Following today's media event that saw the introduction of iBooks 2 with new iPad digital textbooks alongside expanded iTunes U functionality, Apple has now posted video of the event to its site. The video is also available as a podcast video download in HD and standard formats. Among today's announcements:
TechCrunch summarizes notes from today's media event. Of interest, they seem to reveal that Apple's interactive textbook format is not quite the official ePub 3 spec:
Books are not technically in the EPUB format, but they borrow from it (likely EPUB 3). Certain interactive elements of the books require the files to be done in the slightly different iBooks format, Apple says.
Earlier rumors had suggested that Apple will adopt ePub 3 for their new iBooks, but according to this note, it's slightly different. It's not clear what this means and if the changes are meant to eventually fold back into the ePub standard or not.
Apple's iBooks Author application creates content in this new format and projects made from that application can only be sold through the iTunes Store. At this point, however, it seems no other vendors yet support the format.
Engadget highlights the economics of publishing iBooks Textbooks to the iBookstore, noting that paid downloads follow Apple's traditional App Store and iBookstore model where the company takes a 30% cut of the purchase price of each book. Authors are free to set their own pricing, although Apple has placed a maximum price tag of $14.99 on the textbooks.
In addition, the report notes that Apple requires all iBooks Textbooks to be exclusive to the iBookstore. An iBooks Author FAQ notes that authors may distribute their books free of charge through their own websites, but that book sales must go through the iBookstore. iBooks Textbooks also may not be offered under any subscription-based access programs.
Well, it turns out that Cupertino is giving authors the ability to set their own prices as long as they remain $14.99 or under. In exchange, Apple takes a 30 percent cut, and requires authors take an oath of fealty to Tim Cook -- ok, not really, but any e-textbook author that wants access to the iPad-toting masses must make his or her work an exclusive to iBooks 2.
Authors can use Apple's free new iBooks Author app for Mac to create their iBooks Textbooks for distribution through the iBookstore.
Update: There seem to be some questions about the sourcing and completeness of Engadget's claims. Apple states in its iBooks Author license that all works created through the software to be offered for sale can only be sold through Apple. But it appears that authors may be able to use other tools to offer those same titles on other platforms on marketplaces as long as they do not use iBooks Author to create the files. As TechCrunch notes, the output of iBooks Author is based on ePub but not technically in the ePub format, so those files likely would not be compatible with platforms other than iBooks anyway.
Books are not technically in the EPUB format, but they borrow from it (likely EPUB 3). Certain interactive elements of the books require the files to be done in the slightly different iBooks format, Apple says.
In light of the uncertainty about the situation, we have moved this post to the iOS Blog.
For regular authors, Apple limits the file size of books created with the iBooks Author app to 2GB -- something that Pearson's tome easily exceeds. Unsurprisingly, major publishers get to bypass limits that the average author must abide.
Interacting with the books is a generally intuitive combination of tapping, swiping and pinching. You can pinch from any page to get out to the heading of that chapter, then drag along a bar on the bottom to quickly go from one chapter to the next. When you're looking at any page, you can get a closer view of any of the media there by simply pinching it. Tiny picture of an ant? Give it a nudge and it's full-screen. You can then swipe through galleries, play movies and interact with various other widgets that authors can drop in place.
As always with an Apple product announcement, the company has produced a promotional video complete with interviews of Apple executives and regular customers using their products. The video for the digital textbook includes teachers talking about how textbooks are out of date as soon as they are printed and how digital-savvy students expect more out of their learning materials.
Apple has also posted a gallery of the various elements that can be built-into interactive iBooks with the iBooks Author app, including HTML Modules, Keynote Presentations, 3D Images, and more.
Apple's initial focus for its textbook effort is on high school textbooks, with books priced at $14.99 or less. Authors can continually update their content, and the students get to keep their copies indefinitely. Books are available via the iBooks app, available as a free download from the App Store. [Direct Link]
In the second half of Apple's education-focused media event today, the company turned its attention to iTunes U, the company's free educational podcast section in the iTunes Store. Eddy Cue took the stage to announce that over 1,000 universities are currently using iTunes U, with the program's content having seen over 700 million downloads to date.
The new iTunes U app advances iTunes U from audio and video lectures to a full-fledged learning app, allowing non-traditional students access to huge amounts of free content but more importantly for Apple, allowing schools to adopt iTunes U as a learning platform.
The all-new iTunes U app lets teachers create and manage courses including essential components such as lectures, assignments, books, quizzes and syllabuses and offer them to millions of iOS users around the world.
Courses are created via the iTunes U Course Manager, a web-based tool that allows teachers to build a course that includes a syllabus, handouts, quizzes, and other items. Course materials are hosted by Apple and available to anyone taking the course -- by default, courses are open and available to anyone, though it appears schools can restrict their courses to only their students.
For users, iTunes U for iOS has more than 100 courses already optimized for iOS, with more on the way. A quick perusal of the app shows classes from Yale, Duke, MIT, and Stanford -- including Paul Hegarty's well-regarded iPad and iPhone App Development course [Direct Link].
iTunes U lets you take a complete course on your iPad. View the course overview, instructor biography, and course outline. Read posts and keep track of your completed assignments. Watch videos directly within the app, read books, and view all your course notes in one place. Receive push notifications alerting you to new posts from the instructor. And iCloud keeps your notes, highlights, and bookmarks up to date on all your devices.
iTunes U is a free download for iPad and iPhone on the App Store [Direct Link].
- Experience gorgeous Multi-Touch textbooks designed for iPad - iBooks textbooks are filled with interactive features, diagrams, photos, and videos - Tap to dive into images with interactive captions, rotate 3D objects, swipe through image galleries, watch videos in full screen, and more - Use a finger as a highlighter when swiping over text in a textbook - Take advantage of Study Cards to help you memorize important highlights, notes, and glossary terms - Tap glossary terms to see definitions of key topics and concepts without leaving the page
Apple is partnering with McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on the textbook front, with the three companies currently responsible for 90% of textbook sales in the United States. McGraw-Hill and Pearson are rolling out a handful of introductory titles today, with more coming soon.
Apple's initial focus for its textbook effort is on high school textbooks, with books priced at $14.99 or less. Authors can continually update their content, and the students get to keep their copies indefinitely.
iBooks 2 is a free download from the App Store, available as an update to the existing iBooks app.
Apple also released iTunes 10.5.3 with support for syncing the new textbooks.
iTunes 10.5.3 allows you to sync interactive iBooks textbooks to your iPad. These Multi-Touch textbooks are available for purchase from the iTunes Store on your Mac or from the iBookstore included with iBooks 2 on your iPad.
iTunes 10.5.3 weighs in at 102.15 MB for Mac, 66.11 MB for 32-bit Windows, and 67.98 MB for 64-bit Windows.
Today, during their education press event, Apple announced the availability of the iBooks Author App that allows users to create interactive iBooks on their Mac.
Now anyone can create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad. All you need is an idea and a Mac. Start with one of the Apple-designed templates that feature a wide variety of page layouts. Add your own text and images with drag-and-drop ease. Use Multi-Touch widgets to include interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote presentations, 3D objects, and more. Preview your book on your iPad at any time. Then submit your finished work to the iBookstore with a few simple steps. And before you know it, you’re a published author.
The App allows you to start with a number of templates and then customize your book with images, videos, multi-touch widgets and even Keynote presentations. You can then preview your book on your iPad and then submit it to the iBookstore for sale or free download.
iBooks Author is available for free in the Mac App Store. [App Store]
Apple today is holding its education-focused media event where it is widely expected to introduce a new push into digital textbooks. The event is scheduled to kick off at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City at 10:00 AM Eastern / 7:00 Pacific.
Apple will not be providing live video coverage of the event to the public, but a number of news sites will be on hand to provide text and photo updates, and we're including links to several of them here. We will also be updating this article with coverage as the media event unfolds and news stories regarding the event announcements will go out through our @MacRumors account.
In one last-minute rumor, Jason O'Grady claims on Twitter and at ZDNet that Apple could launch Pages '12 with enhanced ePub support (perhaps alongside a full iWork '12 update), iBooks 2.0 with support for Mac, and textbook rentals.
Event Updates
- Phil Schiller on stage. "Good morning everyone. I'm pleased to welcome you here in New York. This is really special for everyone at Apple. It's about education." - Setting the background of Apple's interest in education, challenges facing students, etc. Intro video of educators talking about issues with class sizes, poor facilities, low levels of student engagement, insufficient technology and textbooks. - Schiller: One place we think we can help is student engagement. - No surprise that students like to learn on iPad. #1 on teens' holiday wish lists this year. - Already 20,000 education apps for iPad, and the iBookstore is packed with books. There already over 1.5 million iPads being used in education, but we want to make things even easier for them. - First of two things: Reinventing textbooks - Textbooks aren't always ideal: cumbersome, not terribly portable, not durable, not interactive, not searchable, but the content is great. Companies work hard to update, but hard to get the content out to people fast enough. - iPad can help overcome many of those deficiencies, and that's why we're here today.
- iBooks 2 - These books are amazing, so here is a demo of iBooks 2. Roger Rosner to assist. - Demoing biology textbook. Dramatic intro movie, multitouch gestures to move through book, 3D models of insides of cells. - Much more interesting than static sheets of paper. But we need to get it into kids' hands. - Authors have complete freedom in text and graphics layout. Auto-rotate between portrait and landscape, and we re-layout the content Portrait offers a more traditional text format. - Pinch to get to table of contents. Easy glossary access and linked index entries. - Review questions become visual and interactive, and offer immediate feedback. - Integrated highlighting and notetaking. Automatically turn notes and highlights into study cards. Glossary terms too...can even shuffle the cards. - How do I get these? New textbook category in the iBookstore. Free samples and one-click purchase. - Schiller back on stage. - iBooks 2 available from the App Store for free today. - So how do you create these books?
- iBooks Author - Mac application for authoring interactive books. Rosner demoing the book creation process. - Template chooser sets the stage, and build from there. Drag and drop layout controls. - Toolbar controls with gallery of available interactive elements. Everything auto-formats into the layout. - For more custom interaction, drag and drop an entire Keynote presentation right into the layout. - If you can write code in Javascript and HTML5, you can build your own widgets for embedding in books. - Demoing easy glossary-building tools. - "If you've ever been involved in an e-book creation before, you know this is a total miracle." - Preview function to push the book to an iPad for testing. - Schiller back on stage. - "So that's iBooks Author. It is the most advanced, most powerful and yet most fun interactive authoring tool yet created." - iBooks Author available free on the Mac App Store today. - So how do we get the textbooks? New category in iBookstore. - We wanted to get started with partners early, so we're starting with high school textbooks priced at $14.99 or less. - Books can be kept up to date, and students get to keep their own copies. - Partnered with Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt...these three companies account for 90% of the textbooks sold in the U.S. - First books launching today: Biology, Environmental Science from Pearson; Algebra 1, Biology, Chemistry, Geometry, Physics from McGraw-Hill. - DK Publishing is also onboard with kids books...launching four titles today. - E.O. Wilson Foundation also involved. Exclusive "Life on Earth" coming to the iBookstore. First two chapters free, remaining chapters coming at a reasonable price as they make them. - Another video of teachers talking about why they teach and why there's no reason students should be receiving outdated information in the same textbook format used since the 1950s. - Clips of publishing company CEOs, education administrators and teachers talking about what a game-changer the iBooks textbook initiative is. - Schiller back on stage. "So that's the first thing we wanted to tell you about today."
- Eddy Cue on stage for the second announcement. - Talking about helping teachers reinvent their curriculums. Highlighting iTunes U....1,000 universities using it, world's largest catalog of free education content, 700 million downloads from iTunes U. - New iTunes U app for iPad that lets teachers do everything they need to do for a class. - Jeff Robbin on stage for demo. Overview section offers easy access to teacher details, syllabus, office hours, etc.
- Assignments can send students directly to a section within iBooks. - Link out to video clips, stream or download lectures, etc. - Easy access to notes and materials. - Over 100 courses have already been created...all available for free on iTunes U. - K-12 schools can also now sign up for iTunes U. - iTunes U app available for free today in App Store. - Schiller back on stage summarizing Apple's dedication to education. Quickly mentioning iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U apps. - "We're really proud of what the teams have done. They've worked so hard on this. They do it because all of us at Apple know you can empower people through learning. And tech has a role to play in that — that's one of the best things that's built into the culture." - Thanks for joining us. Press headed to hands-on demos.
With the introduction of new iPhone data plans from AT&T, here's a look at the data plans from the three providers that natively sell the iPhone in the United States.
- $20/month for 300MB data with a $20 charge for each additional 300MB - $30/month for 3GB data with a $10 charge for each additional 1GB - $50/month for 5GB data with mobile hotspot/tethering and a $10 charge for each additional 1GB
- $30/month for 2GB data - $50/month for 5GB data - $50/month for 4GB data with mobile hotspot/tethering - $70/month for 7GB data with mobile hotspot/tethering - $80/month for 10GB data - $100/month for 12GB data with mobile hotspot/tethering
AT&T today announced new smartphone data plans with larger data allocations, the first update to AT&T's plans since June of 2010. The plans kick in this Sunday, January 22.
"Customers are using more data than ever before," said David Christopher, chief marketing officer, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. "Our new plans are driven by this increasing demand in a highly competitive environment, and continue to deliver a great value to customers, especially as we continue our 4G LTE deployment."
The smartphone plans include unlimited access to AT&T Wi-Fi Hotspots, and replace the current $15/$25 data plans:
- AT&T DataPlus 300MB: $20 for 300MB, additional 300MB for $20. - AT&T DataPro 3GB: $30 for 3GB, additional 1GB for $10/each - AT&T DataPro 5GB: $50 for 5GB, with mobile hotspot/tethering, additional 1GB for $10/each
iPad 3G users can now choose from one of three plans:
- The existing 250MB for $15 plan - AT&T DataConnect 3GB: $30 for 3GB - AT&T DataConnect 5GB: $50 for 5GB
Current users can keep their plans, but as of Sunday, all new smartphone and tablet service contracts will have to use one of these plans.
AppleInsider reports that it received a tip earlier this week claiming that Apple's digital textbook project rumored for unveiling tomorrow has been developed internally under the code name "Bliss". The source also indicated that the project was inspired by Apple board member Al Gore's Our Choice e-book app focused on global climate change.
Al Gore's Our Choice app
Some of the source's information, including details on Roger Rosner's role in the project, was corroborated yesterday by The Wall Street Journal, increasing confidence in the remainder of the claims.
The person who contacted AppleInsider indicated that Apple's Internet software chief, Eddy Cue, is responsible for the distribution side of the new e-textbook initiative. But Rosner is said to be in charge of development of the editor used to create digital textbooks, as well as the reading software that will allow students and teachers to view the files.
The person said the internal code-name for the project is "Bliss," and said the software will allow publishers to make textbooks more interactive.
Our Choice, which was selected for an Apple Design Award at last year's Worldwide Developers Conference, is an immersive, interactive app produced by Push Pop Press. The firm founded by former Apple engineers had planned to expand its efforts in the interactive book-as-app market with additional titles, but the plan was cut short when Facebook acquired the company last year.
In the past 5 years, Apple's push into the enterprise has been led by the iPhone and the iPad. Corporate IT departments, long dominated by the BlackBerry, are becoming more receptive to iOS products, especially when users are given the choice about which platform to use.
In addition to iOS driving up Apple's sales -- accounting for some two-thirds of Apple's revenue in fact -- iOS's corporate success is driving enterprise adoption of the Mac. The Wall Street Journal writes of Apple's growing success in getting the Mac onto the desks of corporate employees. GE has more than 1,000 Mac users under a year-long pilot project that allows employees to choose to use Macs instead of PC's, without any significant knowledge of the program inside GE. The company has 330,000 computers, the vast majority running Windows.
GE started offering its employees the iPhone as an alternative to BlackBerrys in 2008. Now, it says about 10,000 GE employees carry the Apple smartphone, compared with 50,000 using BlackBerrys.
The Fairfield, Conn., conglomerate hasn't trumpeted the Apple option for computers and laptops internally, and as a result employee awareness is limited.
But staffers across GE businesses are eligible as long as there aren't security clearance issues, such as devices for defense work, or big compatibility problems with needed software.
"All businesses are participating at some level in making this [option] available to their employees," said Greg Simpson, GE's chief technology officer.
"To find out that we support Apple, we support iPhones, we support Macs, it does take away one question for people, 'Are they a contemporary company or not?'" Mr. Simpson said. "I think that is a recruiting-positive thing."
Forrester Research estimates that Apple will sell $9 billion in Macs and $10 billion in iPads to corporations this year, up 50% from 2011. Forrester anticipates spending on PCs and tablets made by other companies will decline by 3% to $69 billion.
Last week, research firm NPD released data showing that Apple's iOS had significantly closed the gap on Android in new U.S. smartphone sales in October and November, narrowing Android's 34 percentage-point lead to just four points in the wake of the iPhone 4S debut.
Nielsen now takes a look at its own data, showing similar momentum that had carried over through the end of 2011.
Among recent acquirers, meaning those who said they got a new device within the past three months, 44.5 percent of those surveyed in December said they chose an iPhone, compared to just 25.1 percent in October. Furthermore, 57 percent of new iPhone owners surveyed in December said they got an iPhone 4S.
Breaking the data down into monthly surveys of people who had acquired a new smartphone over the previous three months, that iPhone 4S effect resulted in iOS nearly matching Android in share of recent smartphone acquirers as of December.
Given the three-month windows of time covered by each monthly survey, December's data would include at least several weeks of time prior to the iPhone 4S launch. Data for January could thus show even stronger performance by Apple, although some of the early iPhone 4S adopters may fall out of the January sample due to the three-month window having closed, depending on when during the month the data is collected.
Bits and pieces of Apple's announcement plans for its education-focused media event to be held tomorrow are continuing to flow in, and Bloomberg now weighs in with its sources indicating that the company's new publishing tools will have a strong focus on shaking up the kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) textbook market.
At an event in New York tomorrow, Apple will announce a set of tools that make it easier to publish interactive textbooks and other digital educational content, said two people with knowledge of the announcement, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
The plans, to be unveiled by Apple Internet software chief Eddy Cue, are aimed at broadening the educational materials available for the iPad, especially for students in kindergarten to 12th grade, the people said. By setting its sights on the $10 billion-a-year textbook industry, Apple is using the tablet to encourage students to shun costly tomes that weigh down backpacks in favor of less-expensive, interactive digital books that can be updated anywhere via the Web.
Echoing some of what was covered in an Ars Technica report earlier this week, Bloomberg's sources claim that Apple's announcements will include support for a new ePub standard and tools to make it easier for both large publishers and self-publishers to bring their content to the iPad.
Apple’s new software is designed for a broad range of authors to be able to publish the content in a digital format, similar to what Amazon.com Inc. does with its direct publishing tools, said the people. Large publishers will be able to create digital versions of textbooks, with embedded graphics and video.
Apple also wants to empower “self-publishers” to create new kinds of teaching tools, said the people. Teachers could use it to design materials for that week’s lesson. Scientists, historians and other authors could publish professional-looking content without a deal with a publisher.
Apple's media event is scheduled to kick off at 10:00 AM Eastern / 7:00 AM Pacific tomorrow, with Eddy Cue and Roger Rosner expected to play prominent roles in the presentation.
Fortune publishes a lengthy excerpt from Adam Lashinsky's forthcoming book, Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired -- and Secretive -- Company Really Works, highlighting the company's famous secrecy and how its organizational structure and policies foster that security.
Those readers interested in reading the book from cover to cover when it debuts next week may want to avoid the excerpt, but for others the piece is an interesting look into how Apple keeps its employees on a need-to-know basis with a patchwork of clearances to ensure that very few know the company's full plans for a given project.
Secrecy takes two basic forms at Apple -- external and internal. There is the obvious kind, the secrecy that Apple uses as a way of keeping its products and practices hidden from competitors and the rest of the outside world. This cloaking device is the easier of the two types for the rank and file to understand because many companies try to keep their innovations under wraps. Internal secrecy, as evidenced by those mysterious walls and off-limits areas, is tougher to stomach. Yet the link between secrecy and productivity is one way that Apple (AAPL) challenges long-held management truths and the notion of transparency as a corporate virtue.
The excerpt discusses Apple's command and control structure in which there is reportedly relatively little political maneuvering, with the company's "unwritten caste system" placing Jonathan Ive's industrial design team among the "untouchable" and the status of many other teams fluctuating relative to the prominence of the products they are working on.
Inside Apple debuts on January 25 and will be available from retailers such as Amazon (hardcover, Kindle e-book, and CD audiobook) and Apple's iBookstore [iTunes Store].
One week after the previous developer seed, Apple late yesterday pushed out Build 11D46 of OS X 10.7.3 to registered developers. Apple continues to report no known issues in the seed notes, and asks developers to focus their testing on iCloud Document Storage, Address Book, iCal, Mail, Spotlight and Safari.
The file size has once again grown slightly, with the delta version of the new build for updating from OS X 10.7.2 weighing in at 996.98 MB and a combo version good for updating from any previous version of OS X Lion weighing in at 1.26 GB.
The previous 11D42 build had appeared to be close to a final release, but Apple is clearly still making some final tweaks to the update. The release description has indicated that the main improvements in OS X 10.7.3 will be support for several new languages and fixes for issues related to smart cards, directory services authentication, and Windows file sharing.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Roger Rosner is the executive in charge of Apple's digital textbook tools. According to his LinkedIn page, Rosner is a Vice President for Productivity Applications at Apple, and has been with the company since 2001, prior to which he was CEO of Bluefish Labs, a software development firm that Apple purchased.
Prior to working on the textbook service, Rosner was in charge of Pages, Numbers and Keynote -- Apple's iWork suite of office applications. Jessica Vascellaro writes for the WSJ:
Mr. Rosner's involvement is a sign of how strongly Apple intends to emphasize textbook creation, in a move to change the type of educational content that exists on the market. It also underscores how as textbooks—and all media—goes digital, it is increasingly important for tech companies to get media companies to create digital content with their software or in formats compatible with their services and devices.
Whether Mr. Rosner, whose LinkedIn profile pegs him at Apple for more than a decade, will take the stage on Thursday remains unclear. If so, audiences may remember him from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference this past June, where he demonstrated features of iCloud, the company's online syncing and storing service.
Rosner made his first widely-viewed public appearance when he demonstrated iCloud onstage at WWDC in June of 2011.
AT&T today 
In the past 5 years, Apple's push into the enterprise has been led by the iPhone and the iPad. Corporate IT departments, long dominated by the BlackBerry, are becoming more receptive to iOS products, especially when users are given the choice about which platform to use. 
Bits and pieces of Apple's announcement plans for its education-focused media event to be held tomorrow are continuing to flow in, and 
According to the Wall Street Journal, 
