I love it how a few days after the Consumer Electronics Show 2012 in Las Vegas ended, where people lustily obsessed over 55-inch wafer-thin screen TVs, Apple has got people talking arguing about education reform.
Two years after launch, Apple has now unwittingly made the use of iPads in the classroom the topic of discourse and mild controversy. Finally.
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Apple has released a new eBook in their iBookstore – iPad at Work. The description for the new eBook is short and somewhat sweet:
iPad transforms the way you work. Learn how iPad features and applications can help businesses get the job done.
It’s clearly a book aimed at showing that the iPad is much more than just a device for ‘consumption’ and that it’s a very capable tool for business users. The main sections cover topics like Access and Manage Documents, Powerful Presentations, Mobile Meetings Made Easy, Notable Notes, Convenient Collaborations, and Profile Snapshots. Profile Snapshots are very short case study type overviews of how 10 companies are using the iPad in their business.
I downloaded the app a short while ago and I have to say one of my early impressions is that this is a very, very un-Apple-like eBook. The text on its pages is not sized well for viewing on the iPad – it’s too small. I took a quick glance over at a couple other iBooks titles I have – the iPad User Guide by Apple themselves and Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki, and confirmed that both of those have far, far better and more iPad-like designs. This latest Apple title really looks like one of those quick-fire PDF translations that some of the poor iPad magazine titles have offered up.
It’s rare that Apple releases an app or product that looks shoddy, but my clear first impression is that this eBook falls into that category.
I’ll spend more time with the eBook and likely do a proper review of it sometime soon.
Here’s an iTunes link for iPad at Work; it’s a free eBook.
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Apple is releasing a new User Guide for the iPad running the soon-to-be-released iOS 4.3, which is set to release on March 11 like the iPad 2.
The guide looks like it will cover all the basics of using the iPad – including topics like email setup, using Safari to browse the web, using the App Store, syncing with a PC, and so on.
It’s a free eBook, and is available for ‘pre-order’ right now in the iBookstore. It adds the book to your library, and presumably will download it once iOS 4.3 is released on March 11th.
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This week the iBookstore has added over 15,000 new titles, from Random House – including bestsellers by Stieg Larsson, John Grisham, Danielle Steel, Bill Bryson, and more.
Random House is the latest major publisher to bring their content to iBooks. It’s good to see the iBookstore content expanding, as I’m finding I use the store more and more lately.
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This week Apple is promoting some strong new content for young readers in its iBookstore on the iPad and iOS devices – Children’s Picture Books. Here’s the elevator pitch for the new content, via Apple’s promo email on this:
For young readers, pictures and words are equally important. Now, with the latest version of the iBooks app, you can enjoy your favorite children’s picture books in gorgeous, full-color, two-page display on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.
Download iBooks 1.2 and browse our collection of newly added picture books, from Ian Falconer’s Olivia and Jane O’Connor’s Fancy Nancy to Nancy Tillman’s heartwarming classic, On the Night You Were Born.
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