough.)
Second, it opens the door to getting iPads in every classroom. By making it so there is a clear incentive for schools to buy iPads for all their students (cheaper, more useful textbooks) you get an iPad in the hands of every child. It goes without saying this is a big deal.
Finally, it opens the door for real competition for textbooks. By capping the price of textbooks at $15.00, students can easily decide to have several different treatments of the same topic on their iPad. If you manage to create content that is more clear, enjoyable, or even correct, parents and students will be one tap away from getting access to it, cheaply, if their officially-sanctioned book is not doing the job. This turns traditional textbook publishing on its head, because it empowers parents to overturn the textbook choices their school makes from the bottom up. If the entire math class has switched over to using an alternative textbook to learn a topic (just through word of mouth), this might tip the scales so the best content ends up being adopted by schools. Creative, upcoming authors will find that usurping the mainstream textbooks is now possible. I can imagine maverick publishers basically taking the same table of contents from a mainstream textbook and modernizing the treatment of the topic, so students have an easy way to move forward in their class at the same pace but with a much better learning tool.
And this is just what is on the top of my head, before forward thinking content creators have gotten their hands on this new platform.
[+] [-] palebluedot|14 years ago|reply
If most/all schools adopt this and require it, and the books are DRM hindered to a proprietary platform, then that means that it will become a defacto requirement for every student to own an Apple device, in order to receive education.
It may work, and would certainly be good for Apple... but I don't like it.
[+] [-] masklinn|14 years ago|reply
The DRM would also be added by the ibookstore, so you should be able to get a non-DRM'd ebook out of the author application thing: a commenter noted he'd exported an ibook, changed the extension and had no trouble loading it into a non-apple ebook reader (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3485150)
[+] [-] epistasis|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] palebluedot|14 years ago|reply
It isn't a bash against Apple - I would have the same concerns if it was Amazon or Google, if there was DRM and/or device lock-in.
And I think ebooks could be very good for students - however, limiting it with DRM and device lock-in is not how it should be done.
[+] [-] shmerl|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nirvana|14 years ago|reply
When I went to college, the text books were a proprietary system with built in DRM.
The professors and the text publishers had deals, involving kickbacks I'm sure, and professors were known to demand that you used the current Edition (which was really no better, and often worse than the previous).
They enforced this by asking questions that involved answers that were different in different editions or that weren't covered in previous editions.
Further, all the books had physical DRM. The glue they were bound with and the cardboard the covers was made out of was designed to disintegrate over the course of a semester, even with good care. I kept my books on a shelf next to my desk in my dorm and never took them to class, and still couldn't sell them at the end of the semester because they'd fallen apart.
Once again, Apple's taking a proprietary industry that is used to charging high prices and trying to democratize it and bring prices down.
Apple did this successfully with the music industry before getting them to give up on DRM.
This is a good forward step with the textbook industry.
Plus by definition if you create software which supports new features you have lock-in.
Apple supports the ePub 2 standard. Apple is as interoperable as they can be. Its amazon that created a proprietary ebook standard. Apple's evolving the standard forward, but I've not seen anything to indicate that these aren't just ePub 3 books.
[+] [-] martingordon|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonhendry|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] beatle|14 years ago|reply
iPad 3 499
iPad 2 399
Refurbed iPad 1 $99-$299
[+] [-] gdilla|14 years ago|reply
If you make a killer textbook in the new iBook Author tool, you can't publish it for the Kindle Fire. Contrast that to ePub, a file you could deliver to B&N, Apple, Amazon (they require some weird conversion process), etc, and it would be more or less available to all.
[+] [-] maercsrats|14 years ago|reply
A quick aside, my mom is a 7th grade reading/writing teacher in a small (around 18K in the county) west-TN town. Her little school has an ipad cart. Every student does their writing (typing really) on an ipad. Both kids and teachers love it. The news today will probably thrill all of them.
[+] [-] archivator|14 years ago|reply
Of course, if you need more reasons for a switch to EPUB3, it also has brilliant accessibility and will be supported by a multitude of readers, not just iDevices.
[+] [-] SpikeDad|14 years ago|reply
It takes specialized environment to make a device specific application and now text book. However, I have read that Apple is keen on ePub 3 standard so perhaps we'll see an export function to make an ePub 3 formatted book in the future. Right now, the iBook Author tool seems to have only PDF as the export function.
[+] [-] grantheaslip|14 years ago|reply
Don’t get me wrong, this looks really neat, and I think this is a glimpse into the future of education. I’m just a bit sick of Apple getting a free pass on things that people would be up in arms about if they came from almost any other tech company.
[+] [-] milesskorpen|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jstsch|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] archivator|14 years ago|reply
It wouldn't have been impossible for Apple to push the CSS extensions to {CSS3}+1 and be using an open format. But no, it has to be Apple-branded and proprietary..
[+] [-] fredley|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mladenkovacevic|14 years ago|reply
I mean why couldn't some non-profit organization theoretically have created some HTML standard and template for textbooks with the ability to do videos, interactive input, notes...etc other bells and whistles...then hired expert textbook writers, and just cranked out a few online quality textbooks for use in high schools, colleges or whatever. Then all you'd need to consume the content is any kind of HTML reader/browser on any type of computing device.
What has really been preventing this from happening? I just don't get what business Apple has in "reinventing" textbooks or e-book formats or why we had to wait all these years for them to do it (and lock it into their ecosystem).
[+] [-] jdminhbg|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ugh|14 years ago|reply
What’s much cooler are the books that are possible with the tools Apple provides now. They are like Al Gore’s Our Choice (whose UI was phenomenally awesome), only even better (when looking at some details), also better integrated and (at least nearly) standards based.
Oh, and their authoring tool makes it easy for nearly everyone to make books like that and easily distribute them. That’s just cool, independent of any education bullshit that’s going on.
[+] [-] fredley|14 years ago|reply
This will only benefit kids at the richest schools, which will not fix America's education problem.
[+] [-] omfg|14 years ago|reply
Schools can loan out iPads that they get at a discount from Apple, or colleges can even include them in the cost of tuition. I know quite a few people in college right now that receive a Macbook Pro as part of their college tuition (with no option to decline it and save on tuition). So an iPad would be significantly cheaper than that, and arguably just as useful for most college curriculums.
[+] [-] maercsrats|14 years ago|reply
I'm sorry but, what the hell are you talking about? Many schools require students to have laptops in high school now. Teachers are constantly being told that then need to use more and more technology in their classrooms to better engage their students. If there aren't students who can afford machines then they are given one in class.
My mom is a 7th grade reading/writing teacher in a small (around 18K in the county) west-TN town. Her little school has an ipad cart. Every student does their writing (typing really) on an ipad. Both kids and teachers love it. The news today will probably thrill all of them.
[+] [-] saturdaysaint|14 years ago|reply
I'm jealous of the kids - I remember lugging around 30 pounds of books and a bulky binder everywhere, and even then making frequent locker runs. And I have few fond memories of textbooks in technical subjects, where a few simple demonstrations (now embedable!) could often go further than a mountain of diagrams and words.
[+] [-] keeran|14 years ago|reply
edit: source http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/19/live-coverage-of-apples-...
[+] [-] TheFuture|14 years ago|reply
The richest kids can already go to private schools and get a great prep education.
The poorest kids are stuck in terrible public school districts because of their zipcode, yet the per pupil spending can be as high as private schools.
Now if these kids are given a choice, say, here's a voucher for $10k, enroll in a virtual school, get an $500 iPad loaded with $100 worth of material. That's a BARGAIN! And it will only get cheaper.
The future of education is choice and private schools. It can still be public in terms of it being funded by public funds, but there's no reason to have the government running schools. They're doing a terrible job, and it has to stop because it's so important that we have good schools.
[+] [-] smspence|14 years ago|reply
Most high school students don't have to buy textbooks at all. The school provides them. And nowadays, most schools already have iPads and laptops (school-owned, the parents do not buy them) that the students use in the class room. I imagine this is something that the schools will be interested in buying.
A close friend of mine is a 4th grade teacher, and it is amazing how much technology they have in the class room now. Laptops and iPads for almost every single student. This is not a school for "rich kids" either. It is an elementary school in a small town in Iowa, and not a "rich" area in any way.
I just laugh and roll my eyes when I read all the comments here that act like someone is going to hold a gun to a poor parent's head and force them to go without buying food because they have to buy iPads and "thousands of dollars" worth of books. Where is this coming from?
[+] [-] johnnyn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] johnnyn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superos|14 years ago|reply
1. It did not impress me (iBooks). Looked like gorgeous Apple design on 'CDROM' type educational software we used to have in the old days.
2. I liked the glossary and notes/annotations that turned into summary cards for learning.
3. Interactive features are added using Keynote(?)
or
4. You need to know 'HTM5' and Javascript to do interactive stuff (this is not GarageBand for eLearning as someone told me it would be).
5. The way iBooks Textbooks are now part of iTunes U does add a lot to iTunes U. Now it can disrupt LMS (Learning Management Systems) vendors as well.
6. I still love eInk.
Then some worries.
7. What happened to epub and similar standards?
8. Is this new format a lovely zip file we can extract and inspect?
9. Is it possible to read iBooks on other devices/platforms?
10. Am I allowed to share my iBooks with friends and relatives?
11. Will my grandchildren be able to read my iBooks in 50 years time?
[+] [-] efields|14 years ago|reply
1. Go to an Apple store and use it. Its nothing like a CDROM encyclopedia. Encarta comes to mind. The richness of Apple's Textbook experience is definitely immersive and, like most of their products, can't be perceived until you actually use it for a while.
3. Interactive features can be a movie, HTML(5), 3D, or, yes, a Keynote presentation. Imagine a richer image gallery type experience, but with text, transitions, effects, etc. All this can be done w/ Keynote (and a little bit of visual design know-how) right now.
4. Not basic Keynote-style interactive stuff like I described above. You need to be able to produce and edit movies to add a movie. You need to be able to use 3-D software to make a 3-D model. This is obvious stuff. Multiple disciplines go into making even paper textbooks.
6. eInk IS great... for long-format reading. K-12 and Undergrad textbooks never really involve that much long-format reading. Plus Apple is trying to really show that there are alternative ways to learn besides reading. Getting immersed in the subject matter — whether that's through video, audio, games, text, or anything — is the real threshold to learning.
7. iBook is based on the ePub3 standard. I think they're one in the same, but with different headers.
8. See above.
9. No. Never will be.
10. No. Probably will never be able to.
11. No. Textbooks won't exist in 50 years as all knowledge will grow into your brain from a bionano parasite injected into all humans upon birth.
OK, now to take 9,10, and 11 more seriously:
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, textbooks are hugely expensive and are NOT designed to last forever. They contain proprietary information owned by a publisher who has the right to let you not share it. I'm sure some version of these books will be stored in the Library of Congress forever. And much of the material is probably available online or at the library in one way or another. Isn't that fine?
Apple is ushering in a new wave of education materials reform that costs LESS than the current model and is practically weightless. Who cares that you can't pass it on or share it. Its practically disposable.
[+] [-] pooriaazimi|14 years ago|reply
I do too, but for a novel. For a next-generation textbook, I'd rather have videos, animations, interactive materials. It sucks at sunlight, but again I study at my room and maybe that'll change in a few years.
> 8. Is this new format a lovely zip file we can extract and inspect?
Do you think that publishers that sell you a physical book for $119 would let you inspect their digital books and possibly re-sell them?
> 9. Is it possible to read iBooks on other devices/platforms?
It might be. I think it depends on what publishers want (DRM'ed or non-DRM'ed).
> 10. Am I allowed to share my iBooks with friends and relatives?
In the future, I'm sure you will.
> 11. Will my grandchildren be able to read my iBooks in 50 years time?
If YOU bought them, sure (that is, if Apple is still around). If your school bought them for you, probably not.
[+] [-] richbradshaw|14 years ago|reply
If it's not epub (not 100% familiar with format), it's just xhtml, css, svg, some plists and all your assets (jpgs, pngs, etc)
[+] [-] wisty|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arafalov|14 years ago|reply
For a traditional publisher to switch to a digital/interactive workflow is a lot of hard-core changes. Target platform and the part of the workflow Apple has has announced is - probably - not that big. They will have a lot more issues around decided the type of content to migrate, kinds of assets/widgets to use, information design of an interactive eBook, firing the track driver company, etc.
If somebody later provides a good alternative technological solution, the change required would be on the last 20% of the production pipeline. And several companies tried to provide a solution earlier, they just did not catch on because they did not have enough of a pieces to make it compelling (enTourage eDGe anyone?).
Of course, in a meanwhile, Apple will massively benefit from the early bird factor and may create de-facto lock-in by just being the first to actually offer a good solution (which includes democratization of the publishing tools by making the Author application free). This was the payoff of all the costs that went into making iPhone, the developers went to it, therefore the iPad already had huge momentum behind it from day one. Now Author builds on iPad's momentum.
But that's different from a real lock-in, such as Windows (temporarily) not sharing the details on how to make a browser to be default and making IE browser a default for all web-related stuff. Or the lock-in of the secure boot.
[+] [-] pflats|14 years ago|reply
I'd venture that being able to present it to the general public as both a cost-cutting measure and a technology initiative will greatly increase adoption.
[+] [-] neilparikh|14 years ago|reply
You're going to have to make sure students don't use this to browse the internet and/or play games during class. Let's say the teacher is giving the students a lecture, and refers them to a page in the textbook for more information. They're not going to be able to check if ever student is gaming or browsing the web on their iPad.
Right now students can still play games using their other devices, but in that case, the teacher can take it away for the day. Here, the iPad contains all their textbooks. If they take away, the student can longer use their textbooks.
Obviously, not every student is going to to do this, but it brings in another opportunity for the student to not pay attention.
[+] [-] neovive|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnnyn|14 years ago|reply
Here's the Help section for "publishing to iBookstore": https://gist.github.com/1641657
And this is from the iBooks Author homepage: "Available free on the Mac App store, iBooks Author is an amazing new app that allows anyone to create beautiful Multi-Touch textbooks — and just about any other kind of book — for iPad. With galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, and more, these books bring content to life in ways the printed page never could."
[+] [-] mdellavo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lachyg|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] americandesi333|14 years ago|reply