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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."
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.