Apple Intends To 'Digitally Destroy' Textbook Publishing

bonch writes "Apple is expected to announce e-book creation and social interaction tools at their January 19 media event taking place in New York, the heart of the publishing industry. Along with expanded interactivity features such as test-taking, the event is expected to showcase an ePub 3-compatible 'Garageband for e-books' to address the lack of simple digital publishing tools. Steve Jobs reportedly considered textbook publishing to be 'an $8 billion a year industry ripe for digital destruction' and was directly involved with Apple's efforts in this area until his death."

Comments

Magic

[siddesu]

From the summary, that's what it feels like. My hair is tingling, my hands are shaking, my pupils are dilating, my mouth opens all by itself and I feel happiness and joy take me over.

Is this the second cumming?

Is he still alive somewhere?

I can't wait.

I

MUST

BUY

Re:Magic

[bonch]

I know you're being tongue-in-cheek, but Apple's ability to make normal people excited about technology is one of their most important assets. I'm glad they're around to get non-techies hyped up about things like "ePub" and "digital distribution."

Re:Magic

[Samantha Wright]

Doesn't matter. There is no student alive who doesn't want this to happen. (Although many are indeed blind Apple fans, anything that can be done to emaciate textbook publishers is a Good Thing.)

Re:Magic

[siddesu]

Apple is "exciting" people about "technology" the same way Louis Vuitton is "exciting" people about, you know, apparel design and textile technology. Both companies sell an image and the fashion accessories to build it, and most people buy their products exactly as a fashion accessory.

With Apple it can actually get worse -- if you make the Apple device the dominant way you access information. That's fine and dandy, until you consider that when you buy the shiny little toy, you only get permission to access the world through it the way the designers of the technology believe it should be accessed, through their "approved" modes.

Once I heard an expression in a meeting that describes the situation very aptly -- "we're looking at your specs as if through a bent straw", said some desperate developer. If you're using Apple products, that means that you're looking at the world through a very bent straw, and Apple is doing the bending. Is it in your favor? You decide.

Of course, you can choose to be grateful and excited.

Re:Magic

[houghi]

Mod parent up.

Re:Magic

[bonch]

Apple is "exciting" people about "technology" the same way Louis Vuitton is "exciting" people about, you know, apparel design and textile technology. Both companies sell an image and the fashion accessories to build it, and most people buy their products exactly as a fashion accessory.

Someone made computers cool for the general public. The horror.

With Apple it can actually get worse -- if you make the Apple device the dominant way you access information. That's fine and dandy, until you consider that when you buy the shiny little toy, you only get permission to access the world through it the way the designers of the technology believe it should be accessed, through their "approved" modes.

I think some of the Apple hatred stems from the fact that many techies absorb themselves in computers because it gives them a feeling of control that they lack in their daily lives. Mastering a system is gratifying on many levels. When a company offers a platform that doesn't allow or require that kind of micro-management and control, it's really like an attack on the person directly, especially when the product is popular among non-techies--many of the same people who alienated that person in the first place. And so there's resentment.

The only reason I say all this is that concerns like yours don't exist in the general populace; it doesn't even cross their minds that it would be a problem. They see the lack of open-endedness as simplification and refinement that makes the devices easier to use. As Steve Jobs use to say, something "mere mortals" could use. So I say again, I think it's awesome that the public is allowed to be excited about things like "ePub" and "digital distribution" rather than rely on nerds like us to trickle it down to the rest of the population.

Re:Magic

[Grishnakh]

I'll just be glad if they succeed in destroying the textbook publishing business. There are few greater hives of scum and villainy than that one; putting out a new "revised edition" every 2 years for an ancient subject like calculus just so they can keep you from selling your textbook or buying a cheaper used one. I hope they die just like the video rental business.

Re:Magic

[Anonymous Coward]

This student doesn't want it to happen.
-checks pulse-
Yep, you're wrong again.
You know, one of the provisions with corporate-controlled educational eBooks is going to be the book's destruction after XX weeks or XX uses (whichever comes first). The whole corporate digital agenda is just fucked ATM. I'm cool with ink printing on sustainable plant matter, and my little library *looks* awesome.

Re:Magic

[siddesu]

many techies absorb themselves in computers because it gives them a feeling of control that they lack in their daily lives

I don't believe you think more than skin-deep about the dangers of the "walled garden" approach. The problem with Apple is very simple -- they have delegated themselves a right to approve how do you use "their" device and a right to charge you a tithe for everything that comes to you on "their" hardware. In effect, you've relinquished ownership, and, unlike some other platforms, you have no legal way out.

Also, software freedom is only a small part of it. Think of other possibilities that the Apple approach prevents. Even if an independent business and an owner of an Apple device both think there is a business mode they both can benefit from, which mode does not go through the Apple-approved system, they cannot achieve it easily, and hence cannot exploit the full potential of the hardware platform to their advantage. This is especially bad for the person who has paid the price for the Apple device.

Re:Magic

[Samantha Wright]

Okay, point. That is a bad thing. But you know what? They'll be a lot easier to pirate, and even if only one person never uses one such textbook outside of normal classes and everyone else still buys paper because they do, it'll be less money wasted overall. Also, at least with music, Apple eventually shucked off (most of?) the DRM. Perhaps something could happen with electronic textbooks.

Re:Magic

[timeOday]

Both companies sell an image and the fashion accessories to build it, and most people buy their products exactly as a fashion accessory.

It's not just that. The reason Apple took off in consumer electronics was the iPod, and the reason it took off was not the device itself, but because Apple hammered out distribution rights with major music publishers. Paid downloads of music were an obvious idea by then, but so what? Nobody else had made it happen (not with major labels most people wanted). Digital textbooks are the same deal - the hardware is almost a given, the content is already there - it's all about distribution rights. And, yes, DRM is part and parcel with distribution rights, because most content producers DO want to get paid. (That said, if a huge customer like the UC system wants to pay for their own content development and then allow free redistribution, I agree that would be even better.)

Re:Magic

[anonymov]

putting out a new "revised edition" every 2 years for an ancient subject like calculus just so they can keep you from selling your textbook or buying a cheaper used one

... As opposed to complete inability to resell a license?

Hopefully, we'll get it either cheap enough to compensate or - in an ideal world - DRM free.

Worst case scenario would be publishers catching up and starting to sell them on their own, overpriced, some fucked up proprietary format and DRM'd up to the ears.

Re:Magic

[the_B0fh]

I disagree. I learnt to install Solaris before I have ever installed Dos/Windows. My computer throughout college was my trusty Apple //gs and the OSF/1 box with the huge black and white 21" monochrome monitor - damn, it was a fine monitor. I learnt to manage VMS, UNIX, installed Slackware Linux from 50+ floppies. I am one of the few rare people to have actually bought a copy of WordPerfect for Linux :) Used Gentoo for years and years, building from stage 1 when that was all that was available.

I still run OpenBSD at home as my outside facing server.

And I find Macs easy to use. For the stuff I need to do, it's easy. For the technical stuff, I can get right into the innards of it for the most part. Opensource stuff is downright easy. MacPorts if available. Otherwise, ./configure and make. Built a couple of hackintoshes for fun.

The OP was just being stupid. MP3s have been un-DRM"ed for quite a few years now - Apple was the one pushing for it, but of course, OP conveniently forgets that.

Apple also contributes back - they made so much improvements into KDE's browser that KDE just basically re-absorbed back in the entire webkit, among other things.

Re:Magic

[the_B0fh]

This is where you are being stupid. So far, none of the digital content Apple sells dies after X uses. Renting movies is different, of course.

So, whether this is a rent model or a buy model, we'll see on Thursday. But if the price is right, why not rent?

Re:Magic

[paiute]

Apple is "exciting" people about "technology" the same way Louis Vuitton is "exciting" people about, you know, apparel design and textile technology. Both companies sell an image and the fashion accessories to build it, and most people buy their products exactly as a fashion accessory.

I am periodically reminded why headhunters don't lurk on Slashdot to find the next generation of innovating CEOs.

Re:Magic

[Anonymous Coward]

YAY SOCKPUPPETS! Keep breaking them social norms and then complain how everyone is out to get you!

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2625414&cid=38728758

by Overly Critical Guy (663429) Alter Relationship on Tuesday January 17, @03:05PM (#38728758)
Dude, what is wrong with you? You sound like every stereotypically angry PC gamer I've ever met. Drivers really are waste of time on PCs, and someday, the idea that people manually updated drivers and defragmented hard drives and all the other crap they do will seem as archaic as hand-cranking to start a Model T.

I think the cause of reactions like yours is that some people don't have control in their lives, so they seek it in PCs, because mastering the upkeep required for a PC gives you that missing feeling of control. Having that feeling taken away from you by non-PCs threatens you on a core level, reminding you of the lack of control in your real life, so you snap back to protect it. Maybe that's not you, but damn, there are a lot of people like this.

Re:Magic

[garaged]

OMG you make it sound like all sysadmins are giving desktop support (the whole day), I would be so unhappy if that was true

Re:Magic

[bonch]

many techies absorb themselves in computers because it gives them a feeling of control that they lack in their daily lives

I don't believe you think more than skin-deep about the dangers of the "walled garden" approach. The problem with Apple is very simple -- they have delegated themselves a right to approve how do you use "their" device and a right to charge you a tithe for everything that comes to you on "their" hardware. In effect, you've relinquished ownership, and, unlike some other platforms, you have no legal way out.

Game consoles have had "walled gardens" (ugh, that term) for decades, approving all software that appears on their devices, and the world hasn't fallen apart. To the contrary, consoles surpassed PCs as the primary gaming platforms several years ago. The world also hasn't fallen apart since Apple began approving software on its devices; in fact, iOS remains #1 in customer satisfaction surveys.

Clearly, non-techies prefer these kinds of platforms. Like I said before, the issues you raise are not even considered a problem outside of tech forums. Normal people don't care if they can't install absolutely everything under the sun, because they wouldn't want to even if they could. Nobody is putting a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to buy an iPad, so the victim angle doesn't work either.

You need to understand that it's not a black-and-white situation. Apple platforms may be perfect for other people but not for you. Just because you don't like Apple doesn't mean nobody else should use their platforms and that the world should be rid of their evil. It just means other people use those platforms and you use whatever you use, and the world keeps on turning.

Also, software freedom is only a small part of it. Think of other possibilities that the Apple approach prevents. Even if an independent business and an owner of an Apple device both think there is a business mode they both can benefit from, which mode does not go through the Apple-approved system, they cannot achieve it easily, and hence cannot exploit the full potential of the hardware platform to their advantage. This is especially bad for the person who has paid the price for the Apple device.

If Apple isn't meeting their needs, the independent business can choose to use a different platform. Nobody is forced to use an Apple device, so again, the "freedom" argument is silly and really comes down to techies trying to maintain control in order to feel a sense of mastery over something, in my opinion.

Re:Magic

[BlackSnake112]

Maybe some people do not like Apple due to the fact that people believe the hype. Many Apple users tell me that they can surf the web and open any email attachment without fear of ever getting a virus/malware. That is not true. If this was true I would have to be rebuilding Apple machines that are infected. Granted the users let the virus/malware be installed in the first place. They entered in their password when prompted without a second thought. That is the problem. The Apple users think they are totally safe, so any password prompt is fine since that are on an Apple machine.

Re:Magic

[rpresser]

I think some of the Apple hatred stems from the fact that many techies absorb themselves in computers because it gives them a feeling of control that they lack in their daily lives. Mastering a system is gratifying on many levels. When a company offers a platform that doesn't allow or require that kind of micro-management and control, it's really like an attack on the person directly, especially when the product is popular among non-techies--many of the same people who alienated that person in the first place. And so there's resentment.

You absolutely loved the "I'm a Mac / I'm a PC" commercials, didn't you?

Re:Magic

[siddesu]

Game consoles have had "walled gardens" (ugh, that term) for decades, approving all software that appears on their devices, and the world hasn't fallen apart.

Nice strawman you got there. Nobody is arguing that the world is falling apart, the argument is that there is possibility of real harm done. The Microsoft near monopoly in the PC market did not cause the world to fall, but it is hard to argue it was totally harmless.

Nobody is forced to use an Apple device, so again, the "freedom" argument is silly

It is good I am not making this argument then. All I'm saying is that people buy Apple products by the looks and assume the rest from what they already know about computers, and by doing so they buy into a sales method that limits the modes in which they can use their devices.

In my book that is bad, but, as I said in my frist psot, you always can accept it and rejoice.

Re:Magic

[BasilBrush]

I don't believe you think more than skin-deep about the dangers of the "walled garden" approach. The problem with Apple is very simple -- they have delegated themselves a right to approve how do you use "their" device and a right to charge you a tithe for everything that comes to you on "their" hardware. In effect, you've relinquished ownership, and, unlike some other platforms, you have no legal way out.

Oh don't be such a drama queen. There have been walled garden computers since at least the games consoles of the 1980s. And still the consumers are quite happy with them. There have been open consoles, and they've all failed. Given the choice of gaming on the "walled garden" consoles and open PCs, in the end the walled garden won majority share.

This "open" good; "walled garden" bad thing is ideology. And like all ideologies, it's wrong.

This is especially bad for the person who has paid the price for the Apple device.

Funnily enough the iPhone owner doesn't agree. He's more than happy with his virus free platform where he gets an enormous choice of quality apps in the 99c - $9.99 range.

Freetards amount to about 0.01% of the population. And they're the only ones that have negative views of a "walled garden".

Re:Magic

[Grishnakh]

With enough people interested in cracking it, a DRM format tends to get cracked sooner or later. And once that happens, the entire format is opened up to easy piracy. College students tend to have a lot of time on their hands, not that much money, and a strong interest in this kind of thing.

Re:Magic

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I think some of the Apple hatred stems from the fact that many techies absorb themselves in computers because it gives them a feeling of control that they lack in their daily lives.

The iPhone was loved around here until it became a mass-market product. Once it reached that point a new underdog had to be found. The 'hatred', in many cases, is really just a form of hipsterism.

Re:Magic

[BasilBrush]

It's not just that. The reason Apple took off in consumer electronics was the iPod, and the reason it took off was not the device itself, but because Apple hammered out distribution rights with major music publishers.

Actually I think it was the other way around. iTunes Music Store didn't launch until the iPad had been shipping for 18 months. And the iPod was a big success from the start.

iPod was originally marketed as something you could put your CD collection on and take it with you. It was the success of that that enabled Jobs to persuade the record labels to join in. Of course once iTMS was up and running the two formed a virtuous circle that pushed the iPod to ever greater heights of success.

Re:Magic

[tgibbs]

With Apple it can actually get worse -- if you make the Apple device the dominant way you access information. That's fine and dandy, until you consider that when you buy the shiny little toy, you only get permission to access the world through it the way the designers of the technology believe it should be accessed, through their "approved" modes.

I don't see how this is any different. When I buy a physical book, my access is limited by how the publishers thought it should be accessed. Want to search for a topic? Only if the publisher saw fit to add an index, and only if the search terms you have in mind are among the ones tabulated. Want to compare the discussion in two different parts of the book? You are stuck flipping back and forth.

Re:Magic

[siddesu]

The comparison would be apt only if you buy the kind of books that are edited for "easy reading". You know, the kind that manage to squeeze "The Grapes of Wrath" or "Ulysses" in no more than 50 pages in simple English.

Re:Magic

[TheKidWho]

Actually I think it was the other way around. iTunes Music Store didn't launch until the iPad had been shipping for 18 months. And the iPod was a big success from the start.

I think you might want to reevaluate that comment.

Re:Magic

[anonymov]

Sure, all the more reasons for SOPA-likes.

"anatomy+101+no+drm+patch+torrent" - click - Stoprightthereyoucriminalscum! You have violated the law. Pay the court a fine or serve your sentence. Your downloaded files are now forfeit.

Re:Magic

[BasilBrush]

Hopefully, we'll get it either cheap enough to compensate

Well of course we will. Just as songs are cheaper than singles were, album downloads are cheaper than CDs, apps are down to 99c and existing ebooks are cheaper than their paper alternatives.

There are an awful lot of academics around that are capable of writing textbooks. But at the moment they have to get a publisher, and the publisher has to pay the printers, and then there's a bookseller who takes his cut.

Sounds like this is a bit like the iPhone app development. It'll let the authors deal direct with the store and set the prices. And it'll cut out all the middle-men.

Re:Magic

[BasilBrush]

I'm cool with ink printing on sustainable plant matter, and my little library *looks* awesome.

You'll be less happy when you've reached middle age and you've had to move all that dead tree pulp through 10 different house moves.

I've thrown away all my classics of literature on paper now, and replaced them with ebooks. It's made me very happy. I'd switch the rest too, if it wasn't for the cost. I wish I was at the start of my library creating life and could build a library of ebooks instead of a mountain of bound paper.

Re:Magic

[BasilBrush]

Quite so. I kept all my textbooks after college thinking that I'd have the need to refer to them. I can't remember opening any of them since I finished college. Might as well have rented them for a lower price.

Re:Magic

[anonymov]

Well, newspapers managed to get it wrong in many ways, with things like print annual subscription 6 times cheaper than app annual subscription - that was either New York Times or New Yorker, IIRC.

Hopefully Apple will apply enough weight to get the point across.

Re:Magic

[grub]

Sadly I haven't had mod points for ages, so all I can offer is +1, Insightful in a reply.
You've nailed every nail on the head with that.

Re:Magic

[Grishnakh]

So what? Unless they implement a national firewall, they can't stop access to foreign bittorrent sites and the like. SOPA won't do shit for stopping copyright infringement, but it'll totally fuck over US-based businesses.

Re:Magic

[ceoyoyo]

The vast majority of cell phones (including all the popular ones) before the iPhone and Android were the ultimate in walled gardens. Remember paying your carrier if you wanted to get your pictures off your RAZR?

Re:Magic

[poetmatt]

Someone made computers cool for the general public. The horror.

Yeah, let me give you a hint: it wasn't apple.

Re:Magic

[siddesu]

No, I don't remember ever having to pay to get pictures off my phone, and my "walled garden" phones have had "app" markets and "music" markets since about 2000 for prices that were comparable to the iTunes and the Android markets. The only "new" thing I've seen since the advent of the iPhone and the Android is video download, and that is mostly a development due to tech that developed independently of smartphones.

Re:Magic

[Darinbob]

Apple makes people excited about consumer products; not necessarily excited about the technology itself. I don't see them making that many people interested in finding out how stuff actually works.

Re:Magic

[siddesu]

This "open" good; "walled garden" bad thing is ideology. And like all ideologies, it's wrong.

No, it is simple pragmatism developed over decades of ownership of both free and walled products.

Freetards amount to about 0.01% of the population.

What is a "freetard" and how does it relate to the discussion of the ability of owners to make full use of the hardware platform they are paying for?

Re:Magic

[Darinbob]

Innovating CEOs very often have little technological expertise. They see technology as a tool to get stuff done or as something to sell. Understanding how stuff works is for the little guy "ePub" is not a technology, it is an application on top of existing technology. Turning ePub into a product involves very few engineers but a whole lot of content creators, editors, graphical designers, etc.

Re:Magic

[Anonymous Coward]

Paid downloads of music were an obvious idea by then, but so what? Nobody else had made it happen (not with major labels most people wanted).

Do Apple fans make up their own history and timelines?
Rhapsody was launched as a music service on mid 2001 and by mid 2002 had the catalogs of EMI, BMG, Warner Bros. Records, Sony and Universal Records which are the 5 big music companies. Rhapsody was not the first either. Although iTunes had a release in early 2001, it wasn't until spring 2003 that you could even buy music from iTunes, over a year after other were already doing it.

SJ did not blaze the path for online music like many Apple fanbios would like you to believe. Rhapsody also had non DRM mp3's the same time EVERYONE did. Since the other music etailers don't have a cult following like Apple does, everyone just ASSUMED SJ was the driving force behind this as well. All of the music etailers were against DRM.

Re:Magic

[BasilBrush]

No, I don't remember ever having to pay to get pictures off my phone, and my "walled garden" phones have had "app" markets and "music" markets since about 2000 for prices that were comparable to the iTunes and the Android markets.

That's simply not true. I used to be a Symbian developer. Around 2002-2005, I charged $10 for an image warping app, that seemed to be about the right price from looking around at what other apps were out there. The same kind of thing goes for 99c on the iPhone.

And the app used to be sold in a zip file, which the user had to download, unzip and then install from their PC. Again, standard practice for the time. There weren't any platforms that had the automated purchase-download-install workflow that the Apple App Store has.

In another post you asked me what a freetard is. This is a good demonstration. Not only are they fans of "open", "free", GPL etc. (the free bit) They also say things that aren't true in their trying to persuade everyone of their point of view (the tard bit).

Re:Magic

[Space cowboy]

Quoth siddesu: "In effect, you've relinquished ownership, and, unlike some other platforms, you have no legal way out."

So, you don't think there's any connotation of "freedom" even remotely attached to the above sentence, written by you 40 minutes before your subsequent response ? 'Cos I do; and contrary to your subsequent claim, it seems to me that you're very much making the argument that the user is not free to use the device how (s)he wants to.

So, either you're poorly expressing yourself, you're a bare-faced liar, or you have an agenda. Which is it ?

Simon.

Re:Magic

[Lord of the Fries]

Wow. Wish I had mod points. I don't know why I don't ever get them anymore. I'd use them all on the parent. Very nicely put.

Re:Magic

[siddesu]

What part of my post above isn't "true" exactly? I see nothing in your post that proves me wrong. The only thing I see is that you assume your experience is good enough to describe the *whole* range of phones and services. If you seriously believe that, you're having the -tard problem.

Re:Magic

[BasilBrush]

The parts I said weren't true weren't true. And I don't assume I know what my experience is good enough for, I know what my experience is good enough for.

There were no mobile platforms before the Apple App Store that offered automated purchase-download-install workflow, and there were no mobile platforms that offered 99c as a common price point.

If you have an example of either, feel free to present it. I say that in the full knowledge that you don't have an example of either. Because what you said was not true.

Re:Magic

[Anonymous Coward]

Acutally, I think it is you who is making up histories and timelines. If I remember correctly, Rhapsody was a flat-fee streaming service in 2002, and the music files it offered were widely criticized for lacking or severely restricting the ability to transfer files to MP3 players, like all other services up to that point. When Apple brought out FairPlay in 2003, it was far the least restrictive of all DRM schemes to date (up to 5 PCs, unlimited iPods, unlimited CD burning), and that had more than a small part in making iTunes the winner in music download market. DRM free MP3s only happened well after iTunes and iPods became entrenched, by which point it didn't really matter anymore to most people, since Apple's DRM is pretty unobstrusive as long as you stick to iTunes and iPods.

Re:Magic

[ceoyoyo]

"Verizon has also blocked the transfer of most data over USB, such as ringtones." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_RAZR)

It doesn't specifically mention pictures, but they certainly did fall under "most data," at least for part of the RAZR's life cycle. But ringtones will do just fine. You don't suppose Verizon blocked transferring ringtones because they were giving them away free, do you? And yet Apple, champion of the walled garden, not only lets you put your own ringtones on iPhones but provides several different ways of creating them.

I'd definitely be interested in hearing which phone you were using in 2000 that supported a music market where you could download a good selection of decent quality full songs for $0.99 or less though.

Re:Magic

[siddesu]

There were no mobile platforms before the Apple App Store that offered automated purchase-download-install workflow,

You're obviously unfamiliar with i-mode and i-appli and Bree/Java development for Japanese carriers. These were exactly automated purchase-download-install workflows.

Re:Magic

[PNutts]

<crickets chirping> Well played, sir.

Re:Magic

[AngryDeuce]

Oh, you actually thought you were going to use them again one day? That's funny. Pretty much everyone I know only kept theirs for office dressing.

Re:Magic

[BasilBrush]

The topic is apps for smartphones, not applets for feature phones.

Try again.

Re:Magic

[siddesu]

Your hands must be very strong moving the goalposts like that. I will quote you again:

There were no mobile platforms before the Apple App Store that offered automated purchase-download-install workflow, and there were no mobile platforms that offered 99c as a common price point.

I don't see you limiting the discussion to "smartphones". If you choose to do so now, would you care to specify a definition of a "smartphone" first, so that I'm sure I'm not wasting time arguing with a fat troll?

Re:Magic

[hardboiled.tequila]

-- they have delegated themselves a right to approve how do you use "their" device and a right to charge you a tithe for everything that comes to you on "their" hardware.

They have worked as hard as possible to create devices that work in ways that they genuinely believe are better than the competition. Is the 'tithe' you refer to the initial product price (entirely competitive), peripherals (comparable), or the ongoing costs of app store purchases? Do you think Apple's product pricing is unfairly high? Should all App Store purchases be gratis?

In effect, you've relinquished ownership, and, unlike some other platforms, you have no legal way out.

In effect, we have gladly relinquished the tyranny of micro-management, and have been rewarded with the time we would spend doing so.

... they cannot achieve it easily, and hence cannot exploit the full potential of the hardware platform to their advantage.

I thought that developers were free to install whatever they want on their iOS devices. It's only when you want to sell your app to the world that you must submit it to the App Store. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:Magic

[shentino]

They don't fail because consumers hate them.

They fail because producers hate them.

The game manufacturers are the one that have the real power, and getting snubbed by them for not locking down the users.

In turn, open consoles look shitty because game vendors won't contribute to the game library, which obviously hurts selection.

Re:Magic

[AaronW]

Long before the IPhone my old Verizon BREW phone had an app store where I could purchase an app and it would be automatically downloaded and installed.

Re:Magic

[BasilBrush]

There's no moving of goalposts. To open you said said:

"No, I don't remember ever having to pay to get pictures off my phone, and my "walled garden" phones have had "app" markets and "music" markets since about 2000 for prices that were comparable to the iTunes and the Android markets."

"app markets", not "applets". They are not the same. If they were the same they wouldn't have different names.

In my response to you I mentioned app 3 times. Thus we were both talking about apps, not applets.

If there was any moving of the goalposts it was at the point you wrote imode/i-appli.

Definition of a smartphone is easy. A smartphone allows native 3rd party apps. Native meaning using the same language and APIs as the built in apps. If it only offers WAP, J2ME or the like, it's a feature phone. If it doesn't offer that it's a dumb phone, or just a phone.

Re:Magic

[BasilBrush]

That's applets on a feature phone, not apps on a smartphone.

Re:Magic

[BasilBrush]

They fail because producers hate them.

The game manufacturers are the one that have the real power, and getting snubbed by them for not locking down the users.

In turn, open consoles look shitty because game vendors won't contribute to the game library, which obviously hurts selection.

PCs got plenty of support from the game vendors. But still the consoles won.

Lack of support for open consoles wasn't anything to do with ideology on their part. It's simply that they were unlikely to sell well. Selling well requires a lot of money on R&D, a high spec, and marketing, on a console that's not too expensive. That combination requires a walled-garden to finance.

Re:Magic

[siddesu]

Well, if "app" means something else than an abbreviation of "application" in your world, you're free to use your definition. I'll abstain from feeding you further.

Re:Magic

[BasilBrush]

Well, if "app" means something else than an abbreviation of "application" in your world.

I said app != applet, not app != application.

And you know full well that I'm correct in that, just like the rest of it.

Bye.

Re:Magic

[WiiVault]

Call me whatever you will- my posts are available to anyone. But I couldn't give a shit if it was Apple, Google, or heck even MS who went after these fucks. My only frustration is that Amazon, a company I actually admire, hasn't done anything to fight this travesty.

Re:Magic

[mrxak]

They sell out of WWDC tickets pretty fast.

Re:Magic

[Samantha Wright]

Amazon has less incentive to; their strategy in my experience has always been just slightly undercutting the competition, to maximize profit. In that sense they're a lot like a traditional vendor.

Re:Magic

[MECC]

Interestingly, if not ironic, the Preview application lets you annotate PDFs freely, regardless of any 'digital publishing' rights limitations like the adobe reader does. That's the chief reason I use OSX. Its the easiest and best PDF reader/annotator available, and I have a lot of books in PDF format, and I'm still converting the .chm and other ebooks to PDF for just that reason.

If you're using Apple products, that means that you're looking at the world through a very bent straw, and Apple is doing the bending.

No not really. I'm not comfortable with the show "appstore" thing, and if it get's to be draconian I'll dump OSX, but that statement isn't true, unless you really want it to be.

Re:Magic

[datavirtue]

because it gives them a feeling of control that they lack in their daily lives/quote?

Uh, no, I have control. I control the machines. They do everything I ask, and they do it now! So I have no lack of control in my daily life as I am immersed in computing machines.

Re:Magic

[datavirtue]

I thought we were going to talk about ePub. Instead I'm navigating through an Apple slalom rant.

Re:Magic

[Anonymous Coward]

Your facts and even-handedness have no place here. Apple are evil don't you know. Now run along to your walled garden*

*I'm going to slap the next fat fucking nerd I hear say this irl

Re:Magic

[Anonymous Coward]

At least for the time being, Apple's actual computers (MacBooks, iMacs, etc.) are still general-purpose computers that you can install any software you like upon. That's why I have a MacBook, but would never consider buying an iPhone.

But I expect that one of these days, they're going to do something awful, like turn OSX into a flavor of iOS, and shut out apps that aren't digitally signed, the way they already do in the mobile space. If that ever happens, well, there are a couple of Ubuntu laptop providers that look kinda sexy.

Re:Magic

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the problem was that Apple was all fashion/marketing and no substance. Suddenly they're a threat to the world? A fashionable threat?

Re:Magic

[Reapy]

I recently received and IPAD 2 for XMAS. It was my first time with any kind of mac/apple device short of a gen1 ipod. I got excited about the possibilities of stuff I could do on it and how portable it was. I liked the swipe interface for some stuff, hated it for others (kid reaching over and touching it makes it zoom instead of scroll etc).

I started thinking about writing an app for it for some random stuff. I also wanted to drop random files on it, and view images and movies over a samba share on my windows machines.

I guess I got spoiled browsing the web with adblock plus for the past few years. I forgot how ugly it was without it. I also hadn't been harassed for $$$$$$$ to do ANYTHING more so than when investigating anything related to the ipad. Free apps all have annoying add bars. Apps that do things the ipad should be able to do cost $. The spirit of open source and giving away of small apps seems to be quite dead in the i- whatever community.

To develop, I need a mac and 100 dollars. Yes, there are alternatives, but all of them seem ugly and honestly just not worth the time if you want to do some quick 'home use' programs.

All in all, the ipad has ended up being a great bathroom reader, so I guess it is good for something. I was just sad to see a bunch of potential great uses for it walled off with money.

Re:Magic

[Gilmoure]

Still have 50+ boxes of books in storage. *sigh* Am running out of walls to put bookshelves against. Still, a lot of these are out-of-print large reference books so don't want to get rid of them. If there was a public library within 30 miles of us, I'd donate them.

Re:Magic

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's DRM is pretty unobstrusive as long as you stick to iTunes and iPods

What does that actually mean? With Rhapsody to go service, as long as you had a compatible player, it works great, no different than requiring Apple iTunes and an iPod but you alo had a wide range of choices. If you paid for a track, you could burn it to a CD (now the DRM was gone so no further restrictions applied) or listen to it on any compatible player, or listen to it from specific computer (3 "licensed" computer I beleive) or any internet connected computer through their web interface and they also had "apps" that worked with many different devices like the N800, media centers, etc..
"Rhapsody to go" and downloads came out a little later then iTunes but it was at a time when Apple was still DRM laden. I see Apple DRM as being no less restrictive than what others were offering at the time AND it required you to buy more Apple products (which for many people did not matter).

Re:Magic

[gstoddart]

Apple is "exciting" people about "technology" the same way Louis Vuitton is "exciting" people about, you know, apparel design and textile technology. Both companies sell an image and the fashion accessories to build it, and most people buy their products exactly as a fashion accessory.

With Apple it can actually get worse -- if you make the Apple device the dominant way you access information. That's fine and dandy, until you consider that when you buy the shiny little toy, you only get permission to access the world through it the way the designers of the technology believe it should be accessed, through their "approved" modes.

The flipside to this is that people who would ordinarily be afraid of/uninterested in technology actually use it.

My mother in law said a few months ago she'd like an iPod ... now, she's in her mid 60's, so if you believe she's buying it as a fashion accessory, then you're an idiot who only sees this one way.

She only recently got herself a laptop, and isn't exactly the most computer savvy person there is. However, we set her up with iTunes since we figured it would be the easiest to use (and we already use it ourselves). She has successfully learned to rip her CDs -- all she does is pop it into the drive, and click "OK" to import it. She's decided she's like an iPod for her walks, and, as she put it, "as soon as you start hiding from these things, you're basically dead".

She doesn't give a rats bum about how people will see her with this ... and quite frankly, neither do 99% of all the people I know with Apple devices. It really is function, not fashion.

My mother in law isn't going to want to buy some generic MP3 player, learn to manage the files on it, understand what MP3s actually are, or worry about the open-ness of the format. She wants to click the buttons, and have the device work -- which, quite frankly, is why I like my iPods/iPad/Apple TV ... because they do what I want them to, integrate well with each other, and generally provide a nice user experience.

So, maybe Apple's biggest strength is that they can make technology which is accessible to people? Sure, the geeks here on Slashdot will bitch and moan about the walled garden (and apparently bent straws) ... but in terms of an integrated, functional user experience, there's a lot to be said for it.

Maybe in high school or Hollywood these things are fashion accessories ... but the reality is that Apple has made their money by selling technology to people who don't want to know much about technology.

The people who insist on ogg vorbis or who want to port the Linux kernel to their device? Well, they're a different market ... and one I would argue is smaller than the niche Apple is pursuing.

Re:Magic

[demiurg]

What you fail to understand is that the problem with Apple approach is not evident in their current wave of products. It is not there yet. We will face this problem (stagnation, high prices, etc) when and if most of the devices will be like these.

Re:Magic

[milkmage]

" If you're using Apple products, that means that you're looking at the world through a very bent straw, and Apple is doing the bending. Is it in your favor? You decide."

I think Android is working much harder to get your eyeballs.

as much as I use both Apple and Google products, I'm more wary of what Google is going to do with my info.

Re:Magic

[cheesybagel]

Portable game consoles are headed for oblivion thanks to smartphones. The same may partially happen to other console uses thanks to the tablet format. Eventually your own TV will be the console and you will not need to buy a separate device at all...

Re:Magic

[BasilBrush]

That's true. The biggest mobile gaming platform is now iOS, which is still a walled-garden.

Re:Magic

[zigfreed]

Apple also contributes back - they made so much improvements into KDE's browser that KDE just basically re-absorbed back in the entire webkit, among other things.

Webkit is not KHTML. They are still seperate, and Konqueror doesn't use it as the default backend. Reconq, however, does.

MP3s have been un-DRM"ed for quite a few years now - Apple was the one pushing for it, but of course, OP conveniently forgets that.

Amazon was selling it DRM-free September 2008 while Apple was pushing it (until 6 Jan 2009). Before these, Walmart on Aug. 2007, and others never used it. Note that Walmart was selling PlaysForSure WMAs and switched to MP3s.

$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[gasmonso]

Let's hope this will loosen the grip of the major publishing companies. Paying $150 for a textbook (at least in the US) because you HAVE to get the newest revision to correct a few spelling mistakes is bullshit!

gasmonso ReligiousFreaks.com

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

With the way things would go, we would end up paying $175 for an e-book that would get denied access to upon the end of the semester, or at least pay $150 for something that cannot be resold.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[DesScorp]

Let's hope this will loosen the grip of the major publishing companies. Paying $150 for a textbook (at least in the US) because you HAVE to get the newest revision to correct a few spelling mistakes is bullshit!

gasmonso ReligiousFreaks.com

While I had no love for the whole textbook scam back in college either, nor am I all that comfortable with Apple (or anyone else) "destroying" print textbooks.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[hedwards]

You know that an industry is way overcharging if buying a $500 tablet to buy cheaper books is a desirable option.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Suki I]

You know that an industry is way overcharging if buying a $500 tablet to buy cheaper books is a desirable option.

Exactly!

However, I am also in unison with the others who expect expensive eTBooks and only marginal increased utility.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Missing.Matter]

When is the last time you were in education? Since 2005 I've yet to meet a professor who absolutely required the newest edition. Most will say "Yeah, the last edition will do just fine." I've even met some who will post the problem numbers from last and current editions. Last edition textbooks can usually be bought for very cheap on amazon. The only real problem I've run into with the textbook industry is trying to sell back books because a newer edition came out.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[hedwards]

Granted iPads do other things as well, but they aren't anywhere near good enough with battery life to compete with a book. I think by the time my nephew is in college in like 16 years or so it will be a much more reasonable proposition in that regards, but for the time being, the book is probably better for studying.

I personally prefer ebooks for most things these days as it means that I no longer have to decide whether to store or sell my books, but buying an iPad is going a bit far IMHO.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since 2005 I've yet to meet a professor who absolutely required the newest edition.

When the newest edition has slightly different assignment questions than the previous edition, the professor has to pick one of the two. And he/she can't go with an older edition forever, because if students can't buy it in the university bookstore, not even used... well that's a problem.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Missing.Matter]

Granted iPads do other things as well, but they aren't anywhere near good enough with battery life to compete with a book.

I'd also argue they don't do nearly enough to compete with a book. When I used to use physical textbooks, I'd write all over them. Then I started using a tablet PC for all my note taking, and I would scan in my textbooks to use digitally. With the stylus I was still able to write in them, but I would also cut and paste images, charts, etc into my notes during class. One notable example I remember is when professor trying to draw a diagram from the book onto the chalkboard, I just copied the diagram over. Everyone else was going off his mangled reproduction while I had the real thing.

Now we have the iPad, which doesn't have a digitizer and doesn't allow you to cut and paste much between applications. Everyone is trying to shoehorn it fit into education, when much better (albeit poorly marketed) alternative have been there all along.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Missing.Matter]

I think you just stopped reading my post before the end. I said, professors I know in that situation post both numbers in the assignment handouts. I've been a student and an instructor in this situation enough, and most people are aware of it, and we work around it. Yes it's a problem when these new editions come out. But the point is I've never seen a situation where the student was told "No, you MUST buy the new edition." I've even seen the situation where there's an entirely new chapter, and the professor made available scans of that chapter for download.

In fact, I'm kind of glad there are these new editions, because then the after market for cheap last editions wouldn't be so ripe for me.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

When the newest edition has slightly different assignment questions than the previous edition, the professor has to pick one of the two.

Or... wait for it... he could take some time to write his own assignments that he can set. Write once, serve often.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Grishnakh]

I am. Good riddance to an evil industry. Even better, since these e-textbooks will be digitally transferred, it won't be long before some smart people figure out how to pirate them, so even if they try to change obscene amounts for the ePub versions, rampant piracy will help keep costs down for struggling students.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly right. As an educator and an IT person I could not agree more. I actually recently bought a Fujitsu tablet/slate PC used that has full Wacom support and it was because the experience without is terribly lacking for a lot of things. The iPad may have almost every other aspect right, but without this it is just constantly an issue of working around the issue or settling for good enough. I also could not think of being a slave to a textbook, some which I spend hours at a time with, that has battery issues. My personal solution is to create a full size battery pack that the tablet fits into. It can be slim for the times when you have an outlet or shorter time needs, but bulking up by double is still a vast improvement over a single textbook and something anyone would be OK with.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[failedlogic]

In my undergrad, I took biology and chemistry classes. But then they go and charge the same price for information/research (for introductory level courses anyways) that has not changed for decades. The same book that cost $200 in 1990 is still $200 in 2010, still has tons of typos, ambiguous phrasing, still doesn't source the material and is by that point in the 50th edition. Maybe the typos are introduced on purpose as an excuse to come out with a new revised edition, with -different- typos.

If you want $200 for the same old book, write the test for the student and get them an A+. Otherwise, I would hope for future generations of students, the prices of the books drop either from electronic versions or dropping the price of the books anyways.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Volvogga]

It depends on the subject. I am retaking an accounting class, and that text book is on a update schedule of every year and a half to two years. Now what exactly has changed that much in the practice of accounting? Much of accounting, I will remind everyone, is dictated by the IRS. So again, how much has changed? Catch is that they change the workbook problems at the end of each chapter, so you will be buying it.

For the most part, professors let the publishers go nuts. I had *one* professor that talked directly with the publishers in the last 5 years, and got two $45 books, by different authors, from completely different series, packaged together and sold for $55.

I don't care for Apple in the slightest, but if they can do something to throw the racket that is textbooks into turmoil, I would give them a slow clap. I don't see it happening. I've seen several textbook publishers begin offering ebook solutions already (although not widely advertised). The price difference isn't worth it. $110 instead of $135 with no way of getting any money back? Yeah, no.

Although it seems to me professors do not fight for a better price, they do put a good bit of effort into researching the textbooks they use (at least from what I gather from the day-1 speeches). I'm not sure the professors are going to be thrilled by the idea of going to some lower brand, potentially lesser quality, book from their usual, often departmentally agreed upon, and familiar big publisher textbook that they've used for years when the big publishers tell Apple to go straight to hell when Apple tries to both get in on the publishers' action and push the prices lower. I doubt Apple will fight them on price at all... that might work for them. Otherwise, this new platform might work out for professors wanting to self-publish a book for their classrooms, but that's about it. I don't expect much to come of this.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Midnight Ryder]

No digitizer? Hm - the entire tablet allows you to draw on it, as long as the application allows it. As for copy and paste - works great between applications that suport copy and paste. IE - it's not the tablet that's the issue, and it still works well for your scenario *IF* app developers would get offa' their butts and support a few more things in their apps. (However, I can't think of a single productivity app on my iPad that I can't cut and paste between apps, and I've got more than one app that allows me to scetch out something, save it, and paste it into another app.) And if you REALLY have to have it, you can pick up a cheap stylus for it. And you can always shoot pics of the chalkboard from the iPad and save it, too.

iBooks with the ability to add annotations both textual and arbitrary hand drawn graphics would be a bit help.

Not gonna say it's perfect solution - then again, carrying my old Toshiba Libretto wasn't exactly a perfect solution either :-)

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[tipo159]

I'd also argue they don't do nearly enough to compete with a book. When I used to use physical textbooks, I'd write all over them. Then I started using a tablet PC for all my note taking, and I would scan in my textbooks to use digitally. With the stylus I was still able to write in them, but I would also cut and paste images, charts, etc into my notes during class. One notable example I remember is when professor trying to draw a diagram from the book onto the chalkboard, I just copied the diagram over. Everyone else was going off his mangled reproduction while I had the real thing.

So, are you saying that one could not write an iOS app that does all of that? If you are saying that, then you are wrong.

Now we have the iPad, which doesn't have a digitizer and doesn't allow you to cut and paste much between applications.

So, I guess my iPad that allows me to easily cut and paste between applications is a special one-off version, right?

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[icebraining]

In my University, there was rampant "piracy" of paper textbooks already, so I fail to see how this will improve that side of the issue. Can't students over there operate a photocopy machine?

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[the_B0fh]

You *can* get a stylus if you want. And how do you know you can't cut and paste?

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right! And let's not forget about all the great fart apps for $.99! It was inconceivable before the apple store for someone to pay (just) $.99 for a fart app!

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[SuperKendall]

You can use your finger or a stylus easily to draw over things.

As for cut & paste, you can screen-shoot ANY application with a simple press of power + Home. and use that image in any application. In most apps you can also cut + paste text as well, iOS has much better universal support for that than other platforms.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[the_B0fh]

Beauty of capitalism my friend. All the Fart Apps you care to buy. Unless....

What are you, a Communist Anonymous Coward?!

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Blue Stone]

>Let's hope this will loosen the grip of the major publishing companies. Paying $150 for a textbook

Yeah. Apple is in the business of saving you money. :rollseyes:

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Grishnakh]

It's a lot easier, faster, and cheaper to email copies of a .epub file to all your friends, or better yet to post it on BitTorrent, than to go to Kinko's and make thousands of copies of paper. Of course, a paper textbook could be scanned into .pdf form, but even so someone has to take the time to do it first, and either have a lot of time on their hands to scan page-by-page on a flatbed scanner, or have access to a $$$$$ automated scanner.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[tgibbs]

I wouldn't pay $175 for a time-limited e-book. But I might pay something like that for a major textbook if I got updates to future editions as part of the bargain.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

>the entire tablet allows you to draw on it, as long as the application allows it

Capacitative digitizers are low resolution and low accuracy. It would be like trying to take notes using a can of spray paint.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[BasilBrush]

This isn't book burning. This is not cutting down trees in the first place.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[BasilBrush]

Marginal? Even if it only has search, that's a massive gain over the index in a paper text book. (Speed and completeness).

Add to that that every photo can be colour, and fit in the text where it belongs, not on a separate set of "color plates" pages.

And that's the very bare minimum improvements in utility one can expect. The most is unlimited. An ebook could be an app and do every thing an app could do.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Colonel Korn]

How the fuck is this insightful when Apple has been the one keeping the price of content down traditionally? You forgetting the $1.99 and $2.99 RIAA was asking for, for single tracks?!

Dumbass.

You are ignorant. Apple raised the default ebook price when they entered the digital publishing market with the iPad. Amazon had set a very low ebook price and Apple colluded with publishers who were upset that Amazon was actually subsidizing the price by selling it below cost in order to raise ebook prices by 50%. With a large digital publishing alternative to Amazon, the publishers forced Amazon to raise prices by 50% as well. Thanks to Apple's meddling, most ebook prices went up by 50%. This was widely publicized when it happened - we even discussed it on Amazon.

So to reiterate, the GP is insightful because Apple's only previous digital publishing endeavor was based around Apple negotiating to raise all prices for ebooks by 50%.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[art123]

And you are forgetting the increased prices that Amazon was basically forced to do on ebooks because of Apple deals with publishers.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[ceoyoyo]

I've read a lot of eBooks on my iPad. I always get tired of reading before it gets tired of displaying.

Seriously, an iPad battery on a full charge goes for well over eight hours if it's just displaying an ebook. If you've been reading that long it's probably time to take a break, and plug in your iPad while you're at it. if you insist on slogging through, just plug the thing in. It's not very likely you're that far away from an electrical outlet.

$500 isn't much at all for the usual textbook buying audience. When I was an undergrad texts frequently cost more than that per semester, and I haven't been an undergrad for quite a while. If Apple seriously gets into textbook publishing they could cut the price of an individual book down to 10%, sell a LOT of iPads and STILL make a profit on each and every book sold.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[ceoyoyo]

You don't have an iPad, do you? The whole thing is a digitizer, and you can copy and paste images or text very easily between applications. So basically your whole post is an argument FOR electronic textbooks on an iPad.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[fermion]

I know that if some of the barriers to textbook publishing are broken, authors will be willing to sell very cheap textbook. Maybe not 99 cents, but certainly much lower than $150. I am told that some of the books that sell for $20, end up with a dollar or two to the author. Some authors will give away digital copies. I have found many useful textbooks online for free. This will give those authors a way to make some money for a nicely packaged product.

I am looking forward to this. It could undermine some of the high textbook prices, depending on what it is. More importantly, it could bring much needed multimedia presentation to an industry that sorely needs it.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Missing.Matter]

You can use your finger or a stylus easily to draw over things.

This is not nearly the same as a good digitizer/stylus. With my tablet PC I had near pen/pencil level of precision and detail. I own an iPad and a stylus, and it is laughably inferior.

As for cut & paste, you can screen-shoot ANY application with a simple press of power + Home. and use that image in any application. In most apps you can also cut + paste text as well, iOS has much better universal support for that than other platforms.

On my tablet, I had my textbook open on the left, and One note open on the right. I would just lasso the image with the One Note screen grab and it was right in my notes. What you're suggesting is cumbersome and takes far too much time to do in the middle of lecture.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Missing.Matter]

You've never used a tablet PC, have you? Indeed I do have an iPad, but it does not have a digitizer; it has a capacitive touch screen. A capacitive stylus is far less accurate than a digitizer stylus.You may be able to copy text between most apps, but certainly not images.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Missing.Matter]

A digitizer typically works with a stylus. It is very high resolution and allows you to rest your palm on the screen. The iPad and pretty much every other tablet out there today does not have one. Writing notes on the iPad is like tying shoes with gloves on. You have this big fat sausagey stylus, you can't rest your hand on the iPad itself because it gets recognized as an input, so you have to kind of float your hand above the screen. It's awful.

Not gonna say it's perfect solution - then again, carrying my old Toshiba Libretto wasn't exactly a perfect solution either :-)

The only problem with the Tablet PC solution was size, price, and battery life, which is much more manageable than terrible input and awful apps. I can't wait for Windows 8 to solve exactly those problems... then it should be perfect.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Darinbob]

If it's anything like digital software distribution, the online price for a new book will be the same as the retail price. Maybe cut off a few dollars to attract some school board attention. When the middle man is cut out it means that the publisher can pocket the savings instead of passing them on to the consumer.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Missing.Matter]

So, are you saying that one could not write an iOS app that does all of that? If you are saying that, then you are wrong.

Correct, I am saying this, because it's not how iOS works. This is one of my biggest problems with iOS: to get the kind of functionality I require, I would need some giant monolitic app that does everything I need. The odds of someone out there writing an app that fits my workflow exactly is very low. For example, in this scenario I have different files open (PDF, excel, word, one note, email) all at once and I'm copying/pasting images, spreadsheets, text, between all of them. With a desktop OS I can create my own workflow because I have an app for each type of file, I can open what I need, and they all work together. In iOS, there is hardly any transport between different apps, so I would need an app that opens all these files, switches between them, saves them.... basically I'd need a miniature OS within iOS to do this!

So, I guess my iPad that allows me to easily cut and paste between applications is a special one-off version, right?

So I have my PDF textbook open. How do I take an image from my PDF and put it into my notes?

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Missing.Matter]

I can get a stylus... but it's a big fat sausage stylus. It's like trying to write in a tiny notebook with one of those giant pieces of chalk. Have you ever used an actual digitizer? From my experience they feel like writing with an actual pen/pencil, and I can produce the same level of detail in my work with them. Not so much with the iPad (yes I have one), where I'm back in kindergarten writing 3 inch tall words.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

You will pay $150 for limited time access on your $700 facebook/angry birds machine. AND YOU WILL LIKE IT.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[ceoyoyo]

I have used tablet PCs. And I own a Wacom tablet, which is an actual digitizer, if you want to go with a strict definition, and which makes the resistive touch screens on tablet PCs look like crap. Either a resistive touchscreen or a capacitive one with a decent stylus is fine for textbook reading.

Yes, you most certainly can copy and paste images between any two apps that support it. I do it all the time between my PDF reader and Pages or e-mail.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Bing Tsher E]

These days, an 'Automated Scanner' is also known as a common office copying machine. Many places have copiers these days that are internet connected and that can be programmed to scan a stack of paper, single or double sided, to a PDF and email it.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

My Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 does 20 pages a minute (double sided, so actually 40 "pages") a minute) and converts to PDF. Cut the spine off the book and feed it in, minutes later you're sharing with all your friends. $400 isn't that much.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Bing Tsher E]

The stylus for the iP*d devices is like a big fat crayon. A real stylus comes to a sharp point and can point at one single pixel on the screen.

The Apple products are end-user consumer devices. They have almost no utility for content creation.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

>Let's hope this will loosen the grip of the major publishing companies. Paying $150 for a textbook

Yeah. Apple is in the business of saving you money. :rollseyes:

I edit films, you insensitive clod!

Final Cut Pro replaced the Avid system on my desk. The money my employer saved per year is five times the value of my car.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[CastrTroy]

Very much agree. As much as I enjoy my eBook reader (kobo) for reading things like novels and biographies, I can't imagine trying to use it to read a text book. And I can't imagine having an iPad would make it a better experience. Text books are not something that can be experienced on a screen.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I too have used a tablet PC for a number of years. I've used it to essentially read textbooks and annotate using one note and have to say it's a great tool. I did find it a bit cumbersome to learn to use and still don't think I'm using as effectively as I could, but it meets my needs. I think that the ipad is great is many ways but it's not a cure all and it certainly doesn't prvoide a lot of flexibility in how you approach learning for example by writing in the margins, cut/past, draw picture and print or even create a good consise outline based on your notes that you take from reading a text. I wish there were more emphasis on the tablets because with their openness you have the flexibility to tailor your learning to match your creativity.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Missing.Matter]

Not all tablets have resistive digitizers. My tablet PC used an active digitizer and had a capacitive touch screen (Dell Latitude XT). It wasn't as good as some high end digitizers out there, but it was good enough.

And how do you copy/paste images? What apps are you using?

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[DDLKermit007]

When was the last time you saw a book that was able to be fed to a stack scanner? That requires destroying the binding on the book.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[clifyt]

In a sense, Apple forced Amazon to treat the publishing industry fairly.

Amazon was devaluing books by buying them at one price and selling them for a lot less than they paid for, ensuring that because of their size that they would eventually be the only company to deal with...and thus set prices exactly where they wanted to in order to make the most money.

It was a very monopolistic act and ironic that the only company that forced them to stop doing this wasn't a bookstore but a company that sold phones. Pretty much because they killed off all the other bookstores by selling books cheaper by not needing to pay sales tax or to have a physical location (back when people would come to most other bookstores to browse the books and then turn around and buy online).

That said, I browsed bookstores and bought online too. And I never reported the tax savings either. Then again, I rarely buy ebooks unless its cheap enough...I buy a physical version and then scrounge the next for an electronic one that I'm not going to pay for (why should I pay for something I already have). Actually, there have been a few times where I couldn't find the book and sent my physical book to a conversion service (and it STILL was cheaper than a lot of books!) Sadly, when you do this, you don't get the book back because they've practically destroyed it in the process.

But regardless, the point was Amazon was using monopolistic practices to pressure publishers into lowering prices so that they could drive out even more small businesses. And most of us were all too willing to help out.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[GillyGuthrie]

WHO is forcing you to buy the latest edition? Can't you just buy a textbook that is slightly outdated, and save tons of money?

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[tipo159]

So, are you saying that one could not write an iOS app that does all of that? If you are saying that, then you are wrong.

Correct, I am saying this, because it's not how iOS works.

This is one of my biggest problems with iOS: to get the kind of functionality I require, I would need some giant monolitic app that does everything I need. The odds of someone out there writing an app that fits my workflow exactly is very low. For example, in this scenario I have different files open (PDF, excel, word, one note, email) all at once and I'm copying/pasting images, spreadsheets, text, between all of them. With a desktop OS I can create my own workflow because I have an app for each type of file, I can open what I need, and they all work together. In iOS, there is hardly any transport between different apps, so I would need an app that opens all these files, switches between them, saves them.... basically I'd need a miniature OS within iOS to do this!

You don't seem to understand how iOS works.

So, I guess my iPad that allows me to easily cut and paste between applications is a special one-off version, right?

So I have my PDF textbook open. How do I take an image from my PDF and put it into my notes?

Cutting and pasting images is supported by iOS. The kids have hidden the iPad somewhere, so I can't check the PDF reader apps that I have to see if they support it. If your PDF reader app vendor doesn't support it, ask them to.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[itsme1234]

He didn't say "stack scanner", he said "have access to a $$$$$ automated scanner" so probably we're not talking about your regular $300 Scansnap but about something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlOQuuLYavY

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is where we end up and way sooner than we want :(
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Bananana]

With ebooks eliminating the used-book market, the said situation gets worse.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you can do it like I did: go to the first day of class, get syllabus. Buy book, photocopy each page (2 at a time onto 8.5"X14") that's required reading; skip unneeded chapters. Return book within 7 day window. Sure, it takes a few hours, but you end up saving upwards of $20 or $30/hr, which isn't a bad return.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Stewie241]

Suppose $175 for a time limited e-book was the only option for a book that was required for a university class?

What do you do then?

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont really see much difference in effort between using a scanner and a copier. Often it can be done on the same machine.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the poor publishers being forced to sell below cost. Wait? Isn't the marginal cost of an ebook zero? They should feel lucky we pay them.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[tgibbs]

I wouldn't require that book for the classes I teach. I think that most university professors would do the same.
There's no point in requiring a book that expensive. The students wouldn't buy it, anyway. They would get by as best they could on lecture notes and other resources.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the price of the book we need to worry about its actually the style of the screen. Apple needs to release an E Ink display specifically for the digital textbooks. Simple comparison between reading on a backlit and an e ink screen is a huge difference on the eyes. Thus the reason in Russia that plastic logic's Proreader is killing in schools in russia because teachers can load the assignment to all the E readers in the class and students can do the work on the e reader and hand it back.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Grishnakh]

What's your point? This isn't about scanners vs. copiers, this is about copying e-books vs. copying paper books. Assuming the DRM is broken (like it is with DVDs), copying an e-book would be trivial, whereas copying a paper book requires a significant amount of effort, unless you have access to one of those $$$$$ automated scanners I mentioned previously.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

there are book scanners that are non destructive. they take a lot longer than an ADF would with loose pages, but it can be done.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

When was the last time you saw a book that was able to be fed to a stack scanner? That requires destroying the binding on the book.

Most copy shops have a bulk cutter that will remove a books pages from its binding. I knew of a student with severe dsylexia who did just that and fed his books into a scanner and had the results dictated back so he could learn the material. It wasnt even a great scanner, merely good by ~2000 standards.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or access to a $100 scanner with a pace feeder and a bandsaw. Slice the binding off a book and it instantly becomes a stack of individual pages.

If that scanner also happens to be a good printer, copies quickly become a matter of charging your "friends" a few cents per page for supplies and profit. That 500 page $150 dollar book just went down to $50.

Never underestimate the ingenuity of a student with access to power tools to brute force a solution.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[stewbacca]

My wife just spent less than $100 on 6 e-books for the current semester. Sure, they expire, but I can count on zero fingers the number of times I've opened a text book from college 20 years ago.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[stewbacca]

...buying a $500 tablet that has thousands of uses--buying cheaper books being just one of them. This is why we bought an iPad and not a Kindle.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[fuzznutz]

Those $150 books will be the death of textbook publishing companies. Most of my masters level classes are flexible about the edition of the textbook. One of my classes this quarter requires a book that costs $166 brand new through amazon. I bought the one-year-old prior edition in "like new" condition for $6.83 with free shipping through Amazon Prime. My other class required a free/libre text through Flat World Knowledge's open source books. My grand total for this quarter: $6.83.

In prior quarters I ordered "international" editions of required texts from India for 20% - 50% of the cost of US editions. Once or twice, I might have acquired scanned PDFs from questionable sources. If publishers had been reasonable, I would have purchased new through the university bookstore. If publishers want to play the textbook treadmill game with students, we can play the game back. And guess what? Professors and instructors are savvy to the racket and try to make reasonable accommodations to reduce student gouging. The model publishers use is not sustainable in the long term.

When your own customers hate your guts and only give you money because they have no other choice, the market is ripe for a legitimate competitor.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Red Flayer]

It depends on the subject. I am retaking an accounting class, and that text book is on a update schedule of every year and a half to two years. Now what exactly has changed that much in the practice of accounting? Much of accounting, I will remind everyone, is dictated by the IRS. So again, how much has changed?

I wonder what accounting class you are taking. 100- and 200- level classes will likely not change much year-over-year. But specific tax regulations change annually (sometimes more often!), and a school cannot afford to have its students graduate without the latest knowledge.

Also, wholesale accounting standards are changing worldwide (at differing paces, of course) to IFRS from the hodgepodge of USGAAP or GAAP-like setups for individual nations. This requires retooling of almost all accounting textbooks, though most editions would likely have already made this change.

Although it seems to me professors do not fight for a better price, they do put a good bit of effort into researching the textbooks they use (at least from what I gather from the day-1 speeches).

In my jaded opinion, those day-1 speeches are to mitigate the sticker shock many students go through. My experience tells me that professors have limited choices in the textbooks they offer, and this oligopoly the textbook publishers have sets prices artificially high. Oligarchy + captive market == high profits. Add in the habit of professors using books where people they know are getting royalties, and this complicates the problem. Good luck to a professor that wants to use a cheap alternative text when his department head is an editor of or significant contributor to the more expensive text.

Now, those asides dealt with... I believe higher education in the US is going to undergo dramatic, market-driven change in the next generation or two. Digital texts will become the norm -- hell, digital classrooms will likely become the norm. The cost of maintaining and operating the infrastructure of a university is climbing too fast, and will likely be countered by virtualization.

I know this is rather long-winded, so I hope you're still reading... but it's not just the textbook industry that Apple is going after. In the long run, it's the entire higher education industry. The concept of a lecture, even of office hours, is silly and outdated with the technology we have today. And I'm sure Apple would like to ensure that their devices are the ones used for the pursuit of higher education.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[I'm not god any more]

I think $14.95 is quite reasonable: http://www.blueleaf-book-scanning.com/index.html

If you're in a class of 30 then that's only 50 cents each. If you're talking a whole year of 6th graders, it could be as little as a dime each per book. Everyone's got a computer or iPad - right?

If your 10 year old kid is lugging 10 Kg of books to/from school each day, then it's a no brainer to get the soft copy. Heck - it makes the book searchable too.

Is this ethical or legal? If I've got the hard copy of a book - have I the right to use the soft copy? The small print at the start of the book would certainly like you to believe that you have no rights to do anything.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am all for increasing access etc. and lowering prices, but be careful what you wish for. People with actual content knowledge will quit writing and updating these books if the pay goes into the toilet, textbooks do not count for tenure, and are not really worth putting on a cv. Money is the only motivation to contribute to one. You may very well end up with wiki text books.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Grishnakh]

People with actual content knowledge will quit writing and updating these books if the pay goes into the toilet

Who cares?!
How many books on elementary calculus do we need?? I don't give two shits if people stop writing calculus textbooks for money. Nothing has changed in that field for well over a century, and the same goes for many other undergrad courses. Luckily there's already a few people making open-source textbooks for some subjects, but the whole system is corrupt because we have professors requiring students to use "up-to-date" (as if calculus or linear algebra actually change every year) textbooks because the in-book problems change every year; it's really all a big racket to make money for the publishers and professors. I'd rather have Wiki textbooks than the current corrupt system.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[jm.one]

Wait? Isn't the marginal cost of an ebook zero? They should feel lucky we pay them.

Yeah.. the books do write themselfs. They do publish themselfs by pure magic. And they all have auto-marketing build in. ..Wait!

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[shutdown -p now]

Have a look at Lenovo Thinkpad tablet. It's a "business" device, and in practice this means that it comes with an active digitizer that's much more accurate than those cheap capacitive styli.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[BasilBrush]

With the way things would go, we would end up paying $175 for an e-book that would get denied access to upon the end of the semester, or at least pay $150 for something that cannot be resold.

And the reality is: Apple is doing High School textbooks for now.$14.99 and you own them forever, and get free updates.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[BasilBrush]

The Apple products are end-user consumer devices. They have almost no utility for content creation.

Same goes for any phones or tablets. In cases that involve significant text input or workflow with multiple creative apps you're better off creating on a Mac or PC.

That Apple appreciates the distinction is shown well in today's announcement. iBooks is for consuming. iBooks Author is for creating. iBooks 2 is an iOS app. iBooks Author is a Mac application.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[BasilBrush]

This is not nearly the same as a good digitizer/stylus. With my tablet PC I had near pen/pencil level of precision and detail. I own an iPad and a stylus, and it is laughably inferior.

Nonsense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-ksEyg4cj8&feature=related

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Missing.Matter]

That's real nice and all, but it also took him 15 hours to do that. Meaning he has time to make all those very fine lines precise. Art studio also has custom brushes for things like hair. I have 50 minutes to write 3+ pages of tiny equations. Where is my custom brush for the Schrödinger equation? No one saying this is possible has actually tried taking notes and is using it daily. I know many people with iPads, including myself. All of them have tried to take notes with it. All of them have given up and resorted to pen+paper for the exact reasons I outlined, and all of them have looked at my tablet PC and said "I wish my iPad could do that."

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[BasilBrush]

That was just an example. I chose it because of the high quality of detail. And obviously art with high quality of detail takes time in whatever medium. But the point is that it would be impossible to do that it iPad didn't allow precision.

There's plenty of examples of rapid art on YouTube as well.

Even footage of David Hockney using an iPad to create artworks.

There's no technical problem with the iPad and using a stylus. Nothing that a tablet PC does better.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[Missing.Matter]

I'm not talking about rapid artworks. To get the kind of precision for these paintings takes time. There is a lot of zooming, switching brush types, switching brush sizes, etc. I'm talking about taking notes in a class, where I'm following someone in a lecture. I have no time for zooming and switching brushes and making sure everything is perfect. No time for revisions. Further, I have no artistic skill so whatever technique these people are using, I certainly don't have the aptitude for. For me and everyone else I've talked to in classes, taking notes on an iPad compared to a tablet PC is like writing with a marker compared to a pencil.

There's no technical problem with the iPad and using a stylus. Nothing that a tablet PC does better.

An active digitizer is technically superior. It has pressure sensitivity, supports multiple buttons so you can erase without having to select a different tool (saving tons of time), you can rest your hand on it without the screen picking it up (unlike the iPad), and it can sense the stylus above the actual screen without touching it.

Re:$.99 Textbooks? Doubtful but...

[the_B0fh]

Yet another person who doesn't understand the difference a disease and a symptom.

Digital Destruction

[Anonymous Coward]

Destroy the physical and rebuild it as digital.

Make it better, stronger, faster.

Overly dramatic title

[MetalliQaZ]

Titles like that make for good drama, but we must stand back for a second to see what this means.

The "digital destruction" of textbook publishing has been underway for quite some time. The Internet has made the dissemination of information easy and cheap. Even before the Internet, digital mediums such as DVD and Laserdisc were used by educational institutions for teaching.

Self-published homemade works are now commonplace with music, movies, news (blogs), interactive media such as webpages and software. Full-size books are a logical continuation.

Easy to demonize Apple, but Steve was a fighter, he saw the opportunity for success and profit, and nobody would expect anything less.

-d

Re:Overly dramatic title

[tripleevenfall]

One problem with "self-published homemade works" is that there are few areas where these are yet of any quality.

The internet gives everyone a voice, true. This carries many benefits, but it also weeds out the structure that before prevented kooks and cranks from influencing as many as they do today.

The mechanisms by which this was accomplished are not in and of themselves wholly good, but there was good in the fact that most people with influential voices in media, in medicine, etc. were educated and trained. Today bloggers feel they are journalists and rumors/gossip too often pass for news. Fact checking, not just in media but in people's psyches as a whole, is quickly becoming extinct.

You can look at the growth in general public belief in any number of dubious conspiracy theories, in the emoting against vaccines, and armies of the dumb outraged about breastfeeding and any number of other topics which in the past were inane and not considered social advocacy issues. The internet has amplified many times over the voice of the dumb, while the voice of those qualified to speak on a topic is also amplified, it's often being drowned out.

Self-publishing of educational textbooks is not, in my opinion, going to affect this trend in the right direction.

It was said once that evil will always triumph because good is dumb. Well.. stupid triumphs because the internet age hasn't adapted for it, and smart isn't loud enough.

Re:Overly dramatic title

[bcrowell]

One problem with "self-published homemade works" is that there are few areas where these are yet of any quality.

Totally untrue. See my sig for a catalog of free books. Many of these are of very high quality. Here are a few examples:

1. Hefferon, Linear Algebra, http://joshua.smcvt.edu/linalg.html
2. Keisler, Elementary Calculus: An Approach Using Infinitesimals, http://www.math.wisc.edu/~keisler/calc.html
3. Judson, Abstract Algebra: Theory and Applications, http://abstract.ups.edu/
4. Thide, Electromagnetic Field Theory, http://www.plasma.uu.se/CED/Book/

Those are just the first few that came to mind.

Re:Overly dramatic title

[lahvak]

Actually, at least in the case of college textbook, this is really largely irrelevant. It is the professor who selects the textbook, and, hopefully, she knows her subject well enough to be able to distinguish good books from crap.

Re:Overly dramatic title

[tripleevenfall]

I'm sure these works are worthy, and I didn't mean to say there were NO good self published works out there. But exceptions don't prove generalizations wrong.

Re:Overly dramatic title

[Anonymous Coward]

"The internet has amplified many times over the voice of the dumb, while the voice of those qualified to speak on a topic is also amplified, it's often being drowned out."

So...how is this different? When I went into bookstores in the past, I found more books than could ever be read by a person in his or her lifetime. Most of them were bad, or even worthless--things I wasn't interested in, even in the genres that I liked. The voices of the good authors were drowned out by the voices of the bad, or "the dumb".

Kind of like your post...you're masquerading as someone intelligent, and yet you simply repeat the fears and hype about how the internets are filled with teh stup1ds1!!!!!11!!111one

Re:Overly dramatic title

[BasilBrush]

One problem with "self-published homemade works" is that there are few areas where these are yet of any quality.

When I want to buy a book, and it's not possible to see it first in a brinks'n'mortar store, I can go to Amazon and see what lots of previous readers have had to say about it, and what star score they gave it. That makes it pretty easy to differentiate between what's good and bad.

Just the same with Apple's App Store.

And it'll be just the same with text books.

Re:Overly dramatic title

[ShakaUVM]

You only need one good textbook for each subject, no?

The wiki textbook project actually has a lot of promise, too. (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page)

Re:Overly dramatic title

[dkf]

You only need one good textbook for each subject, no?

<sarcasm> You only need one company for each kind of product, no? </sarcasm>

It's important to have multiple textbooks because it's important to present multiple points of view on a subject. That in turn is important because there is no guarantee that any single point of view is correct, no matter how authoritative or how many people collaborated on the production of that PoV. People can make mistakes, both on their own and in groups. The other non-financial benefit to having multiple textbooks is that many subjects are so large that putting everything in there just makes it overwhelming. Narrowing to subfields helps.

Of course, the real problem is that textbook publishers have viewed the area as a colossal cash-cow where they could get lots of money out for relatively little outlay on their part. It's a damn shame that it's taken a huge technological shake-up to get even a chance to put a stop to this racket, but that's quite often true of tech changes.

Re:Overly dramatic title

[ShakaUVM]

What I mean is, if I'm trying to study Java, or whatever, it doesn't benefit me any more if there's 2,000 textbooks instead of 200 good textbooks.

Once we get a good set of open source e-textbooks, it will eventually gut the publishing industry. Except for the cases where professors have written their own textbooks, I think most will start looking to helping their students out. Professors are humans too, after all.

Obligatory XKCD

[Anonymous Coward]

http://xkcd.com/865/

Re:Obligatory XKCD

[MetalliQaZ]

Are you sure that's the right comic for this story?

Re:Obligatory XKCD

[Quiet_Desperation]

Is it ever?

Re:Obligatory XKCD

[MichaelSmith]

If every text book is an internet connected device, where will the addresses come from?

About time ...

[Anonymous Coward]

My only concern is that the textbooks stay free of advertising for other companies.

Inkling has a great app with rich media textbooks that I believe should set the standard for other publishes. Textbooks should be come Text apps.

Re:About time ...

[psergiu]

Oblig. Penny Arcade:
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/04/13

Doesn't Matter

[Iggyhopper]

They will still get deals where required books are overpriced and rereleased.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[jd2112]

They will still get deals where required books are overpriced and rereleased.

And DRMed so they self-destruct at the end of the semester.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Lumpy]

Typically written by a prima donna self puffing "professor/Doctor" and in order to fuel his ego he will BAN laptops and tablets in his lectures forcing students to buy his $350.00 book on, "Pharmacology of nano participatory physics and their accounting procedures as applied to the business world, 15th edition."

Then he will spend the entire semester lecturing about things not in the book, the book is never really used but he is a prick and will DOCK you points if you do not bring it to every lecture and have it in view.

Yes I remember my college days.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[jddeluxe]

no doubt...

Re:Doesn't Matter

[the_B0fh]

Wouldn't that merit a complain to the school?

Re:Doesn't Matter

[ceoyoyo]

Schools frown on complaints about transgressions that the GP made up.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[jd2112]

They will still get deals where required books are overpriced and rereleased.

And DRMed so they self-destruct at the end of the semester.

How is this modded funny? It should be "sad but true"

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

And DRMed so they self-destruct at the end of the semester.

One more reason to not fail a course, unless you want to buy the book again.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Made up? you can find tons of complaints from students about prof's that ban laptops and tablets in their lectures.

Maybe if you actually went to college you would experience this.

University of Michigan, the kind of behavior that lumpy is outlining is very common.

I wonder if the textbook industry...

[forkfail]

... will now sue Apple for being similar to their products, taking inspiration from an existing product, and causing marketplace confusion in the textbook market.

Re:I wonder if the textbook industry...

[BasilBrush]

I suspect all patents on text book methods are long since expired.

Re:I wonder if the textbook industry...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if some retard on Slashdot will intentionally mis-state Apple's attempt to stop Samsung, Google, etc. from blatantly stealing their ideas?

Don't we already have that?

[bigredradio]

Aren't most e-readers able to display PDF files? I am sure e-PUB has more features, but creating multi-page PDFs or converting docs using Calibre seems to work well.

BTW, If we get rid of publishers, we lose the editor. Get ready for 1,000 page epics about cats.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[Iggyhopper]

No we don't. The editor will adapt or die.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[jd2112]

Aren't most e-readers able to display PDF files? I am sure e-PUB has more features, but creating multi-page PDFs or converting docs using Calibre seems to work well.

BTW, If we get rid of publishers, we lose the editor. Get ready for 1,000 page epics about cats.

I'm sure such feline themed tomes exist already, but I'm too lazy to check Amazon to verify.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[hedwards]

Yes, but PDFs are terrible on them typically. PDFs were designed so that a document would look the same and be printed the same in various places. The problem is that they do reflow the text and options for getting them to fit on the page aren't good. You can either scale them or you can zoom in and scroll around, neither of which is particularly desirable.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[hedwards]

Editors frequently freelance as it is. It's mostly just small and medium sized publishing houses that employ their own editors.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[Suki I]

BTW, If we get rid of publishers, we lose the editor. Get ready for 1,000 page epics about cats.

The rise of the freelance editor!

Re:Don't we already have that?

[punisher777]

We already have 1000 page epics about cats (LOL Cats), they just aren't in ePub. The only editor I need is myself. It is great that there are works on the Internet that only five people will read, but if editors edited the Internet than those five people would have nothing to read. The only reasons editors need to exist are to save the publishers money from publishing expensive books that few will read. With relatively low cost of electronic documenting they become obsolete and it is up to the reader to decide if they want to read a 1000 page epic about cats. Also, it is quite easy to allow your source to be edited by the masses like Wikipedia so that you get the best of crowdsourcing.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[Anonymous Coward]

There were mp3 players before the iPod.

Marketing: Make outrageous claims
Successful Marketing: Get taken seriously

Re:Don't we already have that?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. PDFs are ugly for electronic layout. There's no ability to re-flow the text or make other adjustments for the size of the screen or different layouts (think landscape or portrait orientation, personal preference for font size, etc.). PDFs do a great job of capturing the static layout on a piece of paper, but they're horribly underdeveloped for electronic text more generally. Zooming in and out on a static piece of paper is not ideal. e-PUB is much better, but the tools for creating it properly are fairly technical. A tool to make it easy for regular people would probably be welcomed.

Text has been and always will be only as good as the composer, editor, and layout makes it. If you lower the technical challenge to doing it, yes, there will be 1000-page rambling epics about cats. But that's no different from the situation for audio or video. Putting an audio or video recorder into people's hands doesn't make them fine artists either (see: YouTube). Whether it is a well-tuned and practiced orchestra or a crude scrape across an instrument will determine whether plenty of people pay for the performance or ignore it, but there's nothing wrong with lowering the technical hurdles it takes to give it a try. There's also a huge financial incentive to cut out the over-inflated costs introduced by the middle man (i.e. publishers). Yes, the conventional publishers do filter for quality and add editorial value, but they also take a HUGE cut of the profits.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[bcrowell]

Aren't most e-readers able to display PDF files?

Yes, but the experience sucks. For example, if the pdf was formatted with lines of text 18 cm wide, but you're viewing it on a reader with a 10 cm-wide screen, you're going to have to scroll back and forth with every line you read -- or resize it so small that the font becomes illegible.

converting docs using Calibre seems to work well.

Calibre works fine on some things, but not others. For example, it has no math support (basically because none of the output formats it supports, such as epub 2, have any math support).

I don't buy the claim in the Ars article that the big thing standing in the way of digital textbooks is that the tools for creating them are nonexistent, not good enough, or too hard to use. First off, textbook publishers have paid professionals who do this sort of thing. And in any case, the real barrier is that the ebook formats are extremely limited. The big issue for math and science textbooks is that the kindle and epub 2 formats don't support math properly. (You can display equations as bitmaps, but only if they're placed on a line by themselves in the middle of the page. Bitmapped equations won't scale properly when the user selects a different font, and they aren't accessible to blind people.) Epub 3 includes mathml, which is great, but there are currently zero readers on the market that support epub 3+mathml. Amazon has recently come out with the latest version of the kindle format, and it does not include math, so it seems unlikely that there will be math on the kindle in the foreseeable future. If and when readers start to support epub 3+mathml, there is no major technical barrier to creating textbooks with math in them. If you have tools to create xhtml+mathml (which are very easy to find), then it's trivial to create epub 3+mathml, because epub is basically just a set of html files packaged together in a zip file. Some OSS, such as epubcheck, already supports epub 3. I'm sure that tools such as Calibre will provide the necessary support (which will not be hard to do) once there is support from readers, although there is little motivation for the developers to do it right now, since there will no device that can actually do anything with the resulting file.

In any case, let's be realistic about what all this means. These books will have DRM, just like all commercial ebooks have already. The books will be priced just as exploitatively as current textbooks are, because the publishers know that that's what college students are currently paying.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[vux984]

Does this count?

http://www.amazon.com/LOLcat-Bible-beginnin-Ceiling-stuffs/dp/1569757348

"Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem. ..."

Re:Don't we already have that?

[vlm]

BTW, If we get rid of publishers, we lose the editor.

No, the prof becomes the editor. I had a microwave RF class where the prof gave us a page of this, a page of that, etc etc.
Probably did add up to 1000 pages by the end of class. He did extort a $20 bill from each of us to pay for the photocopier, but it was better than buying a textbook.

I would like to see a mashup app where the textbook could be created out of little sources. Here's a 10 page article about smith charts that'll be 50 cents. Click here to add the free 3 page wikipedia article about basic microstripline design. Click here to add a 3 page standardized set of smith chart practical exercises...

Re:Don't we already have that?

[snero3]

I have been waiting for work of a art to be released for years!!

Re:Don't we already have that?

[jd2112]

Does this count?

http://www.amazon.com/LOLcat-Bible-beginnin-Ceiling-stuffs/dp/1569757348

"Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem. ..."

Bah, Only 176 pages. You can do better than that.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[tipo159]

Aren't most e-readers able to display PDF files? I am sure e-PUB has more features, but creating multi-page PDFs or converting docs using Calibre seems to work well.

Calibre does not work well at all with the publications that I write or reference.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[dgatwood]

I believe that's Bookinator 3: Rise of the Freelance Editors.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[Tom]

PDF is intended for printing, and it shows.

I've just published an e-book, and epub is the vastly superior format. Since it is basically HTML, it will re-flow your text, you can change font sizes and fonts, it will work in both landscape and portrait and so on and so forth.

You don't want PDF for e-books. Download a few ebooks and a few PDF-books to an iPad or something and compare them.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[Arkham]

BTW, If we get rid of publishers, we lose the editor. Get ready for 1,000 page epics about cats.

http://www.amazon.com/WARRIORS-BOOKS-Complete-List-Updated/lm/R3OL3CAN7KYOVI

Just saying. Been there, done that.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[MrHanky]

You've never published anything, and know nothing about an editor's job.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[Anonymous Coward]

its called text reflow, try goodreader with a pdf on ipod, iphone or ipad the experience is awesome.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[BasilBrush]

BTW, If we get rid of publishers, we lose the editor. Get ready for 1,000 page epics about cats.

That's fine. If it's a bad book it'll get lousy reviews.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[Em Adespoton]

You make a good point... someone needs to make an eBook reader that can read TeX files. This would solve the reflow AND the markup issues.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[ceoyoyo]

Textbooks are generally written by volunteers from the academic community and edited by volunteers or poorly paid near-volunteers from the academic community. Textbook publishing isn't like fiction publishing.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[ceoyoyo]

"there are currently zero readers on the market that support epub 3+mathml."

Fixing that would take a simple software update for the iPad or any other tablet manufacturer who wanted to get into the textbook business.

"let's be realistic about what all this means. These books will have DRM, just like all commercial ebooks have already. The books will be priced just as exploitatively as current textbooks are, because the publishers know that that's what college students are currently paying."

Remember the music business before Apple and Amazon got involved? You bought your CD with the song you wanted usually some other crappy songs you didn't want, and you thought you were getting a great deal if you got it for $10-$15. Now we can buy individual tracks most for under a dollar. Oh, and no DRM.

If Apple (or someone else) gets serious about electronic textbooks, that industry is MUCH easier to overturn than music was. Textbooks aren't written by famous artists who are all locked into long term contracts with existing publishers.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[foniksonik]

Wow, that was serious copyright infringement. There's no scenario where buying 10 different books, re-editing them into 1 book then charging money for copies is fair use.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[Vecanti]

Aren't most e-readers able to display PDF files?

Yes, but the experience sucks. For example, if the pdf was formatted with lines of text 18 cm wide, but you're viewing it on a reader with a 10 cm-wide screen, you're going to have to scroll back and forth with every line you read -- or resize it so small that the font becomes illegible.

What? I have a Sony Pocket e-reader and PDF ebooks reflow just fine. I have a bunch of PDF ebooks I never bothered to convert to epub or native format because they work fine. You can't tell you're even reading a PDF.

Re:Don't we already have that?

[bcrowell]

What? I have a Sony Pocket e-reader and PDF ebooks reflow just fine. I have a bunch of PDF ebooks I never bothered to convert to epub or native format because they work fine. You can't tell you're even reading a PDF.

Are you talking about a novel, or a calculus textbook? It's cool if it has good enough heuristics to reflow a PDF of a novel, but I can't believe it will work well on a book with a complicated layout -- which means basically all textbooks.

Change of format != change of price

[omganton]

Oh good, now I can spend $400 on a textbook that I don't even get the pleasure of burning when I'm done with it.

Re:Change of format != change of price

[medv4380]

iPads burn. Just don't breath the smoke.

Re:Change of format != change of price

[Missing.Matter]

People love to quote this $400... I've never seen an undergraduate textbook that costs more than $200. Now, that's still a lot, but the same book can often be had for very cheap used from a previous student or off Amazon. The only textbooks I've seen that cost more than that are graduate level medical textbooks which are honestly worth keeping.

Re:Change of format != change of price

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you managed to get through colledge and being an undergrad with only a single $200 textbook? Wow! That must've been one honkin' huge book- and such generous portions!

Re:Change of format != change of price

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to read something that wasn't written. Try again, but this time use your brain.

Re:Change of format != change of price

[bcrowell]

People love to quote this $400... I've never seen an undergraduate textbook that costs more than $200.

Donaldson and Dunfee, Ethics in Business and Economics, is $680 on Amazon. (But it ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping!) Gotta love the combination of price and title.

In any case, even $200 is totally unacceptable.

Now, that's still a lot, but the same book can often be had for very cheap used from a previous student or off Amazon.

The publishers have gotten very good at killing off the used book market. They bring out a new edition every couple of years, making just enough superficial changes to discourage people from using an old edition. For example, in a math textbook they'll rearrange all the homework problems so the numbers are different.

Re:Change of format != change of price

[Macgrrl]

Not sure what the current price is, but 20 years ago I had a required book that was over $300. It was used for one of the core classes of my undergraduate degree. Not the most expensive book I own, but in the top 5.

Re:Change of format != change of price

[BasilBrush]

A change of price isn't guaranteed with a change of format. But I can't think of an example when it hasn't meant that.

I have no doubt Apple will make eTextBooks cheaper than paper text books.

Re:Change of format != change of price

[Missing.Matter]

Donaldson and Dunfee, Ethics in Business and Economics, is $680 on Amazon. (But it ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping!) Gotta love the combination of price and title.

Used for $60. There's not even a cover image or any reviews. Sounds like a book that is either extremely rare or not used much. Can you point to any university that uses this as a required text for an undergraduate class?

They bring out a new edition every couple of years, making just enough superficial changes to discourage people from using an old edition.

I don't mind this all that much because it creates a used marketplace for cheap last edition books that are as good as new.

For example, in a math textbook they'll rearrange all the homework problems so the numbers are different.

Do you have any evidence that this is actually deterring students from buying used? Any half-witted price-conscious student I've come across has bothered asking the professor "Is the last edition good enough." 99% of the time it is, and the professor is accommodating for previous editions. Most likely he has been teaching off the last edition anyway, and isn't even referencing the new edition.

Re:Change of format != change of price

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon also has that same textbook used for $60.

Re:Change of format != change of price

[Anonymous Coward]

You first. The point being made all around you is that the initial expense for the hardware might be steep, but your many $200 books are still a lot more expensive in comparison. There was also mention of used books not always being available and are often not fufilling the class requirements for the Latest And Greatest version.

Even if the price estimates bandied about were over by 200% and your's were accurate and closer to reality, they'd still be a lot more expensive than what's being proposed- if it works out, that is. Complaining about people overstating the price of those books misses the point. You also missed the one I was making, but that's a pass, as I was being obtuse and flippant.

Re:Change of format != change of price

[yayotters]

Say goodbye to reselling your textbooks that are stored in ebook format.

Re:Change of format != change of price

[definate]

... but this time use your brain.

NO!

Re:Change of format != change of price

[beowulfcluster]

Hmmmmmm, how long will it be before the publishers start suing professors for doing this?

Re:Change of format != change of price

[jc42]

Donaldson and Dunfee, Ethics in Business and Economics, is $680 on Amazon. (But it ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping!) Gotta love the combination of price and title.

Isn't that one of the prime contestants for the title of World's Thinnest Books?

Re:Change of format != change of price

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never seen an undergraduate textbook that costs more than $200.

Then you haven't been looking, or are full of shit (most likely both).
Here's a standard undergrad calculus book which lists for more than $200.
Here's a standard undergrad chemistry book which lists for more than $200.

And there are plenty more. This is pretty typical for the big "service" courses for freshman/sophomores in college. It doesn't matter if a student is lucky enough to find a cheap copy somewhere; the fact is that the publishers are ripping off students with expensive new editions that add little to no value over previous editions, at outrageous list prices (often the same price at campus bookstores).

Houghton Mifflin responds "Not so fast"

[elrous0]

I'm pretty sure some of the bigger textbooks companies pay significant kickbacks to colleges and departments to require the latest editions their overpriced crap. Unless Apple is going to be offering similar kickbacks, I'm not holding my breath.

Re:Houghton Mifflin responds "Not so fast"

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I'm aware of, but I've been out of the College Textbook industry for coming up on 10 years. The most _we_ ever did was ensure that the profs got extra copies of the books (that they'd sell to a book reseller), plus tons of ancillaries (test banks, computer-based tests, teacher's manuals, slide decks, etc).

Re:Houghton Mifflin responds "Not so fast"

[bcrowell]

I'm pretty sure some of the bigger textbooks companies pay significant kickbacks to colleges and departments to require the latest editions their overpriced crap.

No. Every time there's a textbook story on slashdot, someone posts this nonsense about "kickbacks." Every time I see it, I post a reply and ask for evidence. None is ever forthcoming.

I teach physics at a community college. I have been approached by many, many textbook reps. None has ever offered me a kickback.

Publishers do not need to offer kickbacks to get instructors to switch to the latest edition. The publisher simply stops selling the older edition, and the prof has no choice but to switch.

Re:Houghton Mifflin responds "Not so fast"

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been a college professor for nine years, and I've never been offered money by a textbook publisher to use their book. Nor, to my knowledge, has my department ever been offered such money. And were I to ever be offered such money, I would immediately refuse to adopt any textbooks by that publisher ever again.

College textbook publishing may be a dirty industry, but I don't think it's that dirty.

Re:Houghton Mifflin responds "Not so fast"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but have you ever hinted that maybe you SHOULD get one?

I've heard anecdotal evidence from both sides, but most damning were the profs that have been offered kickbacks of one kind or another...

They hinted that they might want to know what's in it for them, and many of the sales reps were willing to play ball in some way or another (usually "workshops" in nice locales vs. straight up bribes, etc.). They then kicked the reps out and reported them to both the school administration and their own companies.

You should try it sometime, though probably after an email warning to someone in admin so you don't get burnt if you actually get an honest sales rep that reports you.

Re:Houghton Mifflin responds "Not so fast"

[sheddd]

" The publisher simply stops selling the older edition, and the prof has no choice but to switch."

Is it that hard to find a decent textbook that's either in the public domain or sold cheap?

Re:Houghton Mifflin responds "Not so fast"

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a chemistry professor in college who was forcing us to buy HER book, and it wasn't even ready for prime time. Thus our books had a soft cover and looked like they were bound by the local copy shop.

There were errors in the book as well.

Yet the book cost around $80. Many classmates were grumbling about it.

Re:Houghton Mifflin responds "Not so fast"

[dkf]

Is it that hard to find a decent textbook that's either in the public domain or sold cheap?

Thanks to the entertainment industry, any textbook that is PD will be close on a century old. Across a huge proportion of human knowledge there's been a lot discovered and worked out in that time; the PD textbooks are of historical interest, but you can't teach from them. (There are very few that are current and PD; it takes a lot of work to write a textbook and authors mostly like to be reasonably compensated.)

Sold off cheap is much more of a sane option, except that it is hard to ensure that a whole class gets the same edition of the same book at that point, which is what you need to keep the teacher from going crazy. (Can you imagine how awful it would be if everyone in a class of 30 was trying to learn from a different book, many of which will have silly errors in or which you'll have never read yourself?) The only way it can work is if the same book is used for a number of years in a row, allowing students from one year to sell it on to the next. Which is what happens now.

Re:Houghton Mifflin responds "Not so fast"

[jimicus]

No. Every time there's a textbook story on slashdot, someone posts this nonsense about "kickbacks." Every time I see it, I post a reply and ask for evidence. None is ever forthcoming.

It's endemic and comes up whenever a decision involving a significant amount of money is involved.

Thing is, I've seen all sorts of sales tricks. I've seen "Structure your conversation so you're talking to the customer like they already bought the product". I've seen "Pay a referral fee to anyone who recommends someone come to you". I've seen "Throw in a special offer that on closer inspection isn't all that special". I've seen "Make an opening offer that's really good, who cares if you just break even; sell the customer more stuff later because it's a lot easier to sell to an existing customer". I've seen "Get this totally unrelated valuable product when you spend £thousands. Please note that the totally unrelated product will still appear on your invoice and we won't deliver it to a different address so you personally will have to pretty openly defraud your employer if you want to keep it for yourself. We've nailed our computer system so your account manager can't override this, so please don't embarrass him by asking him to".

The closest I've ever seen to a kickback is "take the client out to lunch and pick up the tab". Yet the way /. talks about it, anyone would think that every big purchase involves invoicing 20% extra and paying it back to the man who placed the order in a brown paper bag containing unmarked, non-sequential notes. Cobblers.

Re:Houghton Mifflin responds "Not so fast"

[bcrowell]

Is it that hard to find a decent textbook that's either in the public domain or sold cheap?

Harder than you might think.

Public domain books are going to be quite old -- at least a few decades, in the case where the book was published before 1964 and the copyright was not renewed. At my school, we are required to update the curriculum database every 5 years for every course, and the primary textbook for the course has to be one that's less than (IIRC) 10 years old. The intention is to make sure that students are getting an up-to-date education. Of course, this doesn't make a lot of sense for a subject like calculus or 19th-century English poetry, but that's the bureaucratic reality. And in any case, most subjects really do change rapidly enough that PD is not an option.

Cheap textbooks are not available from the big commercial publishers, partly because they employ a lot of people who need paychecks (graphic designers, sales reps, acquisitions editors, copy editors, ...), partly because color is seen as necessary for a saleable book, and partly (mainly) because they're evil sons of bitches who know what the market will bear.

Free and cheap books are available through other channels, however; see my sig for a catalog.

Re:Houghton Mifflin responds "Not so fast"

[sheddd]

Interesting; thanks!

Re:Houghton Mifflin responds "Not so fast"

[hendrikboom]

Well, there's wikibooks.

I'm skeptical

[Anonymous Coward]

E-readers (and laptops, for that matter) are great for text that can be consumed quickly, including essentially all news stories, blogs, promotional materials, forums, light fiction, and non-fiction of the "layman's breezy guide to complex hairy subject" variety.

A real textbook is meant to be read sloooowly. Print works very well for that.

BTW when is the paperless office going to be here? We've been waiting on that for awhile.

Re:I'm skeptical

[Grishnakh]

If you can read a dead-tree book sloooowly, you can read an e-reader slooowly too. It doesn't even use any extra power to do so (unless you bought one of those stupid color e-readers, but they'll have color e-ink technology pretty soon).

Re:I'm skeptical

[BasilBrush]

BTW when is the paperless office going to be here?

I got a document scanner a couple of months ago. Already a couple of boxes of documents have been scanned, shredded and recycled.

The paperless office is here as soon as you want your paperless office to be here.

Re:I'm skeptical

[Em Adespoton]

Many real textbooks have information cross linking across the text, with appendices, bibliographies, footnotes, endnotes, sidebars, etc. We may have learned how to navigate them, but they're really very clunky, with much unneeded repetition and referencing.

A properly written e-text would be much nicer, as you could quickly drill down to the information you need, and have a record of what you have and haven't read. You can also set reading plans, check your progress by theme, keyword, chapter, or anything else you want. You can toss notes inline, or just link them to MULTIPLE bits of highlighted text. You can quickly make connections between bits of information provided that the original authors missed or weren't interested in.

You can do all of this with a hard copy too, but you'd need to make extensive use of a photocopier, and would have a mess to manage the next time you went to review the text.

Re:I'm skeptical

[ceoyoyo]

Why in the world would paper be better for reading slowly than an ereader? I've got a few textbooks on my iPad. Whenever I find I need another one, the first thing I do is look to see if it's available in an electronic form. Searching, bookmarking, annotating (with annotations you can erase or edit) and not having to carry around (and hold) several pounds of dead tree are all killer features.

Re:I'm skeptical

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I work we have wireless projectors in every meeting room, use wikis to share docs and status, carry our laptops and tablets around for demos and note taking (some people still use pen and notepad). We don't print. We have big color lasers but rarely rarely use them.

It's about as paperless as it can get.

Yeah sure...

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad it will only work on iDevices.

Steve's Right

[milbournosphere]

I'm only two years out of college, and unless things have magically corrected themselves in that time, the college text book business remains completely frakked up. They've taken the 'Edition' distribution model and have used it to very much hurt the used book business, all while pushing prices higher and higher, yet adding no real value. They've literally got students (and to a smaller sense, professors) by the balls. I gladly welcome Apple's entry to the market; somebody needs to shake things up and eat the lunch of these archaic publishers. Not everyone loves them, but Apple is one of a few companies that has shown their ability to enter a market do just that.

Re:Steve's Right

[ForestHill]

They've literally got students (and to a smaller sense, professors) by the balls.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Re:Steve's Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Doh! Thank you, kind sir, for keeping my grammar (and my vocabulary) in check. :)

Re:Steve's Right

[oheso]

They've literally got students (and to a smaller sense, professors) by the balls.

Wow. Things sure have spiced up a bit since I was in college. Most of the peeps who had me by the balls had at most one or two other students by the balls, and never at the same time.

Re:Steve's Right

[RockDoctor]

It literally means something almost diametrically opposite to how the GP was using it.

What languages was he (or "her" or "it", or just possibly "them") trying to speak?

Re:Steve's Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Literally? That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

the lack of simple digital publishing tools?

[Colin Smith]

Any text editor.
Any word processor.
Any desktop publisher.
Any web page editor.
Any wiki page.
Any blog.

i.e. WTF?

Is this like when they branded lemonade as "Sprite" to increase the margin?

Re:the lack of simple digital publishing tools?

[Missing.Matter]

It's typical Apple propaganda. In the beginning, there was nothing. Then Apple said... you know the rest.

Re:the lack of simple digital publishing tools?

[jo_ham]

And by "Apple propaganda" you mean "editorialising and guesswork by the summary writer"

All Apple has done is named a place and date and mentioned it's to do with education.

The "lack of publishing tools" thing is not from Apple.

But still, easier just to bash them based on things they didn't actually say. Carry on.

Re:the lack of simple digital publishing tools?

[Macgrrl]

I suspect that disruptive part of the technology will actually be the distribution chain. By making the textbooks availabile via a tab in the iTunes store, suddenly people will be able to compare similar texts easily and rate them. Comments will highlight if the text is of decent quality. It will make it easier to educators to consider alternate texts if required, because they will be in all the same place./p.

Re:the lack of simple digital publishing tools?

[MrHanky]

Yes, most Apple propaganda is written by people like you.

Re:the lack of simple digital publishing tools?

[jo_ham]

Point some out - make sure you include a fair spectrum of comments. I'm not always positive. Generally that's not a great way to run propaganda.

I, at almost all times, am a realist when it comes to my comments (apart from obvious facetiousness). I'll only ever post things that are true - whether they be positive or negative, and and editorialising of things I have read is noted.

I have positive things to say about Android too - does that make me a Google propagandist?

Re:the lack of simple digital publishing tools?

[BasilBrush]

Sprite is lemon and lime, and it's the answer to 7 Up, not lemonade. And 7 Up was originally a patent medicine, just like Coke was.

Not that it matters, but it does reflect on your equally mistaken summation of the pointlessness of better ebook authoring tools.

Re:the lack of simple digital publishing tools?

[MrHanky]

Oh, how about you find a comment where you were critical of Apple, since I can't find any. I find lots and lots of Apple apologetics and propaganda, on the other hand (Apple made the mp3 player popular, for fuck's sake? they made a popular mp3 player in a market that waited for Sony to find its ways). And then there's bonch, the submitter, who is on another level, frequently getting accused of being a paid shill. I don't think anyone would pay him for being an obnoxious tool, least of all a corporation that knows all amout marketing, but his activities as a fanboy warrior certainly demands a lot of work.

Re:the lack of simple digital publishing tools?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any desktop publisher

So what desktop publisher do you have on your cell phone? Your e-reader? Your e-tablet? I wouldn't use a iPhone to read a mathematical text despite the 'large' screen. Getting the tools is half the battle. Then your message must meet the masses. To be precise, to a portable computer that can render the markup with appropriate re-flow and smooth scaling of wingding characters. That is what portable documents have so far lacked.

Re:the lack of simple digital publishing tools?

[jo_ham]

Their lawsuits are a major issue - I have said this multiple times (although I agreed with the Samsung copy suit, they are taking it to extremes. I do not agree with the HTC suit).

The Finder needs serious work. It has been sub-par since 10.2 and needs to be overhauled. It's better in Lion and SL now that it doesn't beachball if a single thread is busy, but it's still not where it should be.

iOS desperately needs a way to flip the various wireless features on and off from the main screen like Android has. Going in to the settings to turn Wifi off when it auto-joins a network is annoying. (Usually one of those mesh networks that blocks you and asks for payment to access it, or a network you have seen before and use occasionally but that still requires login - if the phone connects to a wifi signal, even without a path to the internet it *will not* fall back to 3G data, so you have to turn the wifi off in this situation - one or other of these things needs to be fixed. Ideally with a simple switch on the home or lock screen to turn the wifi on and off.

iOS needs swype. I've used it on Android and it's excellent. While we're on the subject of input, a more intuitive capslock would be nice, or a way to modify the layout to move more frequently used symbols onto the main keyboard.

The iPad needs an SD card for storage expansion. I mention this every time the topic comes up. I assume if it does get one on the iPad 3 it will ship in a working state unlike the Xoom, though.

The new Preview.app in Lion is a major step backwards. It used to be so fast and so useful and so stable. It's now slow to open, crashes frequently and is just a general pain.

While we're on Lion, the "versions" save system where you never need to save anymore is all very well but *why did they remove Save As...*? I know you can duplicate the document and then save, but it's still less useful than it was before if you used that feature. There was no reason to remove it.

iCal has improved in some areas, but the sidebar is now gone, replaced with a pop up window. It was better before where you could see your calendars without having to bring this popup up, for example if you wanted to change the what calendar you had selected before making a new event. It's quicker now to simply make an event with the default calendar and just switch it manually while you're entering details. In other words, the UI is less functional than it was before.

The iMac lineup uses MXM 3.0 graphics cards - there is no reason that the top level card available in the 27" as a build to order couldn't be included in the 21" model as a build to order (the thermal output is the same as the card in the 21"). The only reason is to push you to get the 27" if you want that graphics card. That's cheap. Similarly, the CPU is socketed with intel's standard socket for Sandy Bridge i5/i7 so the selection limitation is purely to differentiate the models.

Apple should open the FaceTime protocol already - they said they were planning to do it, but so far have not. They should also licence the magsafe connector along the same lines as the mini-displayport.

That's just a few of the thoughts off the top of my head. I now I've talked about many of these on slashdot before, some of them for many years.

The problem I face is that if I'm positive about Apple for any reason without including a library of "supporting" evidence that shows I am also critical then "I'm a paid Apple shill" "a clueless fanboy sheeple" "a worthless Apple troll" etc etc. Slashdot is intolerant of positive commentary about companies and topics it considers to be "the enemy" of whatever it is they're pushing as the current flavour du jour. Right now that's Android, not long ago it was Ubuntu, then Firefox (which have both seemed to have fallen from favour).

Don't get me wrong, I'm more positive about Apple than negative (or why would I continue to use OS X and iOS?), but it doesn't mean I don't have criticisms of the products or the company as a whole. To suggest that I'm an Apple propagandist is to suffer from confirmation bias of the highest order.

Re:the lack of simple digital publishing tools?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new to this whole Apple thing.

Re:the lack of simple digital publishing tools?

[Colin Smith]

You'll find that life will improve if you stop being such a pedantic fuck.

Re:the lack of simple digital publishing tools?

[BasilBrush]

You'll find your life improves if you learn to accept new knowledge graciously.

The problem with college textbooks

[Jeng]

The problem with college textbooks is that you have to find someone who is

A) Willing to write a book
B) An expert in the subject who is able to take their knowledge and lay it out in such a way that it is useful to the student and the professor.

And what really makes them expensive is that there might be three or four thousand copies printed total, so that everything that went into writing that book has to be recouped off of just three or four thousand copies, instead of the millions of copies for pulp fiction titles.

Re:The problem with college textbooks

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the huge problem is that you'll be hard pressed to find a singe college or university that doesn't make a huge sum of money selling new text books and even more money selling used textbooks. If you think they are going to role over and give up that money to Apple or anyone else your delusional. They'll just switch to some other printed textbook. On the off chance they can't get their money from text books they'll add course fees to the classes that use ebooks to recoup their loses.

Re:The problem with college textbooks

[Jeng]

The company I work for does produce among other things, college textbooks, but the colleges don't get a dime. We charge everyone the same amount, whether you are an individual, or a huge bookstore chain like B&N.

Re:The problem with college textbooks

[afidel]

BS, how many people here had to buy a $150 Calculus textbook or a $120 Chem 101 textbook. There is no shortage of people able and willing to write either and there is certainly an audience of more than a few thousand for each. The real problem is that textbooks became an industry and therefore there had to be new product every year whether there was any justification for one or not. It's a problem that will ultimately be self correcting, but it will take some time, either costs will come down and release cycles slowed or we will hyper accelerate them through things like khan academy and wikipedia.

Re:The problem with college textbooks

[arose]

Depends if the 30% to Apple is cheaper than rolling out new editions all the time. Kills of the used market either way.

Re:The problem with college textbooks

[Em Adespoton]

As a counterpoint... name the professor who will choose the university press over self-publishing. With this method, a handful of professors and their grad students can cheaply and quickly put out a text that more than rivals anything they could push through the politics of UP for three times the price.

Re:The problem with college textbooks

[ceoyoyo]

Do you know how most textbooks are written?

One or more professors get together and say "hey, how about making a textbook about this?" Quite often this is because they have to teach a class on that topic and don't like any of the existing textbooks. These are the editors.

The editors pitch their idea to a publisher. If the publisher likes it, they say, sure, go for it. Now the editors ask their colleagues to contribute to the textbook. Chapters get written.

Finally, when the book is all put together (and I do mean all put together - the last chapter I wrote for a textbook had to be formatted just so, by me) it goes off to the publisher. Oh, and by the way, if anybody in that chain gets paid (other than the publisher), it's the editors, and it's not very much. But everybody gets to put it on their CV, which for an academic is supposed to be MUCH better than money. Or so we tell ourselves.

Now, I'm sure the publisher does more than just print off the book and market it, but it's not a whole lot more, and it's certainly not something that a big company like Apple couldn't do.

Re:The problem with college textbooks

[thomas.galvin]

And what really makes them expensive is that there might be three or four thousand copies printed total, so that everything that went into writing that book has to be recouped off of just three or four thousand copies, instead of the millions of copies for pulp fiction titles.

Millions of copies? For the rare best-seller, maybe. More like thousands for the popular titles, and hundreds for the rest.

I would argue that a text book is actually more likely to earn out than a novel, because a text book (probably) has a guaranteed audience.

Re:The problem with college textbooks

[Anonymous Coward]

These issues you raise don't explain the $150 price tag for an introductory trigonometry, or other introductory courses. In those cases, we're talking about subjects that literally millions of people understand well enough to write about, and that easily hundreds of thousands of people have to buy textbooks for every year.

Even for specialized subjects, a single professor earning $10 to $20 off each sale would have plenty of incentive.

Cool title for an executive . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Interviewer: "So, Dr. Shiva, what are your responsibilities at Apple?"

Executive: "Well, as 'Director of Digital Destruction' at Apple . . . "

I'm surprised they didn't give it some schmaltzy name, like, "Re-birthing of New Education, for the Age of Aquarius Epoch" . . .

"Digital Destruction" is bound to get the attention of the DHS, TSA and their pals . . . "Hey, they're planning to destroy our Homeland Industry!"

I'll believe it when I see it

[Sycraft-fu]

Please remember this is the same Apple that forced ebook prices higher because they wanted to take a larger cut than places like Amazon, but Apple forced publishes to set retail prices the same for all outlets.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it

[BasilBrush]

Please remember this is the same Apple that forced ebook prices higher because they wanted to take a larger cut than places like Amazon, but Apple forced publishes to set retail prices the same for all outlets.

You seem to have confused your vendors. Amazon originally offered 35% of the sales to the publisher, and kept 65% themselves. Sounds outrageous, but it represents what the paper book percentages are like.

Apple did the opposite and came in with 70/30 split in favour of the publisher. Amazon then has to change their deal to match.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it

[Bing Tsher E]

Apple forced ebook prices higher for the consumer.

Dance around with words all you like.

Apple made it so that prices of ebooks were higher for the consumer.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it

[BasilBrush]

Apple forced ebook prices higher for the consumer.

No they didn't. Publishers set prices, not Apple.

What are you talking about "dancing around with words"? I'm being specific, you're not.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Publishers set prices, not Apple.

Only after Apple agreed to the Agency model. Prior to that the retailer set prices.

Question: do you think publishers subsequently priced higher or lower than retailers such as Amazon?

Re:I'll believe it when I see it

[Marcika]

You're either ignorant or trolling. Apple forced the e-book industry to convert to agency pricing. This raised prices for consumers and was probably illegal.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it

[BasilBrush]

Neither. As your own link says:

"Sounds scary enough, but if you look at the detail of the complaint there isn't a whole lot of evidence to back it accusations of conspiracy"

Apple sells ebooks with the same business model as apps. The uploader sets his own price. Including free if he wants. With apps that has resulted in lots of 99c and free apps. Why on earth would it make ebooks be more expensive? That doesn't make sense.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Please remember this is the same Apple that resisted MPAA/RIAA efforts to raise prices on music/movie content to unacceptable levels that customers wouldn't accept. Don't let your selective memory cloud your perception too much there champ.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it

[BasilBrush]

Please remember this is the same Apple that forced ebook prices higher because they wanted to take a larger cut than places like Amazon, but Apple forced publishes to set retail prices the same for all outlets.

Apple High School Textbooks: Max price $14.99, own forever, gets any updates for free.

WikiBooks and other sources

[DanielRavenNest]

Wikibooks has been around for a while, it just lacks collaboration from real experts. MIT open courseware has some textbooks. Scientific papers are becoming openly available in many cases. The evolution is just not complete. But take it from someone who has written technical reports and is working on a space propulsion online textbook ( http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Space_Transport_and_Engineering_Methods ), the hard part is the human writing and editing, not which software you do it on. Apple could have a slick program with a "make pretty" button, and people like me would still have to do all the same work to create the content.

Re:WikiBooks and other sources

[BasilBrush]

the hard part is the human writing and editing, not which software you do it on. Apple could have a slick program with a "make pretty" button, and people like me would still have to do all the same work to create the content.

That's true. But there doesn't seem to be a shortage of textbook authors. Just a shortage of such content being made into quality etextbooks.

Re:WikiBooks and other sources

[ceoyoyo]

Yes, the layout tool isn't the biggest problem. What's missing is a "publisher" with a motive for making electronic textbooks cheap and easy.

Wikibooks is having trouble not because it doesn't have experts but because it doesn't have any quality control. Who wants to spend time writing a textbook that's going to get lost amongst a sea of crap? MIT open courseware is fine, but small. Scientific papers are in no way an acceptable replacement for textbooks.

What's needed is a company that will put a small amount of effort into checking the credentials of the editors/authors of their textbooks, and do all the distribution. If that company happens to make lots of money whenever someone buys a device to read those textbooks on, the books themselves are likely to be cheap and un-DRMed.

Apple, the savior?

[DogDude]

This made me laugh. Yes, the overpriced textbook industry that charges people almost annually for minor updates will be destroyed by the overpriced electronic gadget company that charges people almost annually for minor updates. Fantastic. That's a real step forward.

Re:Apple, the savior?

[BoberFett]

What I wouldn't give for a mod point right now...

Re:Apple, the savior?

[jo_ham]

Yes, it will be exactly like the music industry, who were overcharging for plastic optical discs with one good song and 10 filler tracks, a bargain at $15, until Apple came along and...

oh wait, Apple bad! Apple Evul! Apple enumeeeee! Rarrrr!

Sorry, forgot the slashdot party line for a second.

Re:Apple, the savior?

[jo_ham]

I know, I wanted to mod him -1 wrong too, but such is life.

Re:Apple, the savior?

[romanval]

Wrong. All minor updates of OS X are free, as are all iOS upgrades while the device is officially supported (which is typically around 3 years.) I have yet to see any Android device manufacturer match that.

Re:Apple, the savior?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well all android versions are free for the rest of your life time and this world's, so it beats it by a lot.

Re:Apple, the savior?

[BasilBrush]

the overpriced electronic gadget company that charges people almost annually for minor updates.

That's strange, I have 4 Apple products and they aren't charging me annually for updates. Could it be you are mistaking the availability of new models in the shops for "charging people annually".

If that's your problem, could you point me at the electronics company that doesn't put out new models of products?

No I didn't think so.

The problems you speak of...

[bigredradio]

B) An expert in the subject who is able to take their knowledge and lay it out in such a way that it is useful to the student and the professor.

That doesn't seem to stop them.

I wish them well

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm no Apple fan, in fact I don't own any of their products and hate the walled-garden iphone ecosystem.

But if Apple can violently rape the textbook publishers and give them the messiest Dirty Sanchez in history, I will cheer them on.

Bookboon.com

[Anonymous Coward]

www.bookboon.com are doing a good job providing free textbooks, written by Profs

Interesting, but still probably doomed.

[Anonymous Coward]

This could be interesting. The biggest problem with this is the way the market works. Okay, so we make a book. The physical cost of the book (your college chemistry book) was $3.65. Once you included in the author, the editor, salesperson's salary, MY salary in IT, etc, it was $45. We sold it to the bookstores for that, then they sold it for $65. Which means that we could theoretically sell it for $42. Not a huge saving... except when you include that middleman charging $20 more.

So, if we were to sell this via iBooks/Kindle/etc, the biggest problem is that bookstore - the reason for a new edition every 2 years was to combat the used book market. Sure, things got tweaked, but it was to make sure people kept buying the book. They make a LOT of money by physically holding those books for a few weeks. And if a publisher went digital to cut the bookstores out of the market - well, the bookstores would decide they wouldn't carry ANY books by that publisher, and the publisher would Go Away. (Supposedly this happened once in the early 90s, though I don't know who.)

But if Apple got involved? They could bring a lot of muscle to bear, since this isn't Sink Or Swim for them. That being said, the bookstores would still boycott the publisher, etc, etc.

Sidenote: the publisher I worked for had come up with a solution, albeit with lock-in. Pay X dollars per student, get access to all of our books. I'm sure there was a discount. I'm sure everyone here can see the problems with that, though it's the only halfway-decent scheme I saw.

Re:Interesting, but still probably doomed.

[louiswins]

Okay, so we make a book. The physical cost of the book (your college chemistry book) was $3.65. Once you included in the author, the editor, salesperson's salary, MY salary in IT, etc, it was $45. We sold it to the bookstores for that, then they sold it for $65. Which means that we could theoretically sell it for $42. Not a huge saving... except when you include that middleman charging $20 more.

Whoa, a college chemistry book for only $65? Mine are closer to twice that.

It's not all the Textbook publshers' fault

[MuChild]

I work for a major textbook publisher that makes some of (albeit the cheapest) those textbooks.I admit that the system is broken, but the impression that the publishers are gouging the students is not entirely fair. The bookstores on campus with monopolies on their local markets and used book sales through nation-wide aggregators are a large part of the problem. All that is before we even get to piracy.

Also, textbooks these days come with a wide range of additional print and on-line resources like study guides, course management and homework systems, videos, etc. that are usually bundled with the book for "free." (I'm not going to insult you and suggest these add-ons don't effect the price of the book, but their value generally far outweighs the price)

If you want someone to blame, talk to the people who run your local bookstores.

Re:It's not all the Textbook publshers' fault

[JayWilmont]

I've read the breakdowns, but I don't buy it. For example, I once ended up with the bangladeshi copy of a $150 physics textbook for $50. It was paperback, printed on newsprint (which is actually less glossy and therefore easier to read under bright lights), black-and-white, and page-for-page identical with the US edition (and from the same company as the original textbook, so not a pirated copy).

I'm sure many students in the US would gladly opt for a much cheaper "economy" edition if it were offered instead of the delux quality hardback, multi-color, super-glossy textbooks that we get to choose from. (Sure, some subjects benefit from color, but for most, especially math and programming, it is an unnecessary luxury. )

Even if no outright price gouging exists, it is much more lucrative to sell luxury textbooks than bare-bones ones (a fixed percentage of $150 is more than the same percentage of $50): this decision may be good for publishers, but it is bad for students.

Re:It's not all the Textbook publshers' fault

[MuChild]

The double-bind that publishers are in, however, is that the people who choose books for their classes (sometimes individual professors sometimes committees) will refuse to buy a book that is cheaply made because they fall apart and students can't re-sell them. Also, a lot of the cost comes from the fees we pay for rights to those glossy photos and not really the production cost of the physical book (which is why eBooks for these $150 texts are often still over $50 and why that Bangladeshi copy still cost $50).

I agree, though, that the situation we have in textbooks is sort of the same as the one in American automobiles: an oligopoly where a few competitors offer roughly the same product with roughly the same prices. Add in the fact that all the add-ons and online content is almost never revenue-bearing and the price of the textbook isn't going to drop very far. Change is coming, though. I can feel it in my bones! Flat World Knowledge, Inkling, and now Apple are going to get it right pretty soon and change the way the whole industry operates. I'm just glad I work in the media department and not print!

You don't have an eReader obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

PDF sucks for everything but printing. Period.

They don't render well and converting them makes crap.

No one can convert a PDF and make it look good on an eReader.

Nope. Not gonna happen. I've tried.

PDF is a printer format and that;s it.

Re:You don't have an eReader obviously

[Macgrrl]

Mod this up. PDF is essentially Postscript in a viewable wrapper. Postscript is designed for accurate and repeatable printing of formatted information in a fixed manner.

Re:You don't have an eReader obviously

[Em Adespoton]

PDF is a display format. Since eReaders tend to mess with all the display parameters, PDF doesn't work all that well.

However, having said that, if you take an ePub file and convert it to PDF, THAT PDF will work just fine in an eBook reader. Reflow works just the same, you can tap to zoom on/read a column of text or to make an image object fit the screen. The PDFs that are a pain are the ones that are basically pages and pages of PNG or JPEG images with OCR'd text hidden behind them. These suck in eBook readers, and never convert to any other format in any meaningful way. This isn't a limitation of PDF, but of the source material.

So we're to trust apple with publishing ?

[unity100]

The very company which is going on suing spree in madness to prevent competitors ? and also famous for walled gardens and overcharging for anything ?

and why havent any of you brought this up until this comment ?

Re:So we're to trust apple with publishing ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there is no connection between patent litigation and media distribution. Apple corralled the music industry to start selling music online and later forced the music industry to sell music without DRM. You can now put your iTunes music purchases on any device you want and copy them as much as you like.

Re:So we're to trust apple with publishing ?

[unity100]

Because there is no connection between patent litigation and media distribution.

you mean, control freakdom in one certain field, may not seep to the other ? and :

Apple corralled the music industry to start selling music online and later forced the music industry to sell music without DRM. You can now put your iTunes music purchases on any device you want and copy them as much as you like.

yes. now. but apple was as controlling as it is everywhere in itunes too.

youre too trusting of a company that builds walled gardens.

Re:So we're to trust apple with publishing ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you're the only one here poor|not cool|awkward|WindowsLuser?

Re:So we're to trust apple with publishing ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Fuck any school that requires you to buy iCrap in order to complete your studies.

If Apple sells books that are in an open non-DRM format, and doesn't require iCrap to dowload or play them, then fine. But the chances of this are pretty much nil. Apple is a shittier nastier more ruthless company than M$ even, and that is saying a lot.

Re:So we're to trust apple with publishing ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think apple overcharges for anything then you don't understand technology

Ripped from the hands of Texas

[vaene]

If ebooks can penetrate the K-12 market and lower costs significantly, then much power will be taken out of the Texas Board of Education's hands. School districts around the nation could decide for themselves if they wanted to teach that humans played with dinosaurs 5000 years ago, and not be forced to buy text books that spout such nonsense because Texas is the largest market and gets to set curriculum.

the future

[Charliemopps]

In 10years I'm fairly sure I'll have rabid apple fans telling me all about how apple invented the ebook... along with the Smart phone, the MP3 player, the internet, the personal computer, etc... and how lame it is that everyone just keeps copying them. "Go ahead and use your lame non-apple ebooks, I heard their full of viruses anyway"

Re:the future

[jo_ham]

Amazingly enough, "Apple fans" tend not to claim those things. The'll usually claim that Apple made a particular niche popular - portable music players, all in one computers, tablet computers, online music stores etc. Rarely do they ever claim that Apple "invented" them - because they obviously didn't.

Apple haters, however, will claim that's what Apple fans believe and say, and then "righteously" yell at them for "being wrong".

It's getting old.

Re:the future

[the_B0fh]

See, if it was an Apple fan, they would know how to use they're properly... *haha* :)

Re:the future

[RazorSharp]

the internet

Is Al Gore still on their board?

Re:the future

[Charliemopps]

They're still wrong. Everything you mentioned were wildly popular long before Apple got involved. Apple is very very good at advertising and controlling the media. If anything, their legacy is in teaching the corporate world just how important image is. In apples case, it's their only real product.

Re:the future

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Apple it's getting old, TFA do not have the trademark quality of APPL Turfing, seems like the new boss is going cheap on the PR front. OTOH You're a good fellow and your comment read more naturally than TFA. If only I could trust Apple with content, because they have a history of censoring Apps for bogus reasons, Have that cnahged since the original OCD source have left?

Anyway, Apple in the eBook industry? Can't wait for "Lord of the FartBooks" I II III IV V Vpt,2 V2.0

Re:the future

[jo_ham]

Tablets were "wildly popular" before Apple came along?

Smartphones *maybe* - since Blackberry certainly had a good following, but it was nowhere near the market penetration that came when iPhone and Android were selling the "classic" touchscreen phone.

The mp3 player was certainly not "wildly popular" with the general public. Not even close. There were certainly portable mp3 players, but they were a niche product - if the iPod killed anything it was MiniDisc (in all countries except the US), the discman and the walkman. At the time, the concept of music as files on your computer was the realm of the extremely tech-savvy computer geek. Apple just took it mainstream.

You were doing well right up until claiming that "image" is Apple's only real product - to do so is a gross underestimation and, given that many other manufacturers seem to think as you do, why they have such problems creating products that compete favourably with Apple ones. Android manufacturers cottoned on to this pretty quickly and as a result have made some very good phones after listening to what their customers want (note: you don't need to copy Apple for Apple's model to work - Apple's method is to make something that people want to buy, so as long as you do that, you'll sell).

If Apple was "all image" then they might manage a large number of sales to start with, then they would quickly fall off as word of the product spread. This is also known as the "box office turd" effect, where the opening weekend is huge but then drops off like a rock. Apple's product sales are much more like the box office hit - big opening weekend, strong sales long into the run. If the products were not delivering on expectations (and not necessarily those of the slashdot geek who wants to compile Linux on his phone every 3 days) then they would not continue to sell in ever increasing numbers - marketing will not do that for you in the presence of a terrible product.

Re:the future

[Anonymous Coward]

"their" should be "they're".

Go back to school.

Apple could make an author environment

[jclaer]

If I give a lecture, it's easy to record and distribute my face, voice, and slides, but the pointer position is lost. And that's half the drama!

How about a reader.

[Anonymous Coward]

I love ebooks. Lets open this epub book on my macbook.... oh wait, Apple doesn't have a reader for it.

Re:How about a reader.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a number of third-party ePub readers for Mac OS X. You're probably trying to say that there is no OS X reader for iBooks, which is indeed annoying, but they aren't the same thing.

text book scumbags.

[nblender]

When my wife was a prof, the textbook industry was her biggest peeve. Every year, a new textbook comes out, many with websites that contain supplementary and additional information. The websites become invalid at the end of the school year thereby eroding the used textbook market. With each coming year, faced with a new textbook, course instructors have to run through the book to update their curriculum where necessary..

Knock-on Effect

[Phoenix666]

The Chiropractor's Guild will likely come out strongly against this too, because people won't be throwing their backs out carrying around chemistry and physics textbooks.

Used book market

[love05mustang]

The used book market is thriving, and if you think you are forced to buy books from the College store then crawl out of under that rock! This is a ploy by $Apple$ to have the book publishers lunch plain and simple with a change of format (read +DRM) that in the long run leaves people no better off, more likely worse off! Not sure about you folks' college experience, but I made the mistake of buying books at the College store only once. Every semester after freshman year, I'd ask professor if the book was required, obtain the ISBNs for necessary books and compare prices of new/used on Amazon or Addall.com and pick a winner. For most engineering and science books I'd save $50-100 per title. In grad school it got a little tough since topics were specialized, but still found a way. At the end of the year I would keep most of books that I liked or were good references and sell the rest on Amazon. 5 yrs later that IC design book bought for $75 saved my ass in a job interview, try doing that in 2017 with the ebook you bought yesterday!

It is a double edged sword

[SmallFurryCreature]

Martin Luther (not King) was instrumental in getting the Bible out of the domain of the church where only the clergy who were trained in latin, the language of the bible in Germany at the time, he by insisting it was translated into the local language, which in itself helped make that the official language of Germany, helped give people their own version of the bible to read rather then have to take the word of their religious leader about its true contents.

But he was also a rabid anti-semite and one of the ground layers for what would centuries later result in the holocaust and the countless violent outburst against Jews. He both gave people more freedom were to get their information from but also spewd his own vile hatred through this new means of obtaining info.

The internet is much the same, often if you read sources that do not follow the mainstream you also run into a lot of utter drivel from the outright insane to hate speech. Do you believe the mainstream media are full of it? Read the stuff on TOR... it makes Fox news look sane and balanced in comparison.

There have been a rather large number of cases in history where the official textbooks have rather dubious links to reality BUT the alternative isn't always much better. The official line of Japanese history books might be that Japan has not committed war crimes but the alternative versions do NOT automatically tell the truth instead. Just because someone doesn't tell the same lie doesn't mean they are telling the truth. Just because Iraq had no weapons of WMD doesn't mean the war was all about oil automatically.

Ideally, in our modern age when so much information is available we should each as individuals be able to select the information that is correct... rather then what we want to believe... and everyone will have a pony too.

Re:It is a double edged sword

[tripleevenfall]

Martin Luther (not King) was instrumental in getting the Bible out of the domain of the church where only the clergy who were trained in latin, the language of the bible in Germany at the time, he by insisting it was translated into the local language, which in itself helped make that the official language of Germany, helped give people their own version of the bible to read rather then have to take the word of their religious leader about its true contents.

But he was also a rabid anti-semite and one of the ground layers for what would centuries later result in the holocaust and the countless violent outburst against Jews.

Luther was also someone who'd had rigorous academic training and was well qualified to speak on the subject matter, being a member of the Augustinian order.

The matter of his anti-semitism is of course regrettable, and I think the counterpoint you'd usually see presented is that this emerged late in his life after most of his work was complete, and was not expressed intensely in his writing until late in life.

But the larger point with Luther would be that there are ugly aspects of everyone's personality but that doesn't necessarily disqualify them. Someone suffering from a methamphetamine addiction may well be the best auto mechanic in town.

If someone is educated and trained, well qualified in the subject matter, then it allows the layman to distinguish between people whose views should carry technical weight and those who are just bloating or self-promoting.

One thing I was thinking of when writing GP post was the Kindle books which are self published. These are almost universally of fecal quality. And there's some good self-published music out there, but by and large the amateurish production values subtract rather than add to the quality.

My point was only that the internet age, the age of the blogosphere, of twitter, etc., has left us communicating more than ever but with a seeming dearth of people who know what the heck they're talking about.

No kickbacks

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm also a university professor. Nobody tells me what textbook to assign, and nobody has ever offered me any kind of kickback.

But will SOPA/PIPA beat them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember the textbook industry are one the biggest users of abusive laws such as SOPA/PIPA/DMCA. Apple should grow a core and only allow public domain/ freely licenced textbooks such as Wikibooks on the store until the textbook industry apologizes for copyright abuse and forcing poor students to give theiir money to fat 1%ers.

My expereince

[Anonymous Coward]

Whelp, Santa brought an iPad for me a few weeks ago. As a 6th grade teacher, the possible classroom uses for the iPad may not be endless, but will at least keep me busy for a long time. While sniffing around for a way to wirelessly project my iPad's display through my MacBook and onto my projector, I found a couple "e-Book" applications that allow PDF's of textbooks to be read, zoomed in, have videos linked to them, look up definitions of unfamiliar words, and electronic notes scribbled onto them. I was able to get PDF's of my Teacher Editions onto my iPad and now no longer have to stay late to plan lessons and thus avoid taking the rather large volumes home (which is what I should be doing now) or to actually take them home to work on them. They're on my iPad, in one very portable format. It is incredibly convenient. Having such an easily accessible breadth of content related to the subject of study (a time-lapse video of a glacier's movement, for example) on-hand to illustrate or otherwise add richness to learning is incredibly appealing to me and to my students. After showing them the sample textbook chapter included in one reader app, they asked when they could expect that to be available to them. While not "just like" having the real physical book right there to make notes on, it's pretty close. Sure, it's not "the perfect" way to view the information, but it's a whole lot more "current" than the 5-year-old textbooks my kids have now. Plus, eliminating the printing, construction, shipping, warehousing, storing and recycling of textbooks can cut costs, which should (but most likely won't) be passed on to college students and school districts. And, the information on them e-editions, in theory, can be instantly (or nearly instantly) updated with current information or corrections. I don't care if it's Apple or some other maker, it's pretty cool to at least have this be coming.

Bookboon seems to be doing a good job

[Anonymous Coward]

Loads of textbooks (ad supported) available for free: http://ww.bookboon.com and written by Profs...

Re:hammered out distribution rights

[TaoPhoenix]

Odd that this article is specifically about "Textbooks". It should be about "books".

No one yet has really served up the Amazon Killer. But it's lurking. Without going all TinFoil Hat, it's Print On Demand.

Let's get it out in the open. Let's thrash it out. Ebooks kinda suk. They're stuck there on your device, and they're all digitally-slimy. You can't (easily!) draw notes and fold down pages and get pizza grease all over them. I'm not even going to get into Formats and DRM and Backups etc.

Sometimes you just want an Honest to Goodness Book. But we were so wowed with Amazon's selection we drank something REALLY worse than kool-aid. (Boilermaker? Skullgrinder? NecroAtomic ZombieMaker? Oh sorry, Kids, don't read that last sentence.) The crushing future is in Print On Demand.

There are a couple of legit tech hurdles - but big picture they're cake. (Glue quality, page shear, assembly speed, blah blah.) But I have in my hand, complete with generic non-SOPA-offensive blue and white covers, three paperbacks on religious theory that are at least 75% of "Professional Quality". The binding is still intact after about 2 years, the pages are the same size within X milimeters, the ink is solid, etc.

ANY book - in one hour. (I'm being generous counting for stuff like lines, staff, etc.) Screw that wait 3 days for ship junk.

But - what is this mysterious silence? The machines are "not that expensive" (topside $100,000, peanuts for a 70,000 SF retail outlet).

So mighty Slashdot, how have the Book people managed to TOTALLY elude entire chains like Borders? Was it REALLY that much fun to go bankrupt??? Was there NO-ONE among all 19,500 employees that bothered to try to get digital rights to POD? Not a single title? Not a single attempt at getting a machine in the store? Really???

Talk about an Elephant in the Room. I am annoyed because I cannot be smarter than 100 Borders Senior Managers.

Ease of book creation isn't the problem

[purplie]

By itself, allowing more people to create books quickly isn't going to make a difference

Lots of good books already get published that aren't used for education, because textbook selection isn't based on quality or price, it's based on politics, and on complex, draconian, ever-changing standards --- which are so difficult to keep up with that perhaps $150 isn't surprising.

Multiple textbooks

[jklovanc]

My issue with ereader textbooks is that many times I need multiple textbooks available at the same time. I like to be able to quickly scan between books and look at and compare books. I can not do that if I have to flip between books and the one I just looked at dissapeared. Sorry but I do not have enough cash for multiple ereaders. The time it takes to navigate between different books and the thought necissary to manipulate the e-reader is enough to loose my train of thought.

Re:Multiple textbooks

[Em Adespoton]

Ever used a digital bible reader? They're used for more than just the Christian bible -- they allow multiple "panes" open at the same time, and you can even mark anchor points between texts so that navigating one will automatically move the other one to the same chapter marker, etc. You can even hyperlink between different texts.

eReaders designed for skimming works of fiction shouldn't be used for studying texts. There are already better solutions out there.

Re:Multiple textbooks

[ceoyoyo]

Work on developing your concentration (you might also want to be a little more careful about your spelling). Lots of ebook apps have very nice mechanisms for switching between books. I've got a PDF reader on my iPad that uses tabs. MUCH easier than juggling multiple physical textbooks.

Re:Multiple textbooks

[jklovanc]

How much time does it take to set up all the links? Keeping a book open is much faster. Are these panes visible together or are they really more like browser tabs. If they are like tabs that mans that I need to switch from one text to another and can not see both at the same time. Even electronic bookmarks are slower. A sticky note in a book is much easier to find than some label in a list of bookmarks.

Re:Multiple textbooks

[Em Adespoton]

Setting up the links is a case of selecting the text in one pane, selecting link... and selecting it in the other, and linking them. The panes are visible together, and can be resized at-will, including sliding one quickly to full view and then to half-screen view. There are bookmarks and "earmarks" -- the second, you just need to touch the corner of the screen and the page is marked. The mark is referenced by page number and first line of text. Unmarking involves re-touching it. Faster than bending a real page or inserting a sticky note.

Re:Multiple textbooks

[jklovanc]

Faster for you maybe but this issue is that going through the process of creating links distracts the mind from the topic being studied. Therefore it takes time to get back to the real subject if one has to go through the multiple steps of linking. Alternately one could just leave the book open to the page of interest and open another book next to it; no linking, not distraction.

Re:Multiple textbooks

[Em Adespoton]

I fail to see your point. Leaving two books open is not the same as linking in a text... writing a page ref to somewhere in the other book in the margin is the same as linking. And it takes longer. Leaving two books open is the same as having two eBooks open in different display panes. And that's just as easy, and has the advantage of being portable without losing your places.

But that argument makes perfect sense

[SuperKendall]

I don't buy the claim in the Ars article that the big thing standing in the way of digital textbooks is that the tools for creating them are nonexistent, not good enough, or too hard to use. First off, textbook publishers have paid professionals who do this sort of thing.

But that's just the thing - the ONLY people who can afford proessional textbook editing are the major players. What happens when you can get decent textbooks from companies with far smaller resources? Suddenly you have a vast increase in the number of specialized textbooks, which leads inevitably to reduced costs and thus a reduced price for the student.

Apple sure talks a big game..

[RightSaidFred99]

Considering they're second..or third..or maybe fourth fiddle in the Ebook game.

Leave my textbooks alone!

[Lawrence_Bird]

Fuck you Apple and everything about you. You DONT know what everybody wants. Can you possibly believe that some people like print books? Textbooks in particular? Maybe someday you'll learn that DIGITAL != BETTER

Re:Leave my textbooks alone!

[RazorSharp]

I think that Khan Academy is a good indicator that digital education can work when implemented properly. Arithmetic, Algebra, and Calculus instruction shouldn't need to be updated every year. They come out with new editions with the same crap rearranged and reformatted slightly. Not to mention all that information is available for free on Wikipedia. Also, interactive exercises are exactly what those types of books are missing. Textbooks are a sham - they screw K-12 out of taxpayer money and they screw students out of money in higher education. They're just like the music industry - clinging onto a business model that was once necessary to get material out to the masses that is no longer needed given new forms of communication. Just because in the future textbooks won't be the standard educational item they are today (replaced by iPads) doesn't mean that you won't be able to find those types of resources in print. I'll give you a hint: try a library.

Teach a man to fish and he can fish - but if you videotape it and put it on YouTube, you can teach anyone in the world to fish.

Re:Leave my textbooks alone!

[Anonymous Coward]

Khan Academy is great, but they need to find someone with a better hand writing.

Re:Leave my textbooks alone!

[Ash-Fox]

Not to mention all that information is available for free on Wikipedia.

So, I tried to look up information on this Wikipedia thing, but all it does is give me philosophical tasks like:

Imagine a World
Without Free Knowledge

I don't think that will help anyone pass exams.

apple should push for open text books Wikipedia li

[Joe_Dragon]

Now some stuff a Wikipedia like Text is needed as the stuff get's updated / changed fast and the old dead tree does not fit that.

Anything and Nothing

[SuperKendall]

You can use any of those tools to produce educational material.

But just as a you can also record any music onto a cassette tape, with better tools you can get much better results.

As usual Apple is not inventing anything, they are just taking a number of tools you mention, then combining and refining them in such a way that they make editing and creating educational eBooks much simpler. Simpler combinations of media and text, integration with tests the user can perform to show comprehension, interactive examples - hard to say what all they are planning but it's not hard to imagine a very nice tool that could easily outdo everything you listed and be easier for the average person to use.

laptop with big screen / ext screen

[Joe_Dragon]

Let's you have lot's of books open at the same time.

Re:laptop with big screen / ext screen

[jklovanc]

Sorry but I have never seen a laptop with a screen big enough to display 8 8.5x11 pages at full size at the same time. That is equivalent to having 4 textbooks open on a table at the same time.

Re:laptop with big screen / ext screen

[Anonymous Coward]

You have "lot's" (it's lots) and the parent poster apparently can "loose" his train of thought. I think you both better hit the textbooks you fucking idiots.

RIP Print

[logofoxuk]

As a guy who works within traditional publishing and printing the future both saddens and scare me, I love the tactility of the printing page, alsolearning from a real book is much easier for me personally.

Great!

[melted]

If there's any industry that needs to be destroyed, it's the blood sucking textbook industry. Looking forward to $9.95 textbooks on the App Store.

To be fair, most authors would welcome this

[WillAffleckUW]

On a lot of the writers blogs that professional authors discuss things on, they talk a lot about how hard it is just to pub a Short Story or Novel for platforms like Droid, iPad and iPhone.

So, I believe they will actually welcome this, although the inbetweeners won't.

Re:hammered out distribution rights

[timeOday]

I dunno about on-demand printing. My first experience with e-books was buying one for my daughter for Christmas this year, and it has been a positive experience. It's a Nook. A bit under $100, battery life is very long, screen is easily readable - better than paper in that you can have large print if you like. She needed a book for her book club, I checked it out from the local library to her ebook, without leaving home, for free. It has a touchscreen, and you can highlight and take notes (which I haven't tried - I'll admit drawing/writing on it probably sucks, but the touchscreen makes one-finger typing somewhat bearable).

Meanwhile, we got a new phonebook dropped on our porch last night and my wife and I both said in unison, "what? What are we supposed to do with this big lump? Why waste all those trees?" Granted, reference materials are an especially weak application for paper books.

But e-books just aren't that bad anymore.

The right to read

[Anonymous Coward]

The right to read. Seems like possible outcome of fully digital textbooks if DRM is combined with Apples walled garden approach.

Re:hammered out distribution rights

[chispito]

Odd that this article is specifically about "Textbooks". It should be about "books".

No one yet has really served up the Amazon Killer. But it's lurking. Without going all TinFoil Hat, it's Print On Demand.

Sorry, the reason people want e- text books is for the size and weight savings. I would have killed to be able to carry around my entire semester's reading in one hand.

Follet in Crystal Lake

[WindBourne]

There used to be an educational book publisher in Crystal lake, Il. I have heard that they will move towards digital delivery. I am curious what they and other book publishers will do? Will they simply drop their presses, Sell them to China, or move the presses to compete in a different arena, while maintaining their educational delivery.

Will the pages have rounded corners?

[Anonymous Coward]

Others beware! Apple ebooks will have electronic pages with rounded corners and the page number will be at the bottom or the top of the page but not actually in the footer or header making it a new patentable idea. Other that use the footer or header for page information will be sued because it is close to the same place Apple has it.

ebook trend

[12x]

honestly, e books and Apple can both fuck off. e-books are awful to use compared to a real book.

Re:hammered out distribution rights

[trawg]

Let's get it out in the open. Let's thrash it out. Ebooks kinda suk. They're stuck there on your device, and they're all digitally-slimy. You can't (easily!) draw notes and fold down pages and get pizza grease all over them. I'm not even going to get into Formats and DRM and Backups etc.

This is not a problem for me. I just want to read a book. The rare occasion I want to make notes, my ebook reader lets me highlight and share, so I usually just share it off to my email address so I can do something with it later.

I switched to almost exclusive ebook reading several years ago. I bought an HP Ipaq as a test and found it was fine, although the interface was kludgy due to lack of good app support. Once I got an iPod Touch and Stanza, life improved.

Now I have Android and use FBReader and I just got a Kobo for Christmas.

On the rare occasion I read a real book, I am frustrated by its poor features. I have to hold them in two hands!? I have to use two hands to turn the page?! I can't read it in the dark?! Carrying more than one at a time while traveling weighs HOW MUCH?!

I will only go back to reading paper books when civilization collapses and I can no longer charge them from the wall socket, although given how much I use these things I'll try to buy a solar charger before that happens!

Filters and Garage band for words

[goombah99]

so does e-pub include DRM then? If it does not I don't see how this is the case. But perhaps it does. I don't know.

In any event, I'm curious about a statement made in the article:

"authoring standards-compliant e-books (despite some promises to the contrary) is not as simple as running a Word document of a manuscript through a filter. The current state of software tools continues to frustrate authors and publishers alike, with several authors telling Ars that they wish Apple or some other vendor would make a simple app that makes the process as easy as creating a song in GarageBand."

Why is it not as simple as running Word text through a filter? Word has headings and sections and footnotes and tables of contents. So what is missing?

Recent e textbook publication

[mercurywoodrose]

Nature has announced "principles of biology", [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_Biology]. I think this one area of publishing is a no brainer for ebooks. I like their model. Of course, this would put a lot of back doctors out of business.

As if.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

textbook publishing to be 'an $8 billion a year industry ripe for digital destruction'

No, it's not. Why? Because the professor writes a textbook, and sells it through Lulu. It is required reading for his mass lecture class, and costs $100. I forget Lulu's cut - say, 20%? There are 100 kids in the class. They all shell out for the textbook, and the underpaid professor makes $8000 that semester....

Apple can jump up and down all it wants - it doesn't get to set the syllabus or required reading list....

RS

OUGHT to be FREE textbooks

[swillden]

And by "free" I both free as in freedom and free as in beer.

90% of all of the material taught in K-12 and probably 50% of all of the material taught in an non-technology focused undergraduate degree hasn't changed in decades, and a non-trivial chunk of it hasn't changed in centuries. Granted that teaching methodology has improved some, but there's simply no logical reason why we as a society have allowed textbook publishers to bleed us for countless billions the way we have.

It's crazy at the university level and batshit insane at the level of public schools. The average US state spends close to $10M annually buying textbooks for public schools, at prices averaging around $50 per book. What they ought to do is take a chunk of that each year and commission the writing of a half-dozen open source textbooks. A little collaboration and planning between the states and in less than five years the entire K-12 curriculum could be reproduced in a freely available form. Want to put it on tablets and computers? Fine. Or contract a publisher to print paper copies for the cost of materials and labor. Or, heck, when I was in high school almost 30 years ago, we could print and bind high-quality hardcover books in the school's graphic arts shop. It's gotta be even easier now.

The same could easily be done at the university level, especially for generals. I've seen a dozen different Calculus texts and you know what? They're all basically equivalent. Profs will tell you that this author or that author presents the material in a slightly better way, and they're not wrong, but there's also no evidence that it really makes much difference in how well the students learn the material.

For that matter, with open source textbooks, profs could adjust what they don't like themselves and share it with like-minded peers. Github for textbooks! Fork and modify and if others like your patches they can pull them.

There is a volunteer open textbooks movement, but with a little organized focus, attention and money it could easily become the standard way of packaging and distributing educational materials.

Re:hammered out distribution rights

[plurgid]

Size and weight are minor annoyances.
I'd have given my left nut for e-books of all my text books last time I was in college for two simple reasons:

A) CTRL-F
let me search it ... please

B) Juarez is not *just* the name of a town in Mexico.
and college kids be broke as hell, ya dig?

No thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital books are great, I use them frequently, but to have something that relies on a device to read it rather than just my hands and eyes is not something I want any part of. I will read my news on line, I may even read some of the classics on my kindle, but I will not pay anything, not a single cent, for a book I can't lend, resell or ruin with a hilighter and margin notes.

With regard to printed new editions being forced on to students at extortionate prices - are you people seriously of the belief that this practice will stop with digital editions? The way books are sold will not change, no matter the medium the book is delivered on.

Re:hammered out distribution rights

[dkf]

Size and weight are minor annoyances.

You wait until you've got to haul all that stuff around before you say that again...

Re:hammered out distribution rights

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought some Print-on-demand books; from HP. It took 3 days to print. The paper was low grade. The binding was spiral plastic. The ink was OK but the font was chunky and pixellated. But I suppose that is what $15 buys. The postage cost more than the books.

1984

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait until they start deleting ebooks or worse, changing the data to fit the new regime's talking points.

Not that hard....

[Anonymous Coward]

Bindings are so cheap now that getting the pages out (without wreaking the pages) is fairly trivial. The cover/binding is truthfully useless so if you wanted to make a copy I couldn't see this being a showstopper by any means.

Kickbacks

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think they mean kickbacks to those using the book, but rather to those writing and using the book.

Most profs I had would give the problem sets and tell you what chapters, sections, problems, etc for 2 or 3 of the last editions or books used in the course; but those profs that used their own books never did that (at least in the classes I took) and the only reason I can think for them to do that is because they want the sales, and those sales meant money in their pockets....

Texas

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Steve Jobs book it mentions the insanity that is the school book business. Since Texas, California, and New York dominate the sales the publishers have to make the books acceptable to the most conservative state - Texas. That means their school book committee has massive power over what is contained in the books. If Apple can break this stranglehold on information so that states and even localities can approve their own versions, then that is a huge win for everyone. And of course if Kansas wants to have their own creationist version of biology.. at least we know who can be hired for fast food restaurant workers.

Re:hammered out distribution rights

[TaoPhoenix]

Hi AC.

You illustrated my point perfectly. Instead of waiting 3 days with a spiral plastic bind, it should be printed right there while you wait. My aformentioned paperbacks complete with covers were about $8 each via Google Books.

Another Steve Jobs Moment

[Anonymous Coward]

The more and more I read about Jobs past his death, the more I am glad he is gone. Maybe Stallman was right after all.

Not in Texas

[ThatsNotPudding]

Unless Apple is willing to only sell high school textbooks that state Jebus rode dinosaurs to church (yes: Church, not temple), they won't be selling iBooks nor iPads there nor to most of the Southeast US 'public' schools.

really

[unity100]

They are suing because they believe

a top nasdaq-company full of bright minds, brilliant college graduates, pioneers and frontiers, BELIEVE that shiny rectangular corners can belong to someone.

get real. its pr speak.

Re:hammered out distribution rights

[sootman]

> Ebooks kinda suk.

There's a place for both print books and electronic books. When reading something (especially fiction) for the first time, yeah, I love a physical book. But when I'm out later and don't have it on me, or when I want to search for a word or phrase, I SOOOO wish for an electronic copy.

> They're stuck there on your device

They're all with me at all times, no matter where I am...

> and they're all digitally-slimy
 
... and they have great digital features like being quickly searchable, copy-and-paste-able,* etc.

Yeah, it's possible I'll be at home when the power is out, or out somewhere with a dead battery, but neither of those things has happened to me more than 3 times in the last 5 years. However, I can't even count how many times I've been out and about without a particular book and wished I had it. If you insist on making it an either-or (which it doesn't need to be), I'd choose electronic.

* ideally :-)

Another "necessary" evil, I suppose...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's face it, just about every the textbook publisher has their own "standard" - or at least idea of what an ebook should be... Let's not even get into all the standards available for electronic or online testing. It seems like lately, it takes a manufacturer of a popular device to promote one standard over the other in order to popularize it enough so that everyone else will conform.

Sure, it doesn't have to be Apple, but they seem to have a knack for doing these things. Besides, Apple will usually go with existing standards when they do this sort of thing (e.g. MP4 audio & video, HTML and CSS for rich media). Having seen a lot of the crap that textbook publishers are already trying to push on students and instructors alike, I for one welcome Apple's efforts and hope that other device manufacturers follow suit.

Since the book pimps can't get their act together, let the device manufacturers take on the challenge of telling them how to do it!

Not Even Remotely Likely In The Next 5000 Years

[Anonymous Coward]

So this is the "SUPERGROUP THINK"?

Glad I sold Apple stock years ago. I will not
shed a tear over any of the current "Saviors"
deaths, either by natural causes or by their
own hand or by those hands of many others.

1 gallon of kerocene can do a lot in the right
hands.

The White House needs to understand this
calculus.