After days of speculations, rumors and guesswork, Apple finally lifted the curtains off its next offering, iBooks 2 for iPad. Folks waiting to acquire details about the latest update for the app from the Cupertino company should know that it arrives with some slick features besides making e-textbooks available for students.
iBooks 2 for iPad brings full-screen textbooks which facilitate an immersive experience with interactive animations, photos, videos, diagrams and seamless navigation. Users will also have study cards at their disposal to review notes and glossary terms as well as highlights, which can be done by simply moving the finger over the text. Quick navigation should allow for easy note-taking, lesson reviews, searching and more.
The company has collaborated with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson to bring educational material to the iBookstore. Apparently, the maximum price at which each of the e-textbooks will be tagged is $14.99 or even less, allowing students to grab the titles they require without burning a hole in their pockets.
“Education is deep in Apple’s DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet. With 1.5 million iPads already in use in education institutions, including over 1,000 one-to-one deployments, iPad is rapidly being adopted by schools across the US and around the world,” shares Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn, using the device they already love.”
Apple has also brought out iBooks Author which allows anyone to design history books, cook books, textbooks and more on Mac. Needless to say, these books can then be published on Apple’s iBookstore. The app is easy to use for it simply requires dragging and dropping images and adding text. To include a dash of 3D objects, interactive photo galleries, presentations and other add-ons, users can employ the Multi-Touch widgets. iBooks Author is currently downloadable from the Mac App Store.
The latest iBooks 2 app can now be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store.