Apple announced last week they will begin selling interactive textbooks that can be viewed on an iPad, an announcement that could potentially revolutionize the publishing industry.
On Jan. 19, the tech giant released iBooks 2, an update to their iBook book shopping application for the iPad that prominently features a new textbook category. In three days 350,000 textbooks were downloaded.
The digital textbooks, designed for kindergarten through 12th grade students, are turning heads for their incredibly low prices: $15 or less. Apple has also signed on publishers Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as partners to release their academic books on the new iBooks2 app.
“Education is deep in Apple’s DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, in a press release. “Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn, using the device they already love.”
What separates iBooks from other e-readers like the Kindle and Nook is its interactive interface, allowing students to watch videos, listen to audio or interact with diagrams while reading a textbook.
“I think that’s where the good news with books is, is in the interactive mode versus the electronic text you can buy from a bookstore,” said Jon Pray, Marquette’s associate vice provost for educational technology. “The fun and the power is in this multimedia, multi-touch interactive landscape.”
Dr. Scott D’Urso, associate professor in the College of Communication, said he is considering writing a textbook for one of his classes using iBooks Author, a new feature of iBooks 2 that allows authors to produce and sell their own work through iBooks.
“Looking at the program over the last week, it’s very interesting. It’s simple to use. If you’ve used any of the other Apple products, it works almost the same,” he said.
However, helping all students gain access to a costly item like an iPad could be a major obstacle.
“If students had access to the iPad, yes, I would (use it in a class),” D’Urso said. “I would feel hesitant because (not having iPads) would create haves and have-nots in the class. Those that have access to the really good portion of the content and those that didn’t, I can’t say that I would do it right now.”
Despite concerns, the iBooks 2 app is showing signs of progress, with the big hope being that these kinds of textbooks become available on devices other than the iPad.
“It’s not something I think either (Marquette) or most universities are going to jump into right away,” D’Urso said. “We have to see kind of where the chips fall, find a solution that is beneficial to students, faculty and everybody’s pocketbooks. I think it’s the first step.”