Apple Launches iBooks 2 with Interactive Textbooks

Thursday January 19, 2012 8:14 am PST by Eric Slivka
At its education-focused media event today, Apple introduced iBooks 2, an updated version of the company's e-book software for iOS devices. The update comes as part of a push into interactive digital textbooks in partnership with a number of major publishers.


From the iBooks 2 description:
Introducing iBooks 2 — now with iBooks textbooks.

- Experience gorgeous Multi-Touch textbooks designed for iPad
- iBooks textbooks are filled with interactive features, diagrams, photos, and videos
- Tap to dive into images with interactive captions, rotate 3D objects, swipe through image galleries, watch videos in full screen, and more
- Use a finger as a highlighter when swiping over text in a textbook
- Take advantage of Study Cards to help you memorize important highlights, notes, and glossary terms
- Tap glossary terms to see definitions of key topics and concepts without leaving the page
Apple is partnering with McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on the textbook front, with the three companies currently responsible for 90% of textbook sales in the United States. McGraw-Hill and Pearson are rolling out a handful of introductory titles today, with more coming soon.

Apple's initial focus for its textbook effort is on high school textbooks, with books priced at $14.99 or less. Authors can continually update their content, and the students get to keep their copies indefinitely.

iBooks 2 is a free download from the App Store, available as an update to the existing iBooks app.

Apple also released iTunes 10.5.3 with support for syncing the new textbooks.
iTunes 10.5.3 allows you to sync interactive iBooks textbooks to your iPad. These Multi-Touch textbooks are available for purchase from the iTunes Store on your Mac or from the iBookstore included with iBooks 2 on your iPad.
iTunes 10.5.3 weighs in at 102.15 MB for Mac, 66.11 MB for 32-bit Windows, and 67.98 MB for 64-bit Windows.

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skellener
103 months ago
So...still no way to read iBooks material on a Mac huh?
Rating: 9 Votes
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iDemiurge
103 months ago
I'll voice it here again. No iBooks for Mac is very frustrating. Will have to take my readings elsewhere.
Rating: 9 Votes
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trainwrecka
103 months ago

This means the average textbook author makes $12,000 on sales. The problem is that to write the textbook, the author needs to work nearly 24-hours a day for at least 5 years. That is very little money for that much work.


24 hours a day for 5 years to produce one textbook and make $12K.

That sounds real believable.
Rating: 7 Votes
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ablashek
103 months ago

This is awesome! But it still doesn't change the price of high school text books. The books are bought by the students. So if the school plans on paying for them, it will have to buy a new set of books every semester for $14.99 per student. Typically high schools use books for 3 to 5 years and they cost about $100, but they can pass them from student to student. With this price point, the cost of the books for the schools will be $14.99 * 5 years * 1 to 2 semesters per student (depending on whether it is a 2 or 1 semester course). So really, it will cost schools $75 to $150 per 5 years, which is about what they pay now for a single text book.


Yes but your forget, the students get to keep their textbooks (not give it back), new kids get brand new books (not a book full of highlighted material, and doodles on the sides), plus the content is more interactive.

So if the cost is the same for schools, they can give their students more for the same price. Plus I think Apple must be setting up some volumen purchasing scheme, where Schools can get a decent discount for buying say 50+ books.
Rating: 7 Votes
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Sakic10
103 months ago

Textbooks are not overpriced.

Have you actually tried to write a textbook?
Do you know how much work it takes to write a textbook?
Do you know how much of your own money it takes to write a textbook?

Answer: a lot.

A single author usually has to work nearly 24 hours a day for 5 years to write a single textbook on a single topic of a subject.

Since the total sales of a textbook are usually less than 1500 copies, it is a huge investment to write a textbook.


oh thats funny how exactly is a new edition released every 2-3 years then?

I suppose they're writing brand new textbooks are they? Pretty sure they're just trying to get as much money out of students as they can so they don't but used ones.

But yeah, I'm sure writing 1 textbook takes a long time, revising and rereleasing it to screw students over though, does not.
Rating: 6 Votes
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trainwrecka
103 months ago

This is awesome! But it still doesn't change the price of high school text books. The books are bought by the students. So if the school plans on paying for them, it will have to buy a new set of books every semester for $14.99 per student. Typically high schools use books for 3 to 5 years and they cost about $100, but they can pass them from student to student. With this price point, the cost of the books for the schools will be $14.99 * 5 years * 1 to 2 semesters per student (depending on whether it is a 2 or 1 semester course). So really, it will cost schools $75 to $150 per 5 years, which is about what they pay now for a single text book.


If your theory holds up, at the very least the 5 year old textbook has up-to-date information if it were an iPad version.

Students purchasing a textbook at $15 is a lot better than what I paid for textbooks. Schools would also have a different buying plan I'm sure, since students don't get to keep the iPad.
Rating: 4 Votes
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milo
103 months ago
Definitely some benefit and some wow factor to this new stuff. But I'm skeptical about the viability of any ebook format that can't be read on mac or PC. Until that happens I'm unlikely to buy anything from iBooks.

Not to be annoying or anything, bt why are you calling it iBooks 2? it's really just iBooks version 2.0...


Go look at the page on the App store. Apple calls it both "iBooks" with "version 2.0" elsewhere, and "iBooks 2".

They're just repeating exactly what Apple is calling it.
Rating: 4 Votes
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ironsienna
103 months ago
A new era in education!
Rating: 4 Votes
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madmaxmedia
103 months ago

Isn't that just a complicated way of saying the classroom is failing at keeping the kids' interest?

Unlikely much meaningful learning is going to happen in such an environment, so why bother with all the trauma, let him play Angry Birds as it really makes no meaningful difference anyway.


You're not being realistic at all about school classrooms, especially in the context of increasing class sizes and decreasing budgets. And the kids who fall behind and are most ambivalent, are often the ones that need the most attention by teachers- unless you are suggesting that we give up on them completely by 2nd or 3rd grade.
Rating: 3 Votes
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myrtlebee
103 months ago

As a teacher you should probably be up off your butt walking around and actually monitoring the kids. So issue solved.


Oh, how ingenious! I hadn't thought of that. /sarcasm.

... As opposed to actually teaching my lessons, concentrating on my models and lecture, and attending to what I need to do in the front of the classroom. How the hell could I patrol what each kid is doing on his or her iPad without app-locking? This would require me to teach from the back of the classroom without the kids being able to look at me and ask questions. You don't even know what I teach. Not every subject can be taught with the teacher walking up and down aisles the entire time. We have 12 aisles in my largest classroom and by the time I got around to moseying around to aisle 12, the kids in aisle 2 would be to level 10 in Angry Birds.

The person who suggested earlier that teachers be able to lock iPads to the textbook app during class is right on.
Rating: 3 Votes

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