During a press conference in New York, Apple has submitted a new version of its application for the reading of books This is theiBooks version 2.0, and it's loaded with new features. However, the most notable is the educational commitment of the Cupertino company, which wants to use its tablet as the only support for different textbooks Something that the iPad is capable of carry out.
The press conference served to present some company data, more specifically, of iPad in relation to education And there are already 15,000 Apple tablets that work in the world of teaching, with more than 20,000 applications developed exclusively for it Therefore, it is not surprising that Apple wants to exploit this new path, and as always, it does so in aboth striking
Now, in iBooks 2.0 there is a section called Textbooks , a kind of educational textbook submarket from where these works can be purchased and downloadedThus, it is possible to have different books from the same platformIn addition, it is possible to use all the resources provided by the iPad to apply them to teaching, such as images, videos or links to Internet pages,where you can find other types of related content.
But the presentation has given for more, and it is that not only the publishers will be able to create educational books for iBooks Textbooks Along with this application another one has been created designed for teachers, or users who want to create content His name is iBooks Author, and during the presentation it was possible to discover the the ease with which these works can be created from a computer From a simple Word document, and several images, it is possible to create a book adapted to the features of the iPad in a comfortable and simple way. To later be able to download it with iBooksOf course, this second application works only for the moment with Mac computers
What this system brings to the readers of digital books is the great interactivity that can be achieved. For example, it is possible to create pphoto images that narrate what happens in the image, insert 3D objects to see all its parts, see videos, underline the text, look up words quickly in dictionary, view full screen images, etc All this without having to leave the application or use other resources. Of course, always depending on a connection to Internet if there are enlaces orembedded videos
For now the service is only available in the United States, where an agreement has already been signed with various publishers for the creation of this type of content. Specifically, there are books from various school subjects from McGraw-Hill and Pearson for just over 10 euros, and soon there will also be some from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, but as we say, only available for United States However, it is now possible to download, or update in case of have it already installed, the application iBooks in its version 2.0 It is also completely free, both for iPad, and for iPhone and iPod Touch It is available at iTunes For its part, the application for creating these books, iBook Author, can be found on the application market for Apple , the Mac App Store, also for free
