The famous 19 January Apple event came and it really was focused on education, as the Cupertino giant launched the iBooks 2 e-Texbook platform and the iBooks Author app. Apple held its event at the Guggenheim museum in New York and Phil Schiller was the one to take the stage and announce the platform that “will reinvent the textbook”: iBooks 2.
Schiller also claimed that there are 1.5 million iPads used in the education process. The digital book stand includes now education-focused features that will help students all over the world. The printed books are basically dead now, since we can get interactive 3D content and animated models to teach us Chemistry, Biology and whatnot. Apple initially partnered with textbook creators Pearson, McGraw Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a smart choice, since these companies make out 90% of all textbook industry. DK and the E.O. Wilson Foundation are also in the mix.
Among the digital content available at launch we find Pearson’s High School Science, Biology and DJ’s Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life, Natural History Insects, Animals and My First ABS. iBooks 2 is available from the app store for free, while textbooks will cost $14.99 or a bit less. The problem here is that these digital textbook will occupy a huge amount of data, some even 2 or 3 GB, so that’s huge. Imagine a couple of these stored on your tablet together with some music and films and your memory will be full. What to do?
The iBooks Author is a free OS X application that allows the user to create books. The purpose here is for scholars and teachers to give the pupils a great learning experience. Ease of use, drag and drop of photos, videos and Microsoft Word files are the main advantages here and you’ll use templates to achieve that. You can also add other widgets, but you need to know Javascript or HTML for that. You can arrange glossaries, publish straight to the store and much, much more.
