Apple launches three-pronged education assault As expected, Apple has announced a major foray into the education arena with the release of three new – and free – apps, one for reading interactive textbooks, another for creating said textbooks, and a third for accessing K-12, college, and university course materials in iTunes U. More than the apps themselves, what Apple has …
Yes, that's right. Almost everyone in the western world is now blind, as a result of watching TV and looking at computer monitors their lives. We all have to be led around by elderly people who grew up before TVs and monitors were invented. Thank god for seeing-eye pensioners, I say.
..you may want to check your facts...
http://www.youreyeguide.co.uk/eyehealth/health-computerdamage.html
Granted it's not a direct result of the display, but more to do with lighting, shiny screens, not changing your field of vision etc.
Also take a peek here.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/vdubreaks.htm
I also think it worthwhile investing in hearing-aid maker shares. All those kids with their iPods on on the tube, I can hear the "tune" (very loose description) as well as they can.
In a rather odd way I await the first litigation against Apple (and Sony, for the Walkman) for damage to hearing following prolonged use of headphones attached to a playback device. Or somesuch. One can only assume Microsoft would be safe, because nobody actually bought a zune. As far as I know.
Now, being old I need to pop over somewhere else to grumble about prices, lack of respect, and above all, can't they play a tune you can whistle?
Whilst they might not be sending people blind, the high contrast does reduce your eyes' ability to edge detect and increases the brain's processing requirements for grapheme-phoneme conversion. Our eyes evolved to be efficient in full colour under natural lighting so there's no good reason for us to be efficient on a bright backlit screen.
However, if the program allows you set the background to your own RGB settings, it could be an improvement on paper books. You can already do this with Windows but OSX doesn't have a single setting that affects all programs - there are a few 3rd party utilities that will put a tint across the screen.
Simply changing to white text on a black background would be a big improvement.
They hate students reselling their books to the next years students and have to keep creating new versions (mostly moving the pages around) to make using a used book harder. I remember one they tried shrink wrap licence to block resale. Now no one can resell their old books!
But they are just going to love giving Apple 30% off the top.
Charge the same as real books, block resell, and they don't actually have to mfr and distribute dead tree versions anymore. What's not to love - even giving Apple 30% they might still come out ahead?
The textbook market (in the sates at least) is a scam - always has been - and probably more so in primary/secondary schools than college (which, I agree, is pretty damn bad too).
My favorite was always the professors who mandated we use/buy their books to take their class : )
From my days as a student (very dim, I must admit), I remember the regular jamboree in the student union bookshop buying as many second-hand text books from my reading list as I could in order to save some money. I never felt the need to sell them again, but I know friends who did.
I can't see that happening with iBooks (even it it were legal!), so there may be a fault in the business model, although give students an incentive to break the DRM on the eBooks, and they probably will.
"My favorite was always the professors who mandated we use/buy their books to take their class"
That's a perfectly sensible practice. Writing a textbook is a lot of work, and while some authors get a fair bit of income from them, many don't. And most of those who do have to update the content frequently, so the hourly rate still isn't very good.
No professors get rich simply from requiring their own classes to buy their textbooks. Professors typically teach between a hundred and a thousand students a year (depending on subject area and type of institution), and royalties on textbooks are generally on the order of a dollar a volume. If you're getting rich from textbooks, it's because *other* professors have decided to require your book.
What teaching your own textbook does is provide your students with the material you feel is appropriate for your course. That's why you put it in your textbook in the first place. Why would you select a text that's a poorer match? (Assuming one is even available - in many cases, there's no published alternative.)
When I worked in a bookshop the standard, built into the cover price markup for the retailer was 40%. Or was it 45? Still, it is more than apple's 30% and the publisher doesn't have to pay to print, store and distribute the book either.
Also, with no physical books they no longer have to cover the costs of returns if they make a wrong guess as to how many copies to make at printing time.
Really, ebooks *should* be much cheaper to the consumer than they currently are, publishers are taking all the cost savings involved with e-publishing and passing very little back to the consumer.
Technically a markup of 40% would leave the publisher getting 1/1.4 * 100 percent of the cover price, which is about 71.5% — slightly better than Apple. By taking 30% of the sale price, Apple are effectively applying a markup of almost 43%.
Of course your other points are valid though, and the pricing looks reasonable. It sounds like they've divided the cost of a textbook that should last five years by five, on the assumption that each student will buy their own and not be able to resell it. Leaving weight considerations aside, I guess whether that's better for the consumer depends on what the resale price of US school textbooks tends to be.
Resale opportunities have improved for students because of the broader, more open market provided by the Internet. Many students successfully sell older editions online directly to other students. There's no financial risk to the seller (as there is to a bookstore buying back used textbooks), and the buyer often doesn't know, and doesn't particularly care, that they're getting an older edition. (Yes, professors often stipulate that students have the latest edition; and many students still get older ones, and muddle along.)
And many university bookstores in the US are now renting textbooks on a per-term (semester, quarter, or whatever) basis. Apparently that's a viable business model, or as viable as the whole sell-and-maybe-buy-back model.
I have to agree - as a cross between Keynote and Pages, it'd be great to slideshow the eBook I've created on my interactive whiteboard in front of the students, using my Macbook. They can follow on their iPads, whilst I demonstrate and check for comprehension, etc.
I understand Apple might be trying to encourage the use of iPads, but to expect a teacher to create a work, push it out to students and then have to eschew the use of the interactive whiteboard in favour of a handheld iPad connected to a data projector is, unfortunately, rather an obvious shortfall.
I'm a teacher, clearly - I can see lots of potential here, but there's a little bit of fail, too...
So, that's Apple entering the eBook market then. Not sure where they pulled the _text_book part from though. Perhaps to appear like they "created" a new thing instead of looking like they just joined a segment that has been around since the seventies. After all, they created the portable music player, they created the smartphone, they created the tablet PC, etc...
Apple's PR department is definitely very good.
The reason why they are textbooks rather than ebooks is that these are specifically books for learning in the classroom, which is what a textbook is.
Apple haven't invented the textbook what they've done is created a simple publication and distribution system for electronic interactive textbooks. I think the concept is great but the tie in to Apple hardware is very bad, bad for kids and schools that is, obviously very good for Apple.
So in other words if I want to sell an e-book, it's Apple only or avoid iBook author like the plague.
For the TL:DR crowd;
From the iBooks Author EULA
"IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a “Work”), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple."
With some extra stuff later in the EULA.
Some would argue that it is their software provided for free and so should be able to impose a restriction like this in order to get revenue to pay for the software.
However, change the word Apple for Microsoft and how many people would be up in arms? Suddenly all the fanboys would be shouting as loud as they could about the evil M$. Anti competitive vendor lock-in like this should be made illegal.
Should be noted that Amazon don't even attempt to put this kind of restriction on content produced for the Kindle and leave you free to port it to any format and use any sales channel you like.
I have text books that 20 years old and other books that are older than that. I have seen 60 year old books that were still pretty useful. Plenty of people seem content to ignore things like total cost of ownership, longevity and other issues.
The real problem with textbooks is not that they are heavy or expensive but that they are largely redundant. What demand there is is kept artificially high by the same sort of proprietary interests that Apple itself represents.
Paper does have its advantages. Some things will be the same 50 years ago as they are today, so the textbook remains pretty much the same. For example most physical constants won't change. The date of the battle of Hastings is unlikely to be moved to 1974.
Moreover, the dead tree text books won't suddenly not work any more because the e-reader has been updated and is no longer backwards compatible, or the DRM has knackered your ability to look at it because you've done something unusual. Oh, and at the end of your first year at Uni, can you sell your e-books to the next year to get some cash back to buy the second year books you need?
"Its [sic] a completely different world from having to lug the textbooks around with you; and the iPad tends to be more useful in general than an eReader."
I've never minded "lugging" textbooks around, and I'd much prefer a good ereader (e-Ink screen and physical keyboard, like the original Kindle) to a frickin' iPad. And yes, I've used the latter. When I want a computer, I have my laptop.
If Apple put an iPad into my hands, as Rik wrote in the article, I'd hand it right back to them. And I'd drop any class that required an Apple-only e-text. Life's too short for that sort of nonsense.
I've been saying for a number of years now that it's just going to be a matter of time before we shift away from traditional textbooks to some sort of eReader in education - it makes sense from the standpoint of being more easy to readily update curriculum, it would be a lot less for students to have to carry around, etc.
But in order for that to happen, the device must 1) be rugged - it's going to have to stand up to it getting dropped, spilled on and abused, 2) have great battery life, 3) be easy to update (if it's not a networked device) and 4) be inexpensive! And right now the iPad doesn't fulfill all those requirements - plus there is the issue (as has been pointed out) of it not being as easy to read as other devices. I'm certain the shift will happen, but as for right now for most educational institutions the iPad (in it's current incarnation anyway) is not that device.
"The iPad seems to hit at least 3"
You can drop it -nope
> battery life
More than one day use away from the mains -nope
Charges over USB 2.0 -nope
> easy to update
Could be discussed. Easy when you can log on your Apple account. Tied to some form of access to your hard-earned (updates won't be free -not that they necessarily should). Let's put this one on the "maybe" pile.
> be inexpensive
That one hardly needs adressing.
So that's 3 definite "No"s and one "maybe".
Please explain the train of thoughts that lead you to post that the iPad meets "at least 3", or be labelled a fanbuoy (oh, the infamy!).
Disclaimer for the thought-impaired: getting the facts right is not a dig at anyone's personnal cult. Sheesh, kids these day.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
