In an education focused event in New York today, Apple showed of its new version of iBooks and its new creation tool, iBooks Author.
iBooks 2 has a strong focus on textbook design, layout, and easy glossary searching. The books will focus on visuals in landscape mode and straight text in portrait mode. Like any good textbook, the Apple versions will have Q&A sections, critical thinking questions, and are packed full of images. Also included is a streamlined highlighting system that automatically converts your highlights into study cards. High school textbooks are priced at $14.99 or less. iBooks 2 is available for free as an update to iBooks in the iTunes App Store right now.
To accompany the new bookstore, Apple has a new textbook creation app called iBooks Author. The app tries to make book creation as simple as possible with drag and drop functionality, templates, widgets, and organization tools. It's available as a free download in the Mac App Store right now. In order to preview the books you create you need to update to a new version of iTunes, which is also available now.
Finally, iTunes U is getting an overhaul and an app today. It will allow students to access lectures, notes, and streams directly from an iPad in the same way they would an online class. Once exclusive to universities, it's now available to K-12 schools as well. If universities support it, the app will fully integrate with textbooks in iBooks. iTunes U is available as a free download in the iTunes App Store right now.