Apple To Revolutionize Textbooks with iBooks 2

It was only a matter of time before Apple got serious about revolutionizing textbooks. With the introduction of iBooks 2, Apple is well on its way. The current textbooks are not very portable or interactive at all. Apple aims to bring a more engaging experience to students with the new iBooks.

Education is deep in Apple’s DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet. With 1.5 million iPads already in use in education institutions, including over 1,000 one-to-one deployments, iPad is rapidly being adopted by schools across the US and around the world…. Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn, using the device they already love.

Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, Phil Schiller explained. iBooks 2 supports familiar iOS gestures. Students can zoom, rotate, and do all kinds of neat things with their e-books. The new platform does simplify note taking and offers a more complete learning experience to students. Textbooks can be purchases through iBookstore (with screenshots and sample chapters available).

Apple has already released iTunes 10.5.3 with iBooks 2 textbook syncing. Apple’s digital textbooks are expected to be much cheaper than their paper-based counterparts. They can be created using iBooks Author. It is a free application available through Mac App Store. This is quite an exciting tool for authors. You can drag word files to the app to start creating interactive books (w/ multitouch widgets). Text, shapes, charts, tables, and media can be added to e-textbooks as well.

iBooks Author is offered for free to publishers. It is not perfect but certainly a great start for Apple.