Ten One Design, makers of the Pogo Stylus, have released a magnetic stand for the iPad 2 that is nearly invisible when in use, by repurposing the magnets designed for use with Apple's Smart Cover.
Magnus is first machine-crafted from pure aluminum and then hand-finished using the latest manufacturing techniques. After that, customized magnets are installed into the base, and rubberized feet are fitted to the bottom surface.
Our designers targeted a reduced silhouette. Viewed from the side, you see only the iPad's tilt, and a flat plate on the desk. From there, the engineering took over.
Magnus may look like it's defying gravity, but it feels like a permanent attachment. You may need two hands to separate Magnus from your iPad.
The Magnus stand is $49.95, available from Ten One's website. It begins shipping later this month.
AllThingsD share some thoughts from McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw, who during a Q&A session following yesterday's iBooks Textbooks media event described how the development was part of Steve Jobs' vision for what textbooks should be like.
Sitting and listening to all of this, I wish Steve Jobs was here. I was with him in June this past year, and we were talking about some of the benchmarks, and some of the things that we were trying to do together. He should be here. He probably is [gesturing up and around]. This was his vision, this was his idea, and it all had to do with the iPad.
Jobs' interest in textbooks is of course now well-known, with Jobs himself being quoted in Walter Isaacson's authorized biography as wanting to revolutionize the textbook industry and as having had conversations with publishers such as Pearson about the possibilities.
Part of Peters' 2008 iContest presentation on digital textbooks
One other interesting tidbit on the history of digital textbooks at Apple was shared yesterday by a former Apple intern. As related to The Wirecutter, former intern Joseph Peters proposed the idea of digital textbooks back in 2008 as part of an "iContest" in which Apple interns gathered to pitch ideas to mid-level executives for feedback. The textbook ideas suggested by Peters and his group were well-received by Apple's judges, with the team being awarded a free MacBook Air and a meeting with higher-level management to discuss the ideas.
Anyway, we presented and answered the Q&A pretty flawlessly. I mean they said they really liked it and every other presentation received mostly sarcastic remarks.
I remember answering a handful of questions and getting the impression that the exec's were totally on board. It was a pretty awesome feeling. [...]
At the end, they announced that we won, they gave us all a MacBook Air and it was great (for interns anyway). I was more excited about the opportunity to talk to more people about the idea. They scheduled a meeting with John Couch, head of Education a few days later. We met John and a few the people on his team in a small board room and we just gave the same pitch as before.
Peters does not suggest that his group's idea was the genesis of Apple's textbook plans, but it does provide interesting insight into a bit of the intern experience at Apple and reveals that Apple was indeed interested in the textbook idea as far back as 2008, more than a year before the debut of the iPad.
Samsung is continuing its string of Galaxy S II television ads directly targeting the iPhone with a new commercial highlighting the iPhone's lack of built-in turn-by-turn directions. The ad contrasts that with the Galaxy S II (and other Android devices), where the functionality comes standard through Google's mapping services.
The new commercial uses the familiar scenario of devoted Apple fans waiting in line for the launch of a new iPhone that looks just like the previous model, only to encounter a passerby carrying a Galaxy S II.
In the commercial, Samsung coins a new usage for the company's name, turning it into a verb to describe how the company has surpassed Apple's iPhone in features and functionality. In the words of one of the Apple fans depicted in the commercial upon learning about the Galaxy S II's turn-by-turn directions, "We just got Samsunged."
Noted iOS jailbreak author pod2g has teamed up with the Chronic Dev Team to release "Absinthe A5", an enhancement to the popular Greenpois0n jailbreaking tool which adds the ability to perform an untethered jailbreak of the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 for the first time.
A related effort from the iPhone Dev Team will include a command-line tool for more control over the jailbreaking process and to assist with diagnosis and repair. Absinthe is currently available only for Mac OS X, although versions for Windows and Linux are set to follow shortly.
Jailbreaking is the process by which users can open up their iOS device systems to load third-party software and hacks not authorized by Apple. Procedures for jailbreaking iOS devices are typically divided into two categories: "tethered" tools that required the device to be connected to a computer each time it is booted, and "untethered" tools that allow the device to be booted independently.
Untethered jailbreaks are obviously the more highly desired of the two forms, and Absinthe represents the first of these untethered jailbreaking tools for iOS devices such as the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 that run Apple's A5 system-on-a-chip.
Device and iOS version combinations that can be jailbroken using Absinthe include the iPhone 4S running iOS 5.0 (9A334) and 5.0.1 (9A405 and 9A406) and all models of the iPad 2 running iOS 5.0.1 (9A405).
Apple warns that jailbreaking can void a device's warranty, and users should be aware of the potential implications of jailbreaking their devices, but most issues can be resolved using common jailbreak tools and devices can be reverted to their non-jailbroken states if necessary.
Update: The Greenpois0n site is currently seeing intermittent availability issues undoubtedly related to high traffic coming from the new release.
With Apple announcing its iBooks Textbooks initiative yesterday, the company has been pushing its view that the iPad can help revolutionize education by keeping students engaged with unprecedented levels of interactivity.
In an attempt to assess the effect of iPad textbooks on student performance, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) performed a year-long pilot program using an iPad version of the company's Algebra 1 textbook for middle school students. The study, conducted at Amelia Earhart Middle School in Riverside, California, saw 78% students taking the course using the iPad textbook rank as "Proficient" or "Advanced" in the subject, compared to only 58% of students using the traditional print textbook.
The first assessment of the pilot— Riverside's district Algebra benchmark –took place during the second trimester of the 2010–2011 year. Students using HMH Fuse scored an average of 10 percentage points higher than their peers. The app's impact was even more pronounced after the California Standards Test in spring 2011, on which HMH Fuse students scored approximately 20 percent higher than their textbook-using peers.
Educators noted increased motivation on the part of students using the iPad app, as well as the personal level of interactivity, as factors contributing to student success. Students also found the iPad experience more natural and put them more in charge of their own learning, factors that increased student interest and engagement.
One important consideration is that the iPad textbook offered by HMH was not an official iBooks Textbook as introduced by Apple yesterday. The publisher's Fuse program has offered iPad versions of its Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and Geometry textbooks as apps in the App Store since last year. The apps are currently offered as free sample downloads with the full textbooks available via in-app purchase at $59.99 each, considerably higher than Apple's maximum price of $14.99 for titles in the iBooks Textbooks program.
HMH was the only one of Apple's three main partner publishers to not release any iBooks Textbooks at yesterday's event, with Pearson and McGraw-Hill each releasing a small handful of titles to kick off the program. It seems that HMH may now be working to transition its Fuse program to iBooks Textbooks, accounting for the later launch of its titles.
Last week, we noted that several carriers in Singapore were working to offer camera-less iPhone 4S models for users whose professions prevented them from carrying camera-equipped mobile phones. With Singapore requiring all male citizens and many permanent residents to serve up to two years in the military, there is a significant market for camera-less phones in the country.
CNET Asia now reports that Singapore carrier M1 has officially gone live with its camera-less iPhone 4 and 4S models on its website. As previously reported, the devices are standard iPhone 4 and 4S models which have seen both front and rear cameras removed by the carrier. The camera-free versions carry a S$49 premium over their standard counterparts, covering the camera removal process. The camera removal process also voids Apple's warranty on the device, and M1 is offering users the ability to purchase a separate one-year warranty through a third-party vendor.
Indian business newspaper Mintreports (via iPhone Hacks) that Apple may be preparing to open retail stores in India, dramatically increasing the company's presence in the country.
Apple Inc. may open its own shops following the Indian government allowing full ownership of single-brand retail stores by foreign companies, according to a senior official of the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP).
The maker of the iPad and iPhone has been in discussion with the department for some time and is keen to re-enter Indian market after an earlier bid to do so in 2006, said the official on condition of anonymity.
According to the report, Apple's interest comes as Indian regulators have eliminated ownership requirements that had previously required single-brand retail outlets such as Apple Stores to have at least 49% domestic investment.
One potential hurdle does remain, as ventures with high levels of foreign investment such as what Apple would offer will be required to source 30% of their product value from small businesses in India. But regulators appear willing to address that requirement as well depending on Apple's official analysis of the viability of a retail effort in India.
When asked whether the 30% local sourcing clause will be a hindrance, the DIPP official said, “Let Apple finalize its business plan and the investment it wants to make. If they tell us that the 30% sourcing is a problem, at that stage we will look into it,” he said.
Earlier today we published a story about iBook Author's exclusivity clause which generated some confusion. To clarify, Apple is not claiming exclusive sales rights to the content of published textbooks but to the specific output format (iBooks) generated by their iBooks Author tool.
Today, Apple released an easy to use tool called iBooks Author which allows anyone (publishers and users) to create interactive iBooks with text, video, images and more. As Apple mentioned during their media event, the availability of such a robust tool to make electronic books has been lacking. iBook Author can export projects in a number of different formats, including iBook format, PDF and text.
The iBooks (version 2) format is an improved format created by Apple based on ePub 3, but with additions and changes specific to Apple. These additions are believed to add new functionality and interactivity to the format as shown during today's media event.
At present, this iBook format will only work with Apple's iOS devices, and will not work on other devices. Even so, Apple has restricted sales of any iBook formatted documents coming from iBooks Author to the App Store. VenomousPorridge comes out against these terms suggesting that trying to control the output format is overreaching and falls apart in certain cases:
Or how about this: for a moment I’ll stipulate that Apple’s EULA is valid and I’ve agreed to it implicitly by using the software. Now suppose I create an iBook and give it to someone else who has never downloaded iBooks Author and is not party to the EULA, and that person sells it on their own website. What happens now?
As John Gruber points out, beyond the 30% App Store cut, Apple may simply not want to feed content to competing bookstores such as Amazon or Google.
Second, it’s about not wanting iBooks Author to serve as an authoring tool for competing bookstores like Amazon’s or Google’s. The output of iBooks Author is, as far as I can tell, HTML5 — pretty much ePub 3 with whatever nonstandard liberties Apple saw fit to take in order to achieve the results they wanted.
As we've mentioned, as a new format, the iBook format isn't even compatible with any other devices, but it's easy to imagine that compatibility could be implemented by Google or Amazon if the format takes off. Apple achieved a similar lock-in advantage with their own App Store apps, though those apps can't run on competitors' devices due to technical issue rather than licensing ones.
As for the likelihood of publisher adoption, AllThingsD points out why publishers are willing to start selling textbooks at the $15 price point when their paper counterparts go for much higher. According to the McGraw-Hill CEO, the company expects to make up the sales on volume. At least in the high school market, McGraw-Hill tends to sell $75 texts to schools which keeps those books for an average of 5 years. At $15 and sold directly to students, the company anticipates recurring annual revenue from each year's students.
Not everyone seems convinced, however, and Apple's proprietary format is raised as a possible issue. Macworld spoke with an executive at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt who claims that they need to be device-agnostic in order to support a broad number of devices.
Harrods boasts more than 1 million square feet of selling space across 330 departments -- plenty of room for an Apple Store of sorts. The store-in-store concept will feature wooden tables and signage but won't have the signature feature of any standalone Apple Store: the Genius bar.
9to5Mac claims the store will be smaller than the typical standalone Apple Store, but will be larger than the standard store-within-a-store at Best Buy or the new pilot program at Target stores in the US.
The richly detailed interior of Harrods
Harrods is perhaps the best-known department store in the world and is visited by more than 300,000 customers on its busiest days. The store is owned by Qatar Holdings, the nation of Qatar's sovereign wealth fund; it was sold by Mohamad Al-Fayed for £1.5 billion in 2010.
Following today's media event that saw the introduction of iBooks 2 with new iPad digital textbooks alongside expanded iTunes U functionality, Apple has now posted video of the event to its site. The video is also available as a podcast video download in HD and standard formats. Among today's announcements:
TechCrunch summarizes notes from today's media event. Of interest, they seem to reveal that Apple's interactive textbook format is not quite the official ePub 3 spec:
Books are not technically in the EPUB format, but they borrow from it (likely EPUB 3). Certain interactive elements of the books require the files to be done in the slightly different iBooks format, Apple says.
Earlier rumors had suggested that Apple will adopt ePub 3 for their new iBooks, but according to this note, it's slightly different. It's not clear what this means and if the changes are meant to eventually fold back into the ePub standard or not.
Apple's iBooks Author application creates content in this new format and projects made from that application can only be sold through the iTunes Store. At this point, however, it seems no other vendors yet support the format.
Engadget highlights the economics of publishing iBooks Textbooks to the iBookstore, noting that paid downloads follow Apple's traditional App Store and iBookstore model where the company takes a 30% cut of the purchase price of each book. Authors are free to set their own pricing, although Apple has placed a maximum price tag of $14.99 on the textbooks.
In addition, the report notes that Apple requires all iBooks Textbooks to be exclusive to the iBookstore. An iBooks Author FAQ notes that authors may distribute their books free of charge through their own websites, but that book sales must go through the iBookstore. iBooks Textbooks also may not be offered under any subscription-based access programs.
Well, it turns out that Cupertino is giving authors the ability to set their own prices as long as they remain $14.99 or under. In exchange, Apple takes a 30 percent cut, and requires authors take an oath of fealty to Tim Cook -- ok, not really, but any e-textbook author that wants access to the iPad-toting masses must make his or her work an exclusive to iBooks 2.
Authors can use Apple's free new iBooks Author app for Mac to create their iBooks Textbooks for distribution through the iBookstore.
Update: There seem to be some questions about the sourcing and completeness of Engadget's claims. Apple states in its iBooks Author license that all works created through the software to be offered for sale can only be sold through Apple. But it appears that authors may be able to use other tools to offer those same titles on other platforms on marketplaces as long as they do not use iBooks Author to create the files. As TechCrunch notes, the output of iBooks Author is based on ePub but not technically in the ePub format, so those files likely would not be compatible with platforms other than iBooks anyway.
Books are not technically in the EPUB format, but they borrow from it (likely EPUB 3). Certain interactive elements of the books require the files to be done in the slightly different iBooks format, Apple says.
In light of the uncertainty about the situation, we have moved this post to the iOS Blog.
For regular authors, Apple limits the file size of books created with the iBooks Author app to 2GB -- something that Pearson's tome easily exceeds. Unsurprisingly, major publishers get to bypass limits that the average author must abide.
Interacting with the books is a generally intuitive combination of tapping, swiping and pinching. You can pinch from any page to get out to the heading of that chapter, then drag along a bar on the bottom to quickly go from one chapter to the next. When you're looking at any page, you can get a closer view of any of the media there by simply pinching it. Tiny picture of an ant? Give it a nudge and it's full-screen. You can then swipe through galleries, play movies and interact with various other widgets that authors can drop in place.
As always with an Apple product announcement, the company has produced a promotional video complete with interviews of Apple executives and regular customers using their products. The video for the digital textbook includes teachers talking about how textbooks are out of date as soon as they are printed and how digital-savvy students expect more out of their learning materials.
Apple has also posted a gallery of the various elements that can be built-into interactive iBooks with the iBooks Author app, including HTML Modules, Keynote Presentations, 3D Images, and more.
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. Books are available via the iBooks app, available as a free download from the App Store. [Direct Link]
In the second half of Apple's education-focused media event today, the company turned its attention to iTunes U, the company's free educational podcast section in the iTunes Store. Eddy Cue took the stage to announce that over 1,000 universities are currently using iTunes U, with the program's content having seen over 700 million downloads to date.
The new iTunes U app advances iTunes U from audio and video lectures to a full-fledged learning app, allowing non-traditional students access to huge amounts of free content but more importantly for Apple, allowing schools to adopt iTunes U as a learning platform.
The all-new iTunes U app lets teachers create and manage courses including essential components such as lectures, assignments, books, quizzes and syllabuses and offer them to millions of iOS users around the world.
Courses are created via the iTunes U Course Manager, a web-based tool that allows teachers to build a course that includes a syllabus, handouts, quizzes, and other items. Course materials are hosted by Apple and available to anyone taking the course -- by default, courses are open and available to anyone, though it appears schools can restrict their courses to only their students.
For users, iTunes U for iOS has more than 100 courses already optimized for iOS, with more on the way. A quick perusal of the app shows classes from Yale, Duke, MIT, and Stanford -- including Paul Hegarty's well-regarded iPad and iPhone App Development course [Direct Link].
iTunes U lets you take a complete course on your iPad. View the course overview, instructor biography, and course outline. Read posts and keep track of your completed assignments. Watch videos directly within the app, read books, and view all your course notes in one place. Receive push notifications alerting you to new posts from the instructor. And iCloud keeps your notes, highlights, and bookmarks up to date on all your devices.
iTunes U is a free download for iPad and iPhone on the App Store [Direct Link].
- 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.
Today, during their education press event, Apple announced the availability of the iBooks Author App that allows users to create interactive iBooks on their Mac.
Now anyone can create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad. All you need is an idea and a Mac. Start with one of the Apple-designed templates that feature a wide variety of page layouts. Add your own text and images with drag-and-drop ease. Use Multi-Touch widgets to include interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote presentations, 3D objects, and more. Preview your book on your iPad at any time. Then submit your finished work to the iBookstore with a few simple steps. And before you know it, you’re a published author.
The App allows you to start with a number of templates and then customize your book with images, videos, multi-touch widgets and even Keynote presentations. You can then preview your book on your iPad and then submit it to the iBookstore for sale or free download.
iBooks Author is available for free in the Mac App Store. [App Store]
Apple today is holding its education-focused media event where it is widely expected to introduce a new push into digital textbooks. The event is scheduled to kick off at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City at 10:00 AM Eastern / 7:00 Pacific.
Apple will not be providing live video coverage of the event to the public, but a number of news sites will be on hand to provide text and photo updates, and we're including links to several of them here. We will also be updating this article with coverage as the media event unfolds and news stories regarding the event announcements will go out through our @MacRumors account.
In one last-minute rumor, Jason O'Grady claims on Twitter and at ZDNet that Apple could launch Pages '12 with enhanced ePub support (perhaps alongside a full iWork '12 update), iBooks 2.0 with support for Mac, and textbook rentals.
Event Updates
- Phil Schiller on stage. "Good morning everyone. I'm pleased to welcome you here in New York. This is really special for everyone at Apple. It's about education." - Setting the background of Apple's interest in education, challenges facing students, etc. Intro video of educators talking about issues with class sizes, poor facilities, low levels of student engagement, insufficient technology and textbooks. - Schiller: One place we think we can help is student engagement. - No surprise that students like to learn on iPad. #1 on teens' holiday wish lists this year. - Already 20,000 education apps for iPad, and the iBookstore is packed with books. There already over 1.5 million iPads being used in education, but we want to make things even easier for them. - First of two things: Reinventing textbooks - Textbooks aren't always ideal: cumbersome, not terribly portable, not durable, not interactive, not searchable, but the content is great. Companies work hard to update, but hard to get the content out to people fast enough. - iPad can help overcome many of those deficiencies, and that's why we're here today.
- iBooks 2 - These books are amazing, so here is a demo of iBooks 2. Roger Rosner to assist. - Demoing biology textbook. Dramatic intro movie, multitouch gestures to move through book, 3D models of insides of cells. - Much more interesting than static sheets of paper. But we need to get it into kids' hands. - Authors have complete freedom in text and graphics layout. Auto-rotate between portrait and landscape, and we re-layout the content Portrait offers a more traditional text format. - Pinch to get to table of contents. Easy glossary access and linked index entries. - Review questions become visual and interactive, and offer immediate feedback. - Integrated highlighting and notetaking. Automatically turn notes and highlights into study cards. Glossary terms too...can even shuffle the cards. - How do I get these? New textbook category in the iBookstore. Free samples and one-click purchase. - Schiller back on stage. - iBooks 2 available from the App Store for free today. - So how do you create these books?
- iBooks Author - Mac application for authoring interactive books. Rosner demoing the book creation process. - Template chooser sets the stage, and build from there. Drag and drop layout controls. - Toolbar controls with gallery of available interactive elements. Everything auto-formats into the layout. - For more custom interaction, drag and drop an entire Keynote presentation right into the layout. - If you can write code in Javascript and HTML5, you can build your own widgets for embedding in books. - Demoing easy glossary-building tools. - "If you've ever been involved in an e-book creation before, you know this is a total miracle." - Preview function to push the book to an iPad for testing. - Schiller back on stage. - "So that's iBooks Author. It is the most advanced, most powerful and yet most fun interactive authoring tool yet created." - iBooks Author available free on the Mac App Store today. - So how do we get the textbooks? New category in iBookstore. - We wanted to get started with partners early, so we're starting with high school textbooks priced at $14.99 or less. - Books can be kept up to date, and students get to keep their own copies. - Partnered with Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt...these three companies account for 90% of the textbooks sold in the U.S. - First books launching today: Biology, Environmental Science from Pearson; Algebra 1, Biology, Chemistry, Geometry, Physics from McGraw-Hill. - DK Publishing is also onboard with kids books...launching four titles today. - E.O. Wilson Foundation also involved. Exclusive "Life on Earth" coming to the iBookstore. First two chapters free, remaining chapters coming at a reasonable price as they make them. - Another video of teachers talking about why they teach and why there's no reason students should be receiving outdated information in the same textbook format used since the 1950s. - Clips of publishing company CEOs, education administrators and teachers talking about what a game-changer the iBooks textbook initiative is. - Schiller back on stage. "So that's the first thing we wanted to tell you about today."
- Eddy Cue on stage for the second announcement. - Talking about helping teachers reinvent their curriculums. Highlighting iTunes U....1,000 universities using it, world's largest catalog of free education content, 700 million downloads from iTunes U. - New iTunes U app for iPad that lets teachers do everything they need to do for a class. - Jeff Robbin on stage for demo. Overview section offers easy access to teacher details, syllabus, office hours, etc.
- Assignments can send students directly to a section within iBooks. - Link out to video clips, stream or download lectures, etc. - Easy access to notes and materials. - Over 100 courses have already been created...all available for free on iTunes U. - K-12 schools can also now sign up for iTunes U. - iTunes U app available for free today in App Store. - Schiller back on stage summarizing Apple's dedication to education. Quickly mentioning iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U apps. - "We're really proud of what the teams have done. They've worked so hard on this. They do it because all of us at Apple know you can empower people through learning. And tech has a role to play in that — that's one of the best things that's built into the culture." - Thanks for joining us. Press headed to hands-on demos.
Samsung is continuing its 
Noted iOS jailbreak author pod2g has teamed up with the Chronic Dev Team to 
Indian business newspaper Mint 
