Apple Announces iBooks Author - Mac App To Create Interactive Textbooks
by Lenny Liang
January 19, 2012
Apple's anticipated announcement was held today at the Guggenheim museum. It was believed that the announcement would have something to do with education. This was confirmed by Apple's Philip Schiller, as he came out to greet the audience with the words, "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."
Schiller began by reciting some sobering statistics. A high school freshman only has a 70 percent chance of graduating. There are large classes and low student attention. Many students simply don't have the resources needed to succeed.
Schiller announced some tools to battle this problem. The first was Apple's reinvention of textbooks.
Another was iBooks Author, which assists writers in creating interactive books. This is done through a Mac App, and promises to create stunning interactive textbooks, which can be published directly to the iBookstore. According to Schiller, anyone can create interactive books with easy to use templates, as well as widgets, photos, and videos. A demonstration was shown where an ebook was created and deployed to the iPad in five minutes.
The big news here is that Apple is giving this creation tool away for free. According to Apple, it's advanced, powerful, and fun. But will it reinvent education? What do you think? Please feel free to leave your reactions below.
iBooks Author is available in the Mac App Store now - free of charge.
