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TidBITS#1110/23-Jan-2012

Apple’s special event last week may have been targeted at the education market, but the new iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U apps — and how they’re being seen by both those who create books and those who read them — dominate this week’s issue of TidBITS. Adam covers the basics of Apple’s announcements, and also looks at why much of the consternation is happening because people are missing that Apple is aiming everything at the education market. Michael Cohen also weighs in with commentary about why iBooks Author will be a big deal in education, but taking the opposite view is physics teacher Steve McCabe, who argues that iBooks textbooks offer a warmed-up take on twenty-year-old ideas. In our own publishing news, it may not be an enhanced iBooks textbook, but Glenn Fleishman’s new “Take Control of Screen Sharing in Lion” still has all the help you need to choose and use the right method of screen sharing for your needs. And speaking of Glenn, he also runs down the latest changes in AT&T’s data plans for iPhones and iPads. Notable software releases this week include iTunes 10.5.3, Typinator 5, QuarkXPress 9.2, and Default Folder X 4.4.8.

Adam Engst 13 comments

Examining iBooks Author from the Publisher Perspective

With all the fuss over the iBooks Author license agreement, what has been missed is that Apple is focusing the entire initiative on the education market, which is rather different from the publishing world in general. As one of those publishers left out in the cold, Adam may not like it, but he explains how what Apple is doing makes sense for Apple.