The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Roger Rosener, Vice President of Productivity Applications at Apple, and the man in charge of the iWork suite, is also heading up Apple’s efforts in the digital textbook initiative.
From The Wall Street Journal:
Mr. Rosner’s involvement is a sign of how strongly Apple intends to emphasize textbook creation, in a move to change the type of educational content that exists on the market. It also underscores how as textbooks—and all media—goes digital, it is increasingly important for tech companies to get media companies to create digital content with their software or in formats compatible with their services and devices.
If you’re reading these rumors for the first time, the beat on the street is that Apple is looking to drop an atom bomb into the textbook publishing industry status quo that we’ve all been forced to deal with for the last two decades. With a major education announcement scheduled for the 19th (tomorrow), many are expecting that Apple is going to be announcing a partnership with some textbook publishers, as well as releasing some tools to help them create better textbooks for the digital age. However, there’s no word on whether that introductory textbook you’re required to read in your Knitting 101 class is still going to set you back $200.00.
