Apple's January 19th Education Event

[Dr Egg]

Normally I wouldn't bother to make a topic about something which really isn't that exciting, but I was thinking about the event last after reading some articles about it, so I have some thoughts that I'd like to throw into the ring.

For those that don't know, Apple is holding a media event in New York (The Guggenheim Museum no less) on January 19th to talk about education. What I think separates this event from others is that that basic plan has already been spelled out by Steve Jobs in Walter Issacson's biography, and when was the last time Apple actually pre announced their intentions ala the rest of the tech industry? Anyway, in the book Jobs complained that the textbook industry (atleast in America) is corrupt, and in dire need of fixing (much like the TV industry hint hint). The books also says how Jobs believed the textbook industry was worth $8 billion a year, and that it was ripe was being completely reinvented by digital methods, and that this Jobs believed, coupled with the fact apparently in America less and less high school are offering the kids lockers, means the iPad was perfectly placed to be the sowing ground of Jobs's reinvention of the industry.

Now, what strikes me about this is that over the years there have been many, many attempts to get schools into digital learning. Apple has historically always been a big supplier of computers to schools (My primary school had Wifi iBooks in 2001, which I realise now were actually state of the art machines), and I know Bill Gates as part of his philanthropy efforts has frequently attempted to get more digital learning tools out there, and Microsoft has its MSDNAA stuff. However Apple looks set just to try change the textbook game, rather than offering handwriting recognition software and collaboration like Microsoft/Gates.

Jobs spotted a loophole in the textbook approval process, in that if a textbook is free and included with something, it may be used in a classroom. Jobs solicited various education publishers about creating digital textbooks, which would then be bundled with an iPad, thus getting around the system basically. This is why I think Apple will succeed where largely everyone else has failed. Apple has positioned themselves as a trusted education supplier (through education discounts, and the iTunes U initiatives) over the years, and if Apple starts offering some sort of education iPad that is bundled with textbooks for every student, they could well make a killing, since a)they can subvert the textbook approval process (which will save states/schools money) which was deemed corrupt by Jobs and b) not try and instigate a complete revolution of the class room by trying to turn everything digital, something which is a harder idea to swallow. It's just making the textbooks thinner and lighter essentially.

I think overall Apple might be on to something here. Schools will be free to choose whatever textbook they want to teach with, at the expense of buying a school's worth of (presumably heavily discounted) iPads, and not have to go through a state certified approval process. As far as the kids are concerned, there is no change in how they take notes since Apple has traditionally ignored handwriting recognition as of late, and so the authorities will presumably be more open to Apple's plan.

The flies in the ointment I can see though are that an iPad is more likely to get trashed than a textbook (since the kids will most likely actually want to use them as opposed to textbooks), and that people might be wary of hitching their education to a company. But I think if Apple is careful to show they are simply offering what publishers are selling, and the textbooks remain free to use this loophole(which I guess would mean textbooks would have to be subsidised by iPad sales), Apple can't really be held accountable.

Anyway, as for predictions for the event. I predict some sort of deal on iPads for education institutions, that offers free textbooks and lower prices on the machines themselves, that iBooks (which presumably would be the portal for this content) gets ported to Mac (and maybe Windows as part of iTunes?) to get Apple off the hook about tying content to their own platform, some sort of easy ePub creation system for iBooks to get even more publishers on board with Apple (apparently creating ePubs atm is a bit of a nightmare) and possibly some updates to iWork on iOS and Mac.

I might be totally wrong about this, but these are some of the things that have occurred to me over the last few days about this event. Despite the seemingly dull content I'm actually quite excited for it.