Apple Tablet Hopes to Redefine Print
October 2, 2009 by Robin Parrish
Filed under Electronics
When the blessed Steve Jobs descends from on high to impart his world-changing Apple touchpad computing device upon us mere mortals, we all know it’s going to be revolutionary. But we didn’t know how revolutionary until now.
Gizmodo is reporting insider information that the iPad will do a lot more than surf the web and run iPhone apps. Apple is looking to take on Amazon’s Kindle, too — and redefine what an ebook is. A big push of the iPad will be into the arena of college textbooks, where Apple believes it can present a more appealing opportunity to textbook publishers by cutting out bookstores, who re-sell the expensive tomes yearly without the publishers seeing a dime. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The rumor is that Apple has been talking to major newspapers, magazines, and book publishers about creating a new format of ebook that upgrades the entire format to something more interactive. This could take the form of some kind of hybrid multimedia book, where audio, video, and imagery are used to make the typically static formats of traditional books into something truly next-gen.
Image: Robin Parrish.
