Apple Thoughts: Textbooks and the iPad

"The most complicated form in print media is the textbook," Josh Koppel of ScrollMotion explained to me. 'You have a 1,000-page math text with 10,000 more pages of homework assignments. You've got the graphic side, the text side, notation, assessment, remediation. And we need to make this all live well digitally without being subtractive.'"

I've been pretty vocal in the past about loving the idea and cost savings of having text books available on a device, be it a laptop or tablet or iPad, so I'm pretty happy about this consortium of publishers that is getting together to produce products for the iPad. The consortium is using a company called ScrollMotion to get it done, and from the story line it appears due to the limitations of the device, they won't be coming anytime soon to the Kindle. Despite it being great for reading, it has too many limitations for it to be a viable solution for the consortium, namely the "pedagogic reading" that is required in higher learning institutions. This is basically the type of reading required when you are actually studying a topic and not reading for enjoyment. Interesting article and I hope they are a success, but I also hope that they don't think they can continue to charge the exorbitant prices for textbooks that they have charged in the past. That would truly be a travesty!