the previous day, AllThingsD reported that Apple is planning a late January media adventure in NY city that seemed to have something to do with Apple’s publishing or merchandising efforts fairly than any hardware announcements. TechCrunch weighed in a couple of hours later with phrase that the event is certainly interested by publishing and the iBookstore.
at the time of our document on that knowledge, we suggested that digital textbooks is usually a possibility for the event on condition that Steve Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson has indicated several instances that certainly one of Jobs’ ultimate objectives had been to revolutionize textbooks. in keeping with Isaacson:
His concept was to hire nice textbook writers to create digital versions, and make them a feature of the iPad. as well as, he held meetings with major publishers, comparable to Pearson training, about partnering with Apple.
including to the hypothesis about textbooks perhaps enjoying a job in the upcoming announcement is information we now have obtained from a supply indicating that Apple remaining month filmed a sequence of short interviews with textbook business executives. The interviews are said to had been of the kind that may be used in one among Apple’s promotional overview videos for a brand new services or products.
Our source cautions us that there is not any direct evidence tying the interviews to the upcoming media experience and that Apple incessantly films promotional video segments and commercials that never see the light of the day, but the timing of the filming appears to be in step with imaginable preparations for the media adventure.
even more fuel for the concept the adventure may just lift an education focal point comes from a new blog publish from Clayton Morris of Fox news, who claims that the experience will center of attention on iTunes U and in all probability textbooks.
here’s what i know from sources involved:
– This event will center of attention on iTunes university and Apple in education
– I discovered of the event back in September when it was once at the start scheduled for late Fall in new york nevertheless it used to be sooner or later postponed.
– The adventure will probably be in the big apple rather than within the Silicon Valley because ny is more centrally situated for textbook and publishing.
– This initiative has been within the making for years.
– The announcement will be small in measurement but massive in scope: an incredible announcement in a demure space.
– I are expecting at the least two large venture bulletins as they relate to Apple in training.
– Steve Jobs was once intinimately [sic] involved with this project earlier than his passing. He gave a hat tip to the textbook side of this project within the Isaacson biography.
– This may not be a hardware-related announcement.
Morris has a bit of a combined track report, having weighed in just in advance of Apple’s original iPad introduction in January 2010 to appropriately predict the software’s look (an easy bet) but pass over along with his predictions of discussion in terms of iOS four and an replace to iLife.
on the time of the iPad’s debut in early 2010, Apple was stated to have struck offers with textbook publishers to carry their content material to the iPad, but Apple has up to now been relatively quiet on the subject of textbooks on the iPad and offerings have to this point been limited.
replace: 9to5Mac also indicates that the iTunes crew in on “lockdown mode” heading into the media event, suggesting that the announcement is indeed associated to content of some kind.
update 2: Ars Technica adds its voice to the rumors surrounding digital textbooks:
And in keeping with knowledge from our own sources, we believe the announcement might seemingly involve beef up for the EPUB 3 standard, which permits a wider variety of multimedia and interaction features. […]
by the way, one supply who has worked with Apple to integrate expertise in schooling just lately instructed that Apple could have necessary adjustments coming to its iBooks platform directed specifically toward the academic set. Digital textbooks symbolize some other nascent market that Apple might probably upend because it did with tune and cellular apps.
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