Hi everyone, on the back of todays iBooks 2 announcement, what are your thoughts about how it could impact your medical education?
http://wp.me/pIfNx-6a5
Apple Announces iBooks 2-Potential impact for medical students and medical educators
(4 posts) (2 voices)- Posted 4 months ago #
It was an interesting announcement, wasn't it, in that it was more about the textbook industry than about consumers. I think in the best instances, the Author environment and publishing system will be very useful in medical schools. If a school can devote some technical and adminstrative resources to encouraging its faculty to put together their own textbooks, I think we'll see a lot of small, course-specific books replace some of the larger texts. Most of these faculty members already have texts and illustrations to hand, and they currently distribute these online or in paper packets. Author will make it easy to package these in a more elegant way, and iBooks will provide a financial justification for doing so.
But it will be the rare faculty member who takes the time and energy to do this without substantial support from their department.
I'm curious, Tom, about how you think this will affect things at Inkling. Last week I was on the verge of buying Harrison's from Inkling. This week I'm less certain; iBooks seems to offer a potentially better alternative, it's a platform I'm more comfortable with, and I like that ePub is an open standard. What's your take on how today's announcement affects Inkling?
Posted 4 months ago #Hi Ash,
I was really interested by todays announcement. I was expecting the interactive textbooks and the ease of publication through iBooks author but WOW was I shocked by the price cap of $14.99. That is an unbelievably low price. I cannot wait to see what is going to give. You mention Harrison's, that is a $200 text right there, can you imagine if you were to get that for $15?! The mind boggles!However I think that the publishing industry is going to take a massive hit from this. I don't think their business plans feature selling textbooks for $15. Somethings gotta give and I suspect Apple with all its might may apply a lot of pressure in the same way they did when they launched iTunes and music downloads.
I agree with you that those medical educators who are switched on may try and start producing content for this. However, you are correct because this will require a lot of administrative support. If nothing else, the class need to have iPads or else there is no point. I think the writing is on the wall though because many courses (such as mine) already have electronic notes and lectures and quizzes. I don't think it would require too much effort to convert them using a tool like iBooks Author!
Onto Inkling, I think Inkling have a fight on their hands. As was suggested in the other thread they have been 'sherlocked' somewhat by todays announcement. However I think that the medical publishers will be loathe to go down the iBooks route as that will significantly cap their profits. At least if they stick with Inkling they are likely to get a greater return. To be honest I think it is all up in the air as the future of Inkling depends on whether or not institutions embrace interactive textbooks or if they look for a method of simple PDF style distribution. iBooks is a great platform but I'm not sure which one I'd rather be trapped in! There was a note that only iBooks would be able to open textbooks created for that platform so in a way they are both limited in terms of scope. I think that iBooks may offer you what you want but I suspect you may be waiting quite a long time for Harrisons to appear on that platform.
On a very interesting aside, check out this link below where someone took a close look at the iBooks author licensing agreement. Makes for interesting reading (also check out the comments). You can thank Matt MacInnis (CEO of Inkling) finding this link!
http://venomousporridge.com/post/16126436616/ibooks-author-eula-audacity
Tom
Posted 4 months ago #Tom, regarding the $15 price cap, I think shocked was the general reaction. It's hard to imagine that price level is sustainable as the iTextbook catalog grows. But for an interesting perspective on Amazon's ability to use price as a blunt weapon against the publishing industry, it's interesting to read this <http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/17/confessions-of-a-publisher-were-in-amazons-sights-and-theyre-going-to-kill-us/>.
I also came across the early buzz about the iBooks Author license. Apparently it stipulates that any books you make can ONLY be sold through Apple's own distribution system. You can give them away for free in any system you like, but if you charge, you must charge via Apple (and therefore pay it's 30% cut).
This seems fair enough, in a way -- they're providing iBooks Author as a free tool to author books for the iBooks store. But in another sense, it is a strong disincentive for authors to use a tool that locks them in to the Apple ecosystem. Particularly textbook authors, who, as you wrote in your longer article, will be pouring a LOT of work into making these eBooks. If I had a textbook I wanted to create, I think I'd look for a more platform-neutral tool. On the other hand, what tool would that be at present?
But Inkling has the clear advantage at the moment with major medical textbooks, and if this $15 price cap is in place I can't see anyone switching from Inkling to iBooks in the next year or two. And Inkling has had great success getting med schools like Yale and Stanford onboard.
One has to admit, it's an exciting time to be involved in medical education!
Posted 4 months ago #
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