Can Apple's iBooks initiative change the face of the textbook industry?

On 19th January, 2012, a strange aura seemed to be flowing around the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The peculiar hint of a feverous energy seemed to have been instilled among the legions of tech-journalists assembled there; the kind of energy that is generally the trademark aftershock of a press event by the tech-mammoth, Apple. Superfluous hyperbole aside, this was the day when Apple announced a major update to the ‘iBooks’ e-reading software on their industry beating tablet computer, the iPad. This update brought with it support for the consumption of textbooks, to be used by students in schools and colleges across the world. This update was accompanied by the inclusion of textbook authoring software, called ‘iBooks Author’ for the Mac, as well as a dedicated iOS app for iTunes U, their education hub software for universities.

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