iBooks 2 – education reinvented?
Apple has just announced not only a new version of its iBooks software, but also a new authoring tool design to make it easy to create media-rich textbooks for the iPad.
26 January 2012
Having pretty much won the battle for digital music, Apple's just turned its sights on a new market: publishing. Of course, Apple's not entirely new to publishing - its iBooks software comes loaded on every iPad and has since the machine first shipped.
While the iPad is a great all-round device, it's really failed to take away from Amazon's market-dominating e-reader, the rather wonderful (and considerably lower tech) Kindle. There's no doubting that people love the iPad, but for reading they generally prefer the Kindle.
Apple's strategy is to aim not at the whole publishing market, but at a specific - and very lucrative - sector: education textbooks.
Apple says its approach is three-pronged - new iBooks reader software for the iPad, which supports multimedia books; new iBooks Author software for the Mac, to allow the creation of new multimedia textbooks; and an improved iTunes U (U being for 'university') as a place to distribute learning content. (While Apple says it's a three-pronged approach, iTunes U seems lacking - so, to us, it looks more like two-and-a-bit prongs.)
Apple's move towards the education publishing market is a smart one. For starters, textbooks suffer from far less price pressure than fiction books, or even many non-fiction books. Next, purchasing is not an option - if you're at university, taking certain courses, then you simply have to have certain textbooks. Finally, there's currency of information - multimedia books ensure that content can be kept up-to-date.
There is a slightly nefarious side, too. University textbooks can fetch a decent price, second-hand - so, they stay in circulation for several years, limiting the revenue of education publishers. Not so with books bought through iBooks - they can't be resold or lent.
But there are some very significant upsides - the biggest of which is that the student only has to carry one item: the iPad. This provides him or her with note-taking capabilities and a full collection of reference materials, all in one device.
And, to be fair, the method of imparting information via an interactive multimedia book is far superior (all things being equal) to a paper book. It's definitely a way of learning that's more in tune with the twenty-first century.
In a test (OK, performed by Apple and one of its publishers), 20% more students scored 'proficient' when using an iPad on an algebra 1 course.
The biggest downside is that Apple's strategy is, well, Apple only. This is nothing new. But it's a frustrating barrier. Amazon's (admittedly less powerful) Kindle software reader is available for most major platforms, in addition to the Kindle device itself. While Amazon is still a closed shop, it's at least possible to choose your device.
Which brings us to the iBooks Author software. Yes, it's Mac only. Sigh. When you launch it, the first impression is that Apple has mashed together its presentation software (Keynote) with its writing software (Pages). This probably isn't that far from the truth - and it's not a bad thing. Keynote and Pages are adept tools.
iBooks Author is template-driven - with only a handful of templates from which to choose.
Choosing a template in
iBooks
Once you get into editing a document, things really do begin to open up. Yes, you can import and combine text and images - in a far more fluid way than you can with Word and PowerPoint. One thing which is particularly neat is that you're designing with the iPad in mind, so if you create horizontal content, it will automatically rotate when you rotate the iPad.
The iBooks editing window
So far, so good - but it's still just a book, albeit an aspect-sensing one. What makes iBooks Author particularly good is that you can also include other items such as text and charts, using simple tools which aren't dissimilar to those in Office. But there are some smarter options - you can import media, such as movies. You can create a gallery - a range of thumbnails which link to more detailed text and images. You can include 3D objects which can be manipulated in real time by the reader. You can also include simple quizzes, to test knowledge.
If you have HTML 5 and JavaScript skills, then you can - well, pretty much do what you want in terms of building interactions, because these can be dropped right onto the page.
iBooks Author very much has the feel of a 'version one' product - not exactly overwhelming, covering all of the bases without going too far - but actually very accomplished.
It will be interesting to see how - if at all - Amazon responds. Apple's been focused on the higher cost hardware and niche content, whereas Amazon's been working hard to keep the cost of its hardware down and its content broad.
Time will tell whether Apple's strategy is the right one. Clearly, the company wants to make money in the same way it did with the iPod and iTunes combination - and with 350,000 textbooks sold in the three days after it launched, it may well have a winner on its hands.
