Monday, January 23, 2012

iBooks

By Chuck Hajdu

I’m trying to decide if the iBooks plan is going to work for the iFruit company. The latest products from Cupertino sound to me like an effort to control the book market the way they control the music market. The numbers that I found show that iTunes changed the music market for all time They now have 60% of the legal download market while  Amazon is a distant second at 13%. If they can do the same thing with books, look for their stock to continue to soar.

The announcement of iBooks 2 and iBooks Author sounds like an all encompassing effort to make them the sole source for text books and make them a major dealer in all other books. They’ve struck up deals with the three major text book providers and improved their software to make the iPad apps perfect for classroom use. Students will be able to do all of the highlighting and write all of the margin notes they do today in paper books on an iPad.

Every once in a while the iFruit company makes a misstep and goes into a market too early or with a bad product. I have a hunch this step was well thought out and timed. It may be just a few years before all students can ditch their backpacks and go with a slim shoulder bag because they no longer need to use large, heavy books and paper and pencils ever again.

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