Apple hopes to revolutionize education with new textbook initiative

Today Apple was in NYC at the Guggenheim museum for an announcement about education. They unveiled iBooks 2 which allows for interactive text book experiences in addition to new highlighting and note taking features.

Apple also introduced iBooks Author, a Mac app that allows publishers to create new books. That allows anyone to create and publish books to the iBooks store. Apple is offering it for the incredible price of free. Prices for the actual books are $14.99 or less for High School level text books.

Apple also introduced a new iTunes U experience along with a new app to keep teachers and students connected. They also added K-12 schools to the iTunes U roster.

What wasn't announced was any kind of donation or discount program to actually get iPads in the hands of kids. Apple also mentioned that iPads are more durable than traditional textbooks but replacing a $500 iPad after a bully smashes it on the ground can be a problem. I predict a sharp rise in sales of durable iPad cases.

You can watch the full keynote over on Apple's site here.