26-Jan

Textbook publishers prep for the e-future

Houghton and Pearson have dedicated teams working with Apple’s new software tools to create textbooks for the iPad, similar to how music companies agreed to let Apple digitize songs for iTunes. These are not the first digital products the publishers have created, but they’re the first that must reflect Apple’s signature style. Pearson Education designer Brian Reardon uses Apple’s textbook publishing tools to work on a geometry text, alongside editor Vicky Shen. Mike Evans, publisher of literacy and mathematics at Pearson, said many features of the new Apple products will be familiar, but more elegant than in conventional digital textbooks. “We already have video and interactive graphics,’’ he said, but in the Apple books, “the navigation is very intuitive, and the integration of disparate elements is very smooth: Text and video and interactive graphics all work together on the same page.’’

http://bostonglobe.com/business/2012/01/26/textbook-publishers-prep-for-future/u h313qJKA3fhhWQlfkssIN/story.html