Apple announces iBooks 2, a new textbook experience for the iPad

Apple announces iBooks 2, a new textbook experience for the iPad

Among industrialized nations, the US has fallen well behind, coming in at 17th in reading, 21st in
math and 23rd in the sciences, globally. ”No one company can fix it all,” said Apple’s Head of
Marketing Phil Schiller. “One place we think we can help is in student engagement.”

You'll be able to paw through content, stopping to flick through detailed 3D animated models of
elements within, access video and definitions without leaving the page. VP of Productivity
Applications, Roger Rosner said that "Clearly, no printed book can compete with this:" given
the constantly-updated data available, that's kinda obvious. Still, you'll be able to read
in a text-heavy portrait or picture-biased landscape mode and there's also the option to
have random pop-quizzes appear to keep you on your toes. Annotations is an integral part of
the system: you can add stickies to individual pages and aggregate them into virtual 3 x 5-inch
note-cards for revision during finals. You'll also get the same purchase, download and re-download
rights you enjoy in the company's other stores.

Higher-quality iPad images were first discovered in the iBooks app alongside @2x images for the
iPhone last January. The discovery of the images was taken as evidence that Apple was planning
for its iPad the same resolution jump that it did with the iPhone. Apple released the iPhone 4
with a "Retina Display" that featured twice the resolution and four times the pixels of its
predecessor, the iPhone 3GS.

The new app will offer customizable topics, have room for things such as office hours, allow
teachers to post messages or list assignments, and make lectures streamable or downloadable.