Apple releases iBooks 2 for iPad to push digital textbooks

Early in the morning of Beijing time, Apple held a press conference at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The content was all related to the field of education. At the conference, Apple released iBooks 2 for iPad, which features digital textbooks. At the same time, Apple also launched iBooks Author for the production of digital textbooks and a new generation of iTunes U integrated educational applications.

High-priced textbooks have always been a heavy burden on college students in Europe and the United States. In the U.S. market, the prices of textbooks for a university course often reach nearly one hundred US dollars, and borrowing and resale of used textbooks have become the main channels for students to obtain textbooks. Apple's current move is to use iPad to replace traditional paper textbooks.

First of all, the contents of the e-ready iPad textbooks can be reused and changed frequently. An iPad can replace hundreds of textbooks and will not overwhelm children's schoolbags. The Apple iBooks 2 application launched today is optimized for textbook reading on the iPad. It can display full-screen electronic textbooks with multiple multimedia contents and supports multi-touch interactive content, including 3D objects, forms, and videos. Photo albums, etc. The iBooks 2 for iPad app is now available for free download on the App Store.

iBookstore Online Bookstore will open up special columns to provide e-textbook downloads. At the conference, Apple announced that three publishing companies, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson, which have a total share of more than 90% in the compulsory education textbook market in the United States, have confirmed that they will publish electronic textbooks at the bookstore, with the maximum price not exceeding US$14.99. The paper version of these textbooks may cost as much as $75.

The iBooks Author, a textbook authoring software for the Mac platform, has also been released today in the Mac App Store app store and is available for free download. The software provides a variety of templates, can simply drag and drop content to build their own textbooks, support for inserting pictures, video, Keynote slides, 3D objects and other special effects, support VoiceOver features for blind people. The finished textbooks can be submitted to the iBookstore for publishing. The software can also be used by individuals and publishers to produce other books such as cooking books, history books, picture books, and so on.

With iBooks textbooks specifically for the iPad, Apple is also ready for the entire iOS platform, a new generation of iTunes U. Primary and secondary school teachers can integrate all the materials they need to teach in this application, and students can access any iOS device (iPad, iPhone, iPod touch) at any time.

Through iTunes U Course Manager, a webpage application compatible with iTunes U, teachers can set textbooks, reference books, reference web content, assignments, quizzes, etc. that are required for this course. Contents that can be added to the course include: iBooks textbooks (read only for iPad), PDF, ePub e-books, audio videos, Keynote slides, Pages/Numbers documents, iOS apps, web links. After editing is completed, click Distribute and the new content will be distributed to all students in the class and even to students who have chosen the course worldwide.

For students, all reference materials needed for the course can be accessed at any time. Course updates and assignments are sent directly to your mobile phone through a push alert. In addition to the courses he has learned, iTunes U has included open courses from top universities in the world, such as Cambridge, Duke, Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, etc., for free reading.

iTunes U is now available for free download on the iOS App Store.