Despite the fact that Apple’s recent announcement of its iBooks 2 and iBooks Author software has been made with the key objective of ‘reinventing’ the textbooks by offering reasonably-priced interactive texts, the actual execution of Apple’s plans to transform the education industry appear to be rather problematic.

While there is little doubt that the combination of iBooks 2 and iBooks Author will facilitate the creation of a compelling framework which will help ‘re-engineer’ textbooks in digital form for millions of schoolchildren, the daring Apple plan for content-rich electronic textbooks is not entirely free from problems.

Other than the fact that Apple’s “walled garden” approach may serve to be big impediment in the execution of the ambitious textbook plan, it will also be problematic on two main accounts: firstly, the Apple iPad is neither a very affordable nor a durable hardware platform to suit the students’ needs; and, secondly, the tablet does not currently have the adequate software management ecosystem for hosting and deploying the whole lot of curriculum for thousands of American schools and millions of K-12 students.

Though it is highly likely that Apple may work out a mechanism to bring up more affordable and consumer refurbished iPads for schoolchildren, the key issue is that an electronic textbook program would have to at least a 10- to
12-year commitment for seeing one generation of children pass through elementary and high school.

As such, as of now, it is only the extremely wealthiest of school systems which stand to gain from the iBooks textbooks!