Apple is Playing the Long Game with iBooks 2 and iTunesU App

When Apple made the iBooks Author / iBooks2 / iTunesU app announcement on January 19th, there were many arguments for and against their implied educational market strategy. In the educational technology community, two of the most intense arguments why Apple’s move was faulty, or even harmful, came down to the cost and availability of iPads in education. The source of the problems was that Apple made their products wholly dependent on iPad usage.

• The iPad costs ~$500 or more, making the cost benefits of $15 textbooks almost a moot point – with a higher cost of ownership than even traditional paper textbooks.
• For real pedagogical benefits, all students in a course or program would need to have an iPad – since most students don’t have these tablets, the only way to solve would be one-to-one school purchases for students.

There are other arguments to be made against Apple’s strategy, but I want to focus on these two inter-related problems.