Apple Launches iBooks 2, Reinventing Digital Education

On 19/01/2012, Apple Inc. held an education focused event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, where it introduced iBooks 2 for iPad. The update expanded Apple’s iBooks platform to support interactive digital textbooks designed for classroom use. Apple demonstrated multi touch features that allowed students to interact with 3D objects, watch embedded videos, explore image galleries, and navigate dynamic diagrams directly within textbooks. The company positioned the update as an effort to bring interactive learning tools to the iPad. Apple also introduced built in study tools, including text highlighting, note taking, and automatically generated Study Cards. Students could access glossary definitions within the textbook interface without leaving the page. Apple announced partnerships with major educational publishers including Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which together represented a large share of the U.S. textbook market. Apple said many of the new interactive textbooks would be priced at $14.99 or less and distributed through the iBookstore. Alongside iBooks 2, Apple released iBooks Author, a free Mac application designed to allow educators, publishers, and individuals to create interactive textbooks. The software supported multimedia content, widgets, and custom layouts optimized for iPad. Apple stated that books created with iBooks Author could be exported or published directly to the iBookstore. The event focused on Apple’s broader push into education using iPad based digital learning materials.