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Apple’s big announcement on education and textbooks was a big step for the company and possibly for the education market and it’s current structure in general. The world of textbook could possible see it’s day being numbered. But what does it mean and can it really change anything?
Apple’s plan is ambitious. Probably as ambitious as taking on the entire music industry market, and single handedly changing it. They introduced over 5 textbooks inside of their new iBooks app. Clearly this is not enough to cause a dent in the market, but Apple always does things in stages. They tend to feel out the market and then go nuts. The books are catered to high school students and I am sure they will extend the library. iTunes U caters to college students and hopefully k-12 in time. Does Apple really expect, parents to get iPads for their children?
In colleges, iPads can be integrated into tuition, but what about public schools? Clearly not all regions in the country have parents that can afford a $500 iPad? Kindle’s and Nooks are sure to attempt to copy this business model with cheap and limited capability tablets to attempt to steal Apple’s thunder, since no other company in the world seems to have an original idea, without Apple.
Here is my two cents of what I think will happen. Apple doesn’t really do anything without a multi-year plan. Textbooks is part of this picture, that I believe they are going after. Within months Apple will announce an iPad 3. It is entirely possible they can keep the iPad 2 (or 2S) in place with an education/ parent friendly price, perhaps without a camera. Sell it for let’s say $199-$299 price with 16gb. It has a dual-core, while the iPad 3 will have a quad core at the normal prices they are selling iPad 2′s today. This can be subsidized with the school system, who will no longer be spending on textbooks. Such volume can even possibly reduce the cost of the iPad 2 (I will call it e-Pad for educational Pad). Parents will then have deal with paying for the textbooks, but at a maximum cost of $15, I don’t think that will be much of an issue. Apple increases it’s market share and make an enormous amount of money of app sales from this young customer base. Notes and classes will then be syncing in the cloud, making their iCloud more successful. Siri will become an educational assistant, and FaceTime may actually go mainstream,
What about television? Well imagine being ale to take classes at home when sick? FaceTime in, class can be in the big screen, perhaps with a camera built in. The possibilities are as big as most sci-fi films have predicted. The only issue I see is the copycats, the Google’s and Samsung’s and Amazon’s of the world who are more focused in greedily copying this technology, and butchering it up.
What does this mean to the Lounge Audience? Easy… One word… Access. All of our content is iPad compatible, all the entertainment is available in either the web browser and app available for iPads. The high school market becomes the college market, and during all this it becomes our market. The new tools released by Apple will broaden the indie artists access to the public. Writers can have bigger access to more people and that expands market share to our content, perhaps even your content. So even the little announcements you think don’t effect you may actually make a shift to your future.
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