Will Apple Stick to the Steve Jobs Plan for Textbooks? ~ Pare News

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Apple is set to make an announcement regarding education on Thursday, and it will likely involve e-textbooks.

The latest rumor claims the company is set to unveil a “GarageBand” for books that would put tools for creating interactive digital textbooks into the hands of anyone with an Apple device.

But Steve Jobs had something bigger in mind. In his biography of Jobs, Walter Isaacson asked Apple’s former CEO for for his thoughts on the textbook market:

Jobs had his sights set on textbooks as the next business he wanted to transform. He believed it was an $8 billion a year industry ripe for digital destruction. He was also struck by the fact that many schools, for security reasons, don’t have lockers, so kids have to lug a heavy backpack around.

‘The iPad would solve that,’ he said. His idea was to hire great textbook writers to create digital versions, and make them a feature of the iPad. In addition, he held meetings with the major publishers, such as Pearson Education, about partnering with Apple.

‘The process by which states certify textbooks is corrupt,’ he said. ‘But if we can make the textbooks free, and they come with the iPad, then they don’t have to be certified. The crappy economy at the state level will last for a decade, and we can give them an opportunity to circumvent the whole process and save money.

Whether or not the company chooses to follow the vision of its leader — and whether those meetings with potential publishing partners panned out — is something that we’ll likely find out on Thursday. If the answer to either question turns out to be yes, Apple could make a huge impact on textbook distribution, something that has remained relatively unchanged for decades.

More About: apple, education, etextbooks, steve jobs

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