Technology
major Apple on Thursday unveiled its new interactive textbooks
application for the iPad , called the iBooks through which it aims to reinvent the education space.
The iBooks for iPad are dynamic and interactive textbooks with animations, diagrams, photos and videos.
The
latest Apple offering was unveiled at an event in New York by the company's senior vice-president of Worldwide Marketing Philip Schiller. Schiller said with 1.5 million iPads already in use in educational institutions, the tablet is rapidly being adopted by schools across the US and the world as a popular teaching tool.
"Education is deep in Apple's DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet.
Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn, using the device they already love," he said.
iBooks textbooks can be kept up to date, do not weigh down a backpack and never have to be returned, he added.
Education services companies like McGraw-Hill and Pearson will deliver titles on the iBookstore priced at $14.99 or less.
With the help of the new 'iBooks Author', a free authoring tool, anyone with a Mac can create iBooks textbooks.
The new iBooks 2 app is available as a free download from the App store. Schiller explained that with features like interactive 3D objects, diagrams and videos, the iBooks 2 app will let students learn about the "solar system or the physics of a skyscraper that come to life with just a tap or swipe of the finger."
Apple said the electronic textbooks feature "fast, fluid navigation, easy highlighting and note-taking, searching and definitions, plus lesson reviews and study cards."
iBooks Author would also be available as a free download from the Mac App Store.
Apple also announced launch of a new 'iTunes U' app through which students using iPads would have access to the world's largest catalogue of free educational content, along with over 20,000 education apps and hundreds of thousands of books in the iBookstore that can be used in their school curriculum, such as novels for English or social studies.
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