Apple needs to step up for textbook plan to succeed

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) made a controversial leap into the K-12 textbook business last week and the response has been varied.

The textbooks are interactive, update automatically and at $15 or less a pop, they are clearly cheap. What's more, Apple lined up the three biggest textbook publishers in the United States, but there are critics aplenty.

First of all, it requires you own a $500 iPad and according to a post on MSNBC that could be a huge barrier to entry--and Apple didn't announce any plans to subsidize the cost. In conversations I observed across the social Internet, most folks said their school systems could not afford that kind of cost and I can tell you that from personal experience in my own state of Massachusetts, it's highly unlikely that most school systems could afford that (or that the State is any position to help).

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writing on ZDNet predicted that this could lead to a digital divide in which some children have access to these high-tech text books while others are left further behind.

Meanwhile tech journalist Ed Bott wrote that Apple was sabotaging the open EPub textbook standard it helped champion the last two years.

My feeling is these books have lots of appeal, at least on their face. Apple is providing tools to make it easy for authors to create engrossing content. They've gotten the right people involved. However you feel about their licensing and distribution agreements, this is a fascinating approach to K-12 publishing. 

But make no mistake, the barrier to entry--the cost of the iPad--is not a trivial matter, here. Unless Apple steps up and uses some of its many billions of dollars to create a generation of iPad users, there is no way this going to fly on its own. Beyond a few of the wealthier families, this will remain out of reach for most families and communities.

It's on Apple to rectify that situation or this announcement will go down as nothing more than a compelling experiment in text book publishing.

For more information:
- see the Apple press release

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