NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Apple Inc. (AAPL) on Thursday introduced tools designed to spur the development of textbooks and other classroom materials for devices such as 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 such as CourseSmart LLC, Kno Inc. and Inkling Systems Inc. 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.
Traditional textbook publishers 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.
All textbooks available through Apple's iBookstore must be priced below $15, said Eddy Cue, Apple senior vice president of Internet software and services, who oversees iTunes, the App Store, iBookstore, iAd and iCloud.
"It's pretty clear to me, watching kids, that they're going to get all of their textbooks in the future this way," he said. "We wanted textbooks to be affordable."
Bethlam Forsa, executive vice president for global product and content development at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, said the book pricing is attractive for both users and publishers.
"A textbook is bought and used over six years," she said. "This is, for practical purposes, one year because the kid goes to the next grade. Overall, financially, it makes sense."
The push for digital books could meet resistance at the high school and elementary level because of pricing. College students buy their own textbooks, but most elementary and high school students are loaned books by their schools. In addition, Apple doesn't offer any education discounts for the iPad, although it does lease the device to schools.
"The iPad is already very, very affordable," Cue said.
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 59 cents to $429.70.
source: online.wsj.com
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