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Apple Nets 350K Textbook Downloads In 3 Days
redletterdave writes "On Jan. 19, Apple introduced iBooks 2, its digital solution to the physical textbook. In the first three days of release, users have downloaded more than 350,000 e-textbooks from the new platform, and more than 90,000 users have downloaded the authoring tool to make those e-textbooks, called iBooks Author. It makes sense that Apple's iBooks 2 platform is taking off in such a short period of time; there is very little merit to the physical textbook, and the education industry has been waiting for a viable solution like this for some time. Physical textbooks lack portability, durability, accessibility, consistent quality, interactivity and searchability, and they're not environmentally friendly."
...that you can resell a physical textbook, sometimes, and that cuts into textbook publisher profits.
The numbers have been released by a third party. Remember that before you take them for granted and/or bash Apple.
I for one can't imagine what "proprietary methods" are able to estimate download numbers from Apple's servers.
My systems analysis textbook set me back almost two hundred dollars brand new. My database management book was $120 used. My professor was the author of the latter; he had said he had asked his publisher about eBook editions, and they demurred, because their profits would be cut in half.
The textbook industry needed this swift kick in the nuts to break up the racket.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
forces you to sell only via the Apple Store. So, Apple will make 30% on every text book sold which is written in their new tool, and likey 30% on every new, yearly addition which changes a picture here or there and yet charges full price (what, you don't think this odious practice from physical books will make it into electronic textbooks?)
Talk about vendor lock-in.
And good luck trying to sell your book at the end of the year back to the Apple Store...
So how does this "iBooks 2" work on non-iOS devices? Android? Linux? MS-Windows?
I have nothing against digital books, but if they are going to be locked up on a single platform, this is not a good thing (especially for educational uses).
Great, too bad if you are poor, no more textbooks for you. No iPad no education. There is no merit in this kind of lock in.
They lack... portability? Ok, if you have to carry 5 of them around, I see your point. .... ok, you win.
Durability? Like, when I spill coffee on mine? Or, drop it? Or, draw mustaches on the people in it?
Accessibility?
Consistent quality? So, you're going to GUARANTEE consistent content quality in eBooks?
And, of course, the ebook argument wins on searchability. But let's face it, an Index/TOC is practically just as good. Unless you're searching for absolutely every occurrence of a specific word, a good index is just as good.
But, are we really going to argue that iPads are more environmentally friendly than text books? That would be an interesting discussion.
sig: sauer
"Physical textbooks lack portability, durability, accessibility, consistent quality, interactivity and searchability, and they're not environmentally friendly."
For me studying physics every day the e-textbook is still years away from being useful. I can agree with the portability argument but thats about it. I can, with a real, physical textbook have the following advantages over an iTextBook however:
- drop a textbook without breaking it, and even if I damage it I can still use it, not wait for my insurer to maybe replace it because the screen shattered
- flick open at the index and quickly find what I want, and flick back and forth between sticky marked pages, and generally navigate a real book a lot faster
- have several books open on my desk at once - rather a necessity for any scientist
- be sure that the textbook I have bought is decent, well edited, well peer reviewed and correct, because it came from an internationally renowned publisher not "#physicsgeek78695#", as Apple seem to want to make the e-textbook market the same as the Android App Store
- keep a real book if I decide to change my computer manufacturer, phone, name, credit card number etc.
- Be sure that my textbook, while murdering some tree somewhere and not being 100% green and hippy, did not cause several factory workers to jump to their deaths, add to the toll of heavy metal pollution in east asian watercourses, or pad the coffers of Apple in preference to the Authors who sweated over the book. Odds are Apple will take a bigger cut than conventional publishers, because brand power means they can.
Just my $0.02
Book: Grow tree. Create paper. Use for a hundred years or so. Paper rots. Repeat.
iGadget: Mine toxic heavy metals. Make gadget with slave labor that last for a few years. Burn electricity to use gadget. Throw gadget in landfill when done. Repeat.
I think I'll stick with real books, thanks.
I don't respond to AC's.
And what precedent in history have you seen that would make you believe this?
They will still be overpriced, locked into the walled garden and the secondary market will be eradicated. Thinking otherwise is just falling into the trap that has already been laid with other eBooks.
Win for publisher, fail for students. Apple is just a profit machine for content creators and evidently there are a lot of suckers who believe otherwise.
If they're anything like me, they downloaded the Author application, played with and saved a test "publication", then tossed the application into the shitcan with all the other applications that save only to proprietary venues/formats.
.pdf, or .txt (the latter without any graphics, of course). And it will not "publish" to anything but Apple's store for use on iPhones and iPads.
.PDF instead. Sure, it will get "illegally shared" some, but as far as I am concerned that is still better than this. And there are ways to help prevent that, too.
Author will save only to ".ibook" (a modified version of ".epub"), a crippled
I have no use for such lock-in, proprietary bullshit. I'll publish my work in a
I'm a bit of an apple fan boy and am all for promoting them but could you please do better than directly quoting verbatim their own promotional material in the summary?
example:
"...there is very little merit to the physical textbook, and the education industry has been waiting for a viable solution like this for some time. Physical textbooks lack portability, durability, accessibility, consistent quality, interactivity and searchability, and they're not environmentally friendly"
Seriously, go to apples website and watch their promo video (it actually is pretty cool) You will find that the summary was largely directly lifted. Are you trying to use these as your own words? They are not used in the story so...
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm
"there is very little merit to the physical textbook"
--Pierre de Fermat
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Irregardless isn't a word. Bonus points for using it while complaining about writing textbooks.
It doesn't matter if the University recommends them or not because prior to this announcement if I wanted to learn University Level Physics I had to spend $250 bucks on the textbook, now I can buy a comparable textbook from iBooks for $15.00 and receive information updates for the life of that edition.
Whether its a big deal in schools or not, though I really have a feeling this will be huge in the K-12 market, my desire to learn something isn't tied to expensive textbooks anymore. This is a good thing.
What I want to know is if I can resell the digital textbook once I'm done with it like with a paper-based textbook. It's one way to help offset the price of the next textbook I might buy, but knowing Apple probably not.
It's very attractive in theory, but when I look at the license agreement I'm not sure I can go with it (About iBooks Author->License Agreement). If I use these tools and charge a fee I *have* to distribute the book through Apple. I understand the rationale. Why should the tool be free if I can turn around and distribute it somewhere else? It's only fair for Apple to expect something in return.
On the other hand I'm picturing what would happen if I put a few months work into a text, it becomes popular/useful to others, and then someone asks if other arrangements can be made for distribution (e.g., maybe someone wants to make and sell a regular paper edition). I'm stuck if I ever charged money for it.
Granted, the restriction only exists if you charge a fee. If the text is free "you may distribute the Work by any available means". This part is awesome! Full kudos to Apple for that and for making the agreement relatively simple. But what if I wanted to charge, say, $5 a textbook to help cover costs of its development and maintenance? Nothing substantial, but covering things like hiring a student to do drafting of figures, preparing photos, editing, that sort of thing. This would be publishing on the cheap rather than completely free. Unfortunately once you cross into the "fee" realm at all, you've made a deal for sole distribution with Apple, and it isn't clear whether there is any alternative.
Thus, as much as I like it, I hesitate, because I'm not certain I want to distribute my work for free rather than very cheap compared to the usual textbook. Maybe this is Apple's way to encourage people to write free works. If so, then I applaud their approach. I'm just not sure it is the way I want to go. At least with licenses like the GPL I have the *option* to charge money without having further license complications.
You're probably all thinking I'm a stingy old !#$%!% now :-)
"But what happens when I want to go to school with my Galaxy Tab, and I'm told that I can't get my "digital textbooks" because they're not supported on my device?"
The rest of your students don their white robes point at you and emit a screetching sound that penetrates your soul. as you run down the hallway you hear chants from the other students of ...."join us, be one of us...join us...."
That is pretty much what happens.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Physical textbooks lack portability, durability, accessibility, consistent quality, interactivity and searchability, and they're not environmentally friendly.""
Portability: I could carry my entire year in my backpack.
Durability: Yea, that little piece of silicon you're holding is just as susceptible to fire, heat, water, OH AND CRASHING. Books aren't crashing. Books don't need an expensive proprietary OS to work, they truly 'just work.'
Accessibility/interactivity/searching: Most books meant for rapid searching/accessibility have both indexes and a table of contents - TWO SEARCH ENGINES! IMAGINE THAT!
Consistent Quality: Books don't need software updates, and aren't prone to getting hacked. Revisions do happen, but they're few and far between because of TRUE quality control.
Environmentally Friendly: They're more environmentally friendly (and trap lots more carbon) than your strip-mined piece of silicon, iridium, cadmium, etc. Takes less energy to manufacture, too!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I can throw a book across the room and it might damage the cover of a hardcover, but it will still work fine. I wouldn't want to try this with an ipad or a kindle. Under reasonable storage conditions, paper will remain readable after magnetic platters have gotten demagnetized and CDs have corroded.
College students eventually figure out that it is completely unnecessary to carry textbooks to class. It does, however, take time, so most go through the same progression: freshmen carry EVERYTHING and need to wear both straps of their backpack. Sophomores lighten the load and can use just one strap. Juniors carry a notebook. Seniors carry beer.
Define soaked. If we're talking about complete submersion for an extended time, obviously that will destroy a paper book. But if we're talking about spilling a drink on it, a book can easily survive that (maybe a couple pages get ruined at most) where as an electronic device can easily be wrecked.
And books have no problem surviving being carried around for years. I dunno what books you're using, but I have several textbooks that I purchased used, carried around, and still own to this day. They're a bit beat-up, and the binding to the cover has gotten rather loose, but they are still entirely usable. By contrast, the laptop that I got around the same time has long since passed away. In ten years, those textbooks will still be with me. I'd be amazed if my Kindle was still running by then.
"But what happens when I want to go to school with my Galaxy Tab, and I'm told that I can't get my "digital textbooks" because they're not supported on my device?"
The rest of your students don their white robes point at you and emit a screetching sound that penetrates your soul.
Like this?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon