Chipp
on May 5th, 2010
@ 10:57 am: 

Though I disagree with your “clues”, your conclusion is interesting.

First off, you need to check your facts. Apple and iPad are not providing the suite of productivity tools freely. They are paid for apps, just like on any other OS, and their cost is substantially lower than commercial suites, and higher than free ones.

Furthermore, as anyone who has used Apple’s productivity suite of tools knows, there is a huge amount lacking in them– namely the ability to move a file from your iPad to another device– or sync it in any way. Long way to go before it really is “productive.”

Second, the iPad can certainly be used to access porn. And it’s done just like every other computer does it– through the browser. It’s all just a URL away. As you correctly point out, Steve is just trying to toss Android under the bus, along with Google, Adobe, Flash, Verizon, developers and a whole host of other people he’s spoken ill of publicly recently. Not very becoming for a CEO.

One reason I believe there will be no large scale adoption of the iPad in Education markets is because folks in Education know they cannot count on Apple to be a good partner. Do you think Steve would accomodate their wishes? For instance, If they need the iPad to have a USB slot so kids can load their homework assignments? Nope. But, on the other hand you can be sure Android tablets will have such a feature.

Another concern with Apple is the concept of a single source supplier. Apple can dictate pricing and usage plans with zero competition. But if an Android tablet is used, there will be HP, Asus, Dell and a host of other suppliers of the hardware, and the software will be much easier to write for and deliver, because it can be created in Flash or bunch of other HDE (High Level Development Environment) which allow developers to write apps faster and with less bugs. Unfortunately, Steve has limited the development of iPad apps to only his Objective-C toolkit– which is not an HDE. There are many more programmers available to program for Android than there will be for iPad.

Google Apps on Android will be much better suited for education as all the data is stored in the cloud. And of course Kindle and Nook and the rest will also be on Android, along with a huge amount of Flash educational content which won’t play on iPads.

So, in the end, I disagree with your hypothesis. Apple knows it cannot compete in education, and is not targeting it as a primary market for iPad.

[Reply]

The Daily Square – Lay Low for the Letdown Edition | Booksquare
on May 5th, 2010
@ 9:15 pm: 

[...] The iPad: Gateway Drug to Digital Learning?This is reasoning we can get behind: the lack of adult material, the mix of entertainment and learning. [...]

Thoughts from across the Publishing Blogosphere « Kindle Review – Kindle 3 Review, iPad Review
on May 19th, 2010
@ 11:57 pm: 

[...] Evan Schnittman at Black Plastic Glasses has finally started writing again and he makes two excellent points. [...]

Jane Brown
on Jul 1st, 2010
@ 5:02 am: 

I can’t really agree with what you said about ipad beeing a getaway drug, because even if it didn’t exist, kids still wouldn’t be reading books. Sadly, that’s the way things are these days :/

[Reply]

Stephen Hull
on Jul 15th, 2010
@ 11:54 am: 

Correct me if I’m wrong (someone doubtless will) but wasn’t there a significant test of the iPad on a number of campuses this past academic year? I believe the data showed students — some undergrad, some in professional schools — overwhelmingly did not like using the iPad as their textbook e-reader and note-taker. Evidently a large percentage quit the test anywhere from three to eight weeks into the semester and reverted to print textbooks and note-taking on their laptops. I have no idea what this means for the future of the iPad as a higher ed curriculum platform; probably just that Apple and Pearson will learn a few lessons and adapt as necessary. But I think it does indicate that the iPad, at least in its present iteration, is not automatically a magic bullet, killer app for the higher ed market, regardless of how cool it is for entertainment uses.

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Evan Reply:
July 15th, 2010 at 12:02 pm

You are mixing up the Kindle DX test with the iPad.

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Mike Shatzkin
on Mar 23rd, 2010
@ 6:08 am: 

Very thoughtful and original post. You make a critical point that textbooks matched the ecosystem of learning: one class moving at a constant speed from a common starting point to a common ending point. And clearly, digital change enables our learning materials, at least, to be much more nuanced than that.

[Reply]

The iPad: Gateway Drug to Digital Learning? « Black Plastic Glasses
on May 5th, 2010
@ 3:46 am: 

[...] my last post, What’s Next in Digital Reading I explored my notion that there are three kinds of reading; extractive: immersive, and pedagogic. [...]

Collection Development Blog » Interstitial reading
on Sep 12th, 2010
@ 6:14 pm: 

[...] Schnittman of OUP has an interesting post in which he discusses three types of digital reading: extractive, immersive and pedagogic. It is [...]

Mike Shatzkin
on Mar 15th, 2010
@ 12:38 pm: 

Brian O’Leary (who knows magazines the way you and I know books) wrote a great post on his blog about how the mags have built these huge and costly rate bases so that they’re getting killed on their print fulfillment at the same time the ad market tanked. Unfortunately for them, print advertising is a form of “broadcast media” that isn’t particularly “careful” about whom it hits (unlike a targeted Google message) and brooks almost no “response” (as in click-thru.) So magazine publishers committed themselves to selling print ads just ahead of watching the business really tank.

I think the poor magazine publishers have already bought a lifetime supply of lemons. You’re right that lemonade won’t sell as Diet Coke, beer, or Pinoit Noir, but I’m afraid they don’t have a lot of choice.

Glad Black Plastic Glasses is back in the saddle and proud to be delivering the first comment of the new era.

[Reply]

eric
on Mar 18th, 2010
@ 12:52 pm: 

I admit I haven’t been able to find all your opinions on the downside to publishers dealing through e-commerce ,however has anyone addressed the fact that people are not likely to lend others their e readers therefore forcing the sale of many more books than a publisher might have sold to begin with..I think it is so obvious that a new novel or especially a textbook is loaned out and given away or read by many others that cannot be monetized by a publisher, so to me if they get to sell a book via e commerce they are likely to sell and earn from many more downloads than actual hardcover sales.

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Jay Huldeen
on Feb 20th, 2010
@ 12:44 am: 

Gooooogle: what happens when they ‘own’ digital copies of all non-copyrighted books? (or is it all books everywhere that they are trying to grab?) Will the world end? Or will mankind just continue to get stupider, once the original copies have been disposed of and there’s no way to tell what they’ve altered in the digital version?

For example, will 1984′s Winston Smith character one day become a kindly rescuer of lab rats liberated by animal rights activists, whose passion for maltreated rodents is assisted by a certain benevolent Internet company’s search engine features, which allows him to organize the movement much more quickly than if he’d had to rely on word of mouth or even yesterday’s electronic mass media?

Maybe more to your liking: what happens to your business and the business of other actual publishers with a history of making stuff out of paper, ink and leather once Goooooogle digitizes it all? I know there’s not much backlist market, (but then why is Gooooogle so hot to acquire this stuff?!?), but are there implications for the publishing business?

Looking forward to your soon return! Please include some morsels of your travels to exotic and faraway places, whatever you write about. It’s like adding a little garlic pepper sauce to your soup.

[Reply]

Jay Huldeen
on Feb 20th, 2010
@ 9:10 am: 

Evan,

I may be paranoid, but I am no Luddite (obviously). Still, it is disconcerting to see the paradigm shifting so rapidly. I — fear is not the right word — dislike is probably better — that a couple of college geeks who were essentially just bright code-monkeys have figured out, with their Boolean strings and webcrawlers, how to ride on the backs of the thousands of database administrators who built the web — database administrators who are basically people who build electronic library shelves. That’s not bad in itself, but now Gooooogle has transmogrified from this mildly annoying but harmless spinster librarian into a bald guy in an expensive but tasteless suit stroking a purring Angora cat on his lap as he plots world domination from his bunker. (Probably now they’ll publish all my personal information, once their bots find this post.) (Oh wait, they already have, and I didn’t get a dime for it.)

As for Apple, all I have to say is: http://www.cracked.com/article_18377_5-reasons-you-should-be-scared-apple.html

Looking forward to your thoughts on the real threats to publishing, and to news of the current state of Mexico City street tacos, and perhaps some descriptions of authentic curry from Bangalore, or figgy pudding from Warwickshire.

Also, and meaning no disrespect, but what is a ‘publishing ecosystem’ exactly? And where does OUP fit into that? Are you part of the canopy, perhaps?

Jay

[Reply]