by Ian Uymatiao

It was mentioned in Steve Job’s Official Biography that ‘educational textbooks’ was the next industry he wanted to change. He mentioned that the current educational system, which has remained unchanged for over a century, is fundamentally flawed in this day and age, as printed textbooks and traditional teaching methods lack the level of engagement and feedback that students need in order to be motivated to learn and succeed. The former Apple CEO, however, passed away before the project saw the light of day. Nevertheless, the folks at Cupertino carried on with the endeavor, and last January 19, the company finally announced the fruits of their labor in the form of iBooks 2, the next version of the company’s e-reader initiative.

iBooks 2 is basically Apple’s vision of what educational reading material is supposed to be like in the 21st century. Rather than providing what equates to glorified PDFs, almost every part of the e-book has an interactive element to it. Text can be highlighted and given notes, pictures can be enlarged and skimmed through, pages can be embedded with playable audio and video, and interactive widgets such 3D models can be placed in pages to provide a deeper understanding of the showcased object. The digital textbooks also provide other features expected of electronic media such as word-searching, dictionary and glossary integration, and over-the-air updates.

Apple touts some key advantages of using these electronic textbooks. One is its reduced price, costing no more than $14.99, which is a considerable discount compared to numerous printed textbooks being sold today. Another is a reduced material and weight footprint, as a single iPad will be able to replace all printed textbooks. Lastly, as mentioned above, updates over-the-air prevent books from becoming obsolete even after the purchase.

There are a few caveats, however. First of all, these textbooks will only work on an iPad at the moment, and they can only be downloaded via Apple’s integrated iBooks Store. In other words, these textbooks can only be accessed for as long the student owns and uses an iPad. Support for other platforms have not yet been (and may never be) announced. There are also some licensing concerns regarding ownership of the content being published, though we have yet to see how Apple will tackle that particular problem.

Nonetheless, it is interesting to see Apple tackle what is considered a stagnating market. Considering how important a role education plays in our society, any means to enrich the educational experience is most welcome. If Apple can successfully pull this off, this initiative could be an indication of the dramatic changes that are yet to come.

(via Macrumors)

(photo courtesy of engadget.com)