There have been rumors about Apple working with publisher McGraw-Hill for a while now. They have now actually announced that they have struck up deals with massive publishers like McGraw-Hill and Pearson already.
iBooks 2 will serve as a platform for textbook publishers to create interactive textbooks. These new textbooks will allow students to enjoy interactive content in their textbooks. There will be animations, videos, interactive diagrams and more.
This new textbook platform aims to provide cheaper textbooks as well. Apparently, books will cost $14.99 or less. Starting today, the US iBookstore has interactive versions of popular high-school textbooks available for download. These textbooks are already in use in the US by over four million high-school students.
I think that the new iBooks textbook platform will revolutionize the textbook industry to an extent. But it will help Apple quite a bit too with their iPad in Education program. Phil Schiller from Apple said in the media event that at least 1.5 million institutions already use iPads as a teaching medium.
