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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Reinventing the textbook

I don't think this should have come as a surprise given the rumors surrounding the event, and the information from Steve Jobs' biography about one of his dreams being to revolutionize educational texts. Think of it as Apple's posthumous gift to Steve.

There will be more events and more announcements - the next being in February although rumor has it that is an iPad 3 event. I'll stay with apple's mobile products for the foreseeable future, but have already taken steps to move away from their Mac Pro lineup, as I believe any professional should, given the freedom in configuration the PC (and Linux) allows. (But dammit do I hate Windows.)
 
Yeah, great: Arizona schools can have their very own dunderheads and know-nothings edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare minus The Tempest.

Call me old fashioned, but textbooks which can quietly re-write themselves at the whim of the "thought police" sounds like something straight out of another "controversial" work of literature, 1984 ...
 
Erik, Andrew... You guys obviously haven't taken a look at school textbooks recently. They're already screwed up, censored, re-written, etc.. compared to what they were 10 ~ 20 years ago. Most school districts make it a point now to replace textbooks every couple years and who knows just what "revisions" are going to be made to "history" books or classic literature. The only thing the electronic solution provides here is that updates can be made more rapidly. What gets placed into most history texts these days tends to change based on political climate and pop culture.

At the university level, this is the tool we've all been waiting for. When I was in college, I would spend anywhere from $600 to $1500 per semester on my books. Many of them were technical / scientific and of little resale value to students who were only a semester or two behind me. Now students can just have an iPad (or capable computer -- OSX iBooks app is coming, hopefully Windows too) and spend no more than $15 per book. Of course it's not so great in contrast to how tuition costs are spiraling out of control, but that's a whole other discussion where we can point our fingers at bad credit, government subsidized loans, pensions, etc..
 
Jeff, you are 100% correct. Revisionist history and selective education has been going on for quite some time and will continue. But having just spent $500.00 today for a semester's worth of college textbooks for my daughter, I completely agree that it's time to do away with the textbook racket. Oh, and she won't be able to sell them back at the end of the semester because they will have come out with a "newer" version by then. Goodfellas have nothing on these hooligans.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Erik, Andrew... You guys obviously haven't taken a look at school textbooks recently. They're already screwed up, censored, re-written, etc.. compared to what they were 10 ~ 20 years ago. Most school districts make it a point now to replace textbooks every couple years and who knows just what "revisions" are going to be made to "history" books or classic literature. The only thing the electronic solution provides here is that updates can be made more rapidly. What gets placed into most history texts these days tends to change based on political climate and pop culture.

At the university level, this is the tool we've all been waiting for. When I was in college, I would spend anywhere from $600 to $1500 per semester on my books. Many of them were technical / scientific and of little resale value to students who were only a semester or two behind me. Now students can just have an iPad (or capable computer -- OSX iBooks app is coming, hopefully Windows too) and spend no more than $15 per book. Of course it's not so great in contrast to how tuition costs are spiraling out of control, but that's a whole other discussion where we can point our fingers at bad credit, government subsidized loans, pensions, etc..
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I know the speed at which history books are revised along with everything else. Its just nice to have some record of it written down somewhere that can't disappear with a keystroke.

But it really is the future and it could open up a lot more possibilities in the classroom.
 
Andrew Walker said:
I know the speed at which history books are revised along with everything else. Its just nice to have some record of it written down somewhere that can't disappear with a keystroke.

But it really is the future and it could open up a lot more possibilities in the classroom.
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True. And true.. No real way to fight this and I think the overall benefits will be worth it in the end. I'm totally with you on the re-writing of history though and that can now happen instantly and without anyone noticing. Hopefully what will end up happening is there will be an increased number of informational sources jumping into the e-textbook game and the market won't be restricted to the entrenched group of academic publishers that currently supply most of the school texts in our country. On the other hand, Wikipedia has already evolved under a similar premise and even with the ability for people to offer up alternative info and validate what is written there, it's not always complete or accurate.

I think the way I'm looking at it is this... It's going to be awesome for overall educational. Adding to that, the best aspect of it all is that anyone can make e-textbooks now and make them available to the masses. The worst aspect of it is that anyone can make -textbooks now and make them available to the masses.
 
Mark Phelan said:
Oh, and she won't be able to sell them back at the end of the semester because they will have come out with a "newer" version by then. Goodfellas have nothing on these hooligans.
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I don't know if it was because we were art students but all of my teachers bent over backwards on editions. They would issue page numbers for the last 3 editions and if there was extra information they would present it in class as an ammendment. "By the way on page 36 of the 5th edition they also have since added this paragraph '.....' but that won't be on the test, so that's just for your own information."
 
The textbook industry had better adapt quickly or we are about to see the death of yet another industry.

Once these textbooks go digital, we'll see the same problems we're seeing in the entertainment industry.

Get ready for piratebayTB.com


I have a feeling that things are about to get very messy.
 
One thing that's awesome here is that Apple has capped the price at $14.99. Other than spiral-bound course workbooks or crappy photocopied addendums, I never had a text that cheap in college.
 
Mark Collins said:
I'm gonna be that guy and ask how re-inventing the textbook means more educational projects shot on Red? Last time I checked, Red was not an Ipad....
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If you look at the promotional videos of the announcement, the 'text books' don't just come with 'text'. It also includes some media. The publishers might need a video catalog of african bird species or slow motion footage of some science experiments. And guess which camera shoots 5K and slow motions for a good price. I don't mean other cameras can't do it. I mean, you can pitch more 'educational' materials shoots to your client or can start finding one.
 
C.A.Alan said:
If you look at the promotional videos of the announcement, the 'text books' don't just come with 'text'. It also includes some media. The publishers might need a video catalog of african bird species or slow motion footage of some science experiments. And guess which camera shoots 5K and slow motions for a good price. I don't mean other cameras can't do it. I mean, you can pitch more 'educational' materials shoots to your client or can start finding one.
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Agreed. A whole new audiovisual content field can open up with this. The clever ones amongst us should already be preparing their pitch to the publishers! (I-m not one of them, though :)
 
I'm glad Apple is leading the charge on this issue. $15 is perfect. I can't imagine what the publishing industry is thinking now they can't charge $100 for a text book. Bandits. Maybe they will try.

This effort is sort of like RED charging ahead and changing the professional video camera industry.

I think we'll see more stuff out when PC laptops are equipped with Thunderbolt.
 
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