After a brief period of expectant waiting, Apple unveiled its latest venture – iBooks 2, its attempt to make further inroads into the education industry by reinventing the textbook. With a partnership with the three biggest textbook publishing companies (McGraw Hill, Pearson, and Mifflin-Harcourt), and with Apple's other new tool, iBooks Author, which lets authors create their own interactive textbooks, the company is hoping to bring a new and more engaging spin to the way students think about their textbooks.
There is no denying that iBooks is an exciting new introduction to the world of textbooks on many levels. Interactive textbooks tend to support a higher level of engagement for students than traditional paper ones, and many students will likely heave a sigh of relief at not having to lug a backpack crammed with thick, heavy books back and forth to classes each day.
Despite how appealing the new idea seems, though – and the buzz around the internet since the announcement of iBooks 2 suggests many people agree with the allure of the idea – Apple's emphasis on textbooks for a high-school level raises the question of just how much of a chance these radical! innovative! exciting! new textbooks will really have to reach their target market.
The fact that these new apps will be provided exclusively for use on Apple hardware may be a strategy devised to sell more products. However, high schools (and middle- and grade- schools as well) are not widely known for having huge wads of cash to throw around at every exciting and innovative new product that comes their way. Apple is also known for its cooperation with the educational system. Sure, it would be great if it were possible for every student to have an iPad, and new textbooks to download onto them, but even at the prices these e-textbooks would come at ($14.99 or less, a significant reduction over printed textbook costs), the cost of buying new electronics and books for an entire school of students is capital that many schools simply don't have to expend.
With widespread adoption, these tools could change the face of the textbook industry and the educational system as we know it. Unfortunately for the trees, though, in the immediate future hard-copy textbooks may be a hard sell to replace quite so quickly.
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