
Apple's education event just ended, and
just as Ars Technica said, Apple announced better support for textbooks, as well as a textbook authoring tool. The textbook authoring tool is heavily inspired by Keynote and Pages, and hence, I already know it's going to be top-notch and very pleasant to use. In addition, the company also repositioned iTunes U as a Blackboard competitor. As great as all these new tools are, several large red flags went up in my mind: I remember what it was like being the only student who didn't use Windows.
Update: "Any e-textbook author that wants access to the iPad-toting masses must make his or her work
an exclusive to iBooks 2."
Member since:
2010-06-08
That's not the point. You are buying a book, not Apple experience. Why should my book be tied to any single experience which one would be forced to buy to get the book? Apple acts indecently by bribing education circles with free (money wise) authoring software, but using locked in platform for publishing. There are already a bunch of standard ebook formats, which can be used on any platform. Apple's scorn of open standards is well known, and is clearly apparent in this case too.
Edited 2012-01-20 02:43 UTC