Apple iBooks textbooks

[rocketpig]

HappySqurriel said:
I have seen the same (basic) idea being pushed by companies for the past decade with little/no success ... There are a lot of politics that have prevented the adoption of digital formats for textbooks.

In primary and secondary education there is the obvious battle of who pays for the device. There are some children who's family doesn't have the resources to buy a fancy tablet and you can't deny a child access to critical resources because they are not wealthy. The school system can not show favouritism by buying devices for some children and not others, they can not afford to buy new devices for every student on a regular basis, and they do not have the resources to maintain classrooms full of these tablets.

At the post secondary level there is a greater chance that digital textbooks will be adopted, but they will (likely) be less accessable to most students. It is unlikely that you will see a significant savings for buying digital textbooks with how book publishers have been operating with ebooks, you will be unable to buy or sell used textbooks, you will have to buy a (moderately) expensive device to use them, and it is unlikely that you will be able to transfer your books from one device to the other.

I'm glad Apple is trying but I'm not convinced that they will be successful where so many other companies failed; and if I was to bet on a company breaking into this market and changing everything it would be Amazon not Apple.

I view this as a gateway to eBooks. Apple will come in with pricey hardware and a very streamlined system for purchasing books. Now that it appears they'll be keeping the iPad 2 around at a lower price point (probably $350 or so would be my guess), it will allow more schools to purchase tablets for students (in all likelihood, it will start with colleges giving them to entering freshmen, just as many did with laptops ten years ago). It will have middling success at best, I believe.

But where the real change will happen is that Apple will prove it's a viable system. That will allow Amazon (I think you're right on that account) to create their own system for the Fire, a system that will probably be more alluring to book publishers. This will create competition, lower prices, and ultimately a more open system. As with many things, it will start with Apple but ultimately, their closed system (not that Amazon is any better, really) will prevent them from maintaining a dominant market share.