Opinions about Apple's announcement today?

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Why do you believe that? The "Fairplay" DRM system that iBooks uses ties a book to an iTunes account, not to a specific iPad. I'd be very surprised if Apple changed their DRM system after so many years.

You're right, I should have said "account", not "device" -- I read something this morning on the subject and got the terms befuddled.

This article explains the terms; either the school issues the iPads and demands them back at the end of the year (in which case a damaged iPad must be replaced at great expense) or the students bring their own iPads at which point they "own" the book if they are to read it on their device.

Since most schools cannot afford to purchase textbooks that they then "give" to students forever, I'm not sure how this is supposed to work.

[HarryT]

Thanks for clarifying that.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks for clarifying that.

You're very welcome.

It would work better if the books had unlimited account-to-account lendings for 1-year (or 9-months or whatever the school term is) periods.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Why do you believe that? The "Fairplay" DRM system that iBooks uses ties a book to an iTunes account, not to a specific iPad. I'd be very surprised if Apple changed their DRM system after so many years.

They may have to. I can think of three scenarios.

The school keeps the iPads and the iBooks. In that case they would want an easy way to manage all of their books through one account. This would require some sort of site licensing that would allow them to allocate books to particular readers based upon grade (elementary) and classes enrolled in (high school and beyond).

The school keeps the iBooks but not the iPads. In that case they would need the above privileges in addition to the ability to revoke the textbooks at the end of the year (elementary) and with changing enrollment (high school and beyond). The ability to assign an iPad to more than one account would also be necessary (i.e. one for school and one for personal use, since the student/family are the device's owner).

The school doesn't own the iBooks or the iPads. Chances are pretty good that they would still require all of the above features, in addition to the ability to transfer the rights from institutional purchases. (I'm assuming public funding here.)

And if publishers are selling textbooks at $15 a pop, I highly doubt that options 1 and 2 are on the list. They are NOT going to pillage their revenues simply to claim that they are technologically savvy.

[leebase]

The text books are licensed per kid....not per device. That's why publishers are willing to sell $15 etext books rather than $75 paper text books that the school will reuse for 5 years (and woe to the kids getting those books in years 3,4, and 5).

The $15 iTextBooks will belong to the child...forever. They won't be resold or given back or used by next year's kid.

It's a good deal, for even if you buy a text book and give it back/resell it, you'll have spent much more than $15.

Lee

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Since most schools cannot afford to purchase textbooks that they then "give" to students forever, I'm not sure how this is supposed to work.

Schools that can afford to hand out $600 reading tablets can likely afford $15 per student per book. Or they can tell the students to buy their own books.

This isn't going to work for public schools elementary and high schools; those don't have enough money. Apple will be pitching their textbooks to high-cost private schools that are willing to fork over lots of money on hardware and even more on content, in order to be able to brag that "OUR students learn on IPADs, not those archaic printed pages."

AND WHY ARE YOU BEING SO NEGATIVE? DON'T YOU WANT PROGRESS? EBOOKS ARE THE FUTURE, AND THE FASTER WE PUSH RICH KIDS TO GIVE UP PRINTED BOOKS, THE MORE MONEY PUBLISHERS CAN MAKE ah THE LESS LIKELY THEY'LL BE TO PAY ATTENTION TO HISTORY THAT ONLY EXIST ON PAPER THE BETTER OUR NATION WILL BE!

Originally Posted by leebase

It's a good deal, for even if you buy a text book and give it back/resell it, you'll have spent much more than $15.

That works at the university level (at least in Canada/US) where students traditionally buy their books. Maybe it will work out for private schools too. But for public schools, it is a harder call.

Let's say traditional textbooks last for 5 years (though I have certainly seen older textbooks being used in schools). It works out to $75 either way. On top of that, you have the purchase of a tablet. At the moment, they seem to run $200 and up (assuming non-Apple) or $500 and up (assuming Apple). The thing is, you're lucky if a tablet lasts five years. So add $40/year (non-Apple) or $100/year (Apple).

Assume 4 textbooks per year for elementary, then you go from $60/year to $100/year (non-Apple) for a 66% increase in textbook costs or $160/year (Apple) for a 133% increase in textbook costs.

High school courses work out a bit better since they use around 8 textbooks per year. So costs go from $120/year to $160/year (non-Apple) for a 33% increase or $220/year for an 83% increase.

This really isn't working out to be a cost-saver. Now toss in support costs. DTB are easy to fix and will have a relatively low attrition rate. Tablets require ongoing maintenance and there are certain failures that are expensive to fix (from what I've seen, batteries seem to last 3 years in electronics devices) or nearly impossible to fix (e.g. water damage that toasts an essential component).

I'd do more math to figure out the hypothetical costs of electronic textbooks and DTBs, but I'd really need to know what the attrition rate for the DTBs and tablets are. Number anyone?

[cHex]

eTextbooks have the advantage that only the exact number need to be purchased as will be read. pTextbooks are not, in fact, always good for 5 years; they get lost, destroyed, defaced, and replaced with newer versions. Some texts are only needed every couple of years or so. Time and money must be spent in checking out, checking in, covering, storing, transporting, etc.

While it may be that pTextbooks are economical in spite of this, it won't be a straight 1:5 ratio (assuming a $75 pText is used 5 years vs. a $15 eText). (And of course, some textbooks get used more than 5 years. In highschool I was issued the same Spanish III text my dad's older brother had been issued.)

I'm guessing that the economies of eTexts are what will win school districts over--shipping costs, storage space, ease of upgrading, interactive elements, etc. I'm also guessing pTextbooks will never completely go away.

Interestingly, the places where I've actually seen eReaders being issued are in developing countries where often the faculty's own syllabi function as texts (no royalties or publisher fees): picture all those journal articles and book chapters converted into Kindle format. The $199 for a Kindle Fire starts looking like a bargain compared with the hundreds of dollars a semester's worth of books cost these days, especially if the students down own actual computers (example). Google "university kindle" and you can learn of the ups and downs of Kindles in the US and UK, indicating there is some demand out there.

Let us also remember that Amazon.com is now renting Kindle textbooks for less than the Kindle version purchase price; not great if you want to keep the book around for reference, but nice if you're the type that usually ends up selling your textbooks later--only to find that many are no longer desirable.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by cHex

While it may be that pTextbooks are economical in spite of this, it won't be a straight 1:5 ratio (assuming a $75 pText is used 5 years vs. a $15 eText). (And of course, some textbooks get used more than 5 years. In highschool I was issued the same Spanish III text my dad's older brother had been issued.)

Anyone who thinks these iTextbooks will be comparable to currently-used 600+ page classroom textbooks is deluding themselves. These books will be 30,000 to 50,000 word mini-textbooks, equivalent to a few dense chapters of the huge textbooks students are currently loaned to elementary/high school students or bought by college students.

There'll be a lot of self-published and new-indie-company ebooks; McGraw Hill isn't going to give up its current $130 textbook sales to sell them for $15.

If Apple had a line on distributing currently-required college or high-school textbooks as low-price ebooks, they'd be crowing about that. They don't. They're planning on making a platform for textbooks, which will have to be written from scratch for their platform, and distributed only under their terms--for those few books that have a physical counterpart, students won't be able to buy it on paper, scan it themselves, and use that version instead of also buying the digital version.

[Fbone]

My school district would need to shell out $2,900,000 to give each student and staff an iPad. Add $231,660 for a cover and $469,260 for protection plan. Plus insurance costs for theft.

That would be a huge initial outlay and recurring costs.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Nexutix

Here I found something:


http://9to5mac.com/2012/01/19/ibooks...s-controversy/

I would be more concerned with this part of the EULA:

Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.

[HarryT]

All bookstores have similar clauses. Amazon, for example, can (and do) decide to decline to distribute your book for any (or no) reason.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

All bookstores have similar clauses. Amazon, for example, can (and do) decide to decline to distribute your book for any (or no) reason.

Yes, but it can still be sold through other bookstores. With Apple it can't.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Yes, but it can still be sold through other bookstores. With Apple it can't.

As has been said, though, this program is an alternative to developing a book App, sold through Apple's iTunes Appstore, where you face exactly the same restriction.

Or you can create an ePub or Mobi, both of which are easily readable on iOS as well as other platforms and both of which can be sold through other vendors.

But I find the wording of the EULA to be incredibly curious. It refers to the work, not the file generated by iBook Author. This suggests that Apple can exert rights over anything produced in iBook Author, which would include almost everything but the original assets.