NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Apple Inc. (AAPL) on Thursday introduced
tools designed to spur the development of textbooks and other
classroom materials for devices like the iPad, in the company's
latest push to drive demand for its tablet and change the education
market.
The Cupertino, Calif., electronics company unveiled iBooks 2,
which Apple called "a new textbook experience for iPad"; iBooks
Author, which helps users to create textbooks; and a new iTunes U,
which can be used to create full online courses. All the products
will be available for free in Apple's App store.
"All of us at Apple know we really can empower people through
learning. Tech has a role to play to help do that," said Philip
Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of world-wide marketing, at
an event Thursday at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Apple also announced the availability of textbooks from
publishers McGraw-Hill Cos. (MHP), Pearson PLC (PSO, PSON.LN) and
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Textbooks for high school students will
be available first, priced at $14.99 or less. Eventually, Apple
said, it expects textbooks for almost every subject and grade
level.
The digital textbook market is young but growing. Only about 6%
of education-textbook sales will be digital this year, up from 3%
in 2011, according to textbook distributor MBS Direct Digital, but
that number is expected to rise to more than 50% by 2020.
Apple's education plans are designed to spur more interest in
the iPad, which already is one of Apple's best-selling products.
The company currently dominates the tablet market--holding more
than 70% market share, according to tech research firm Gartner
Inc.--but the iPad is facing increasing competition from Google
Inc. (GOOG) Android devices and an eventual Windows 8 release from
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT).
Apple has long been active in the education market, with its
products used in many classrooms and by offering discounts to
teachers and students. It also provides lectures and other
educational content through its iTunes U.
"Education is deep in our DNA," Schiller said, adding that
education institutions already use more than 1.5 million iPads and
have access to more than 20,000 education apps. The company also
said more than 1,000 universities have used iTunes U, producing
more than 700 million downloads.
The new iTunes U product will allow teachers to do more, such as
creating full online courses, with syllabuses, assignments and
lectures. Apple said six universities already have made more than
100 courses available for free, and that iTunes U also will offer
courses for grades kindergarten through high school.
The company's iBooks 2 product allows users to take notes,
create study cards, search within text, and take quizzes, among
other features. "The bottom line is immediate feedback," said Roger
Rosner, Apple's vice president for productivity applications, in
charge of its iWork document, spreadsheet and presentation
software.
With iBooks Author, developers can use Apple-designed templates
to create textbooks with interactive media.
The digital textbook market already is crowded but has been slow
to evolve. Companies like CourseSmart, Kno and Inkling offer tens
of thousands of digital textbook titles, with other publishers and
education companies working on digitizing content. In addition,
Kindle maker Amazon.com Inc. AMZN) has been pursuing the
market.
"Finally a mainstream company like Apple is turning its
attention to the huge problem of actually reinventing the book,"
said Matt MacInnis, chief executive of Inkling, in an interview
before the event. MacInnis, a former Apple employee, started
Inkling after noticing students considered technology and textbooks
to be rivals.
Apple said it's also working with DK Publishing and E.O. Wilson
Biodiversity Foundation, which has started a project to reinvent
the biology textbook.
McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are among the
education-publishing companies most likely affected by an Apple
textbook announcement. The companies have experimented with
interactive approaches, such as allowing students to take quizzes
as they read and hear audio for foreign-language study, but many
digital textbooks have looked a lot like their physical
counterparts.
Many newspaper and magazine owners also have found it tough to
take advantage of the extra benefits that the Web offers from the
physical product, mainly because of cost concerns.
The company's new education initiatives follows up on the
ambitions of its late co-founder, Steve Jobs, who had long aimed to
reform education with technology. More recently, Jobs had set his
sights on the textbook market, envisioning lowering the cost of
textbooks by distributing them on the iPad, according to people
familiar with the matter.
The event Thursday was the first hosted by the company since
Jobs died in October. Apple typically holds launches closer to home
in Silicon Valley, but New York is viewed as the hub for many major
publishers.
Apple shares, which earlier Thursday crossed $400 billion in
total market value for the first time, recently rose 74 cents to
$429.85.
-By Shara Tibken, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2189;
shara.tibken@dowjones.com
--Jessica E. Vascellaro contributed to this report.
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