IBooks Author: Here Comes Apple – The Publishing World Ends in 2017 (rant)
Nine days ago, Apple announced iBooks 2 and iBooks Author. While everyone else was writing “me too” columns critical of the license agreement, I was busily downloading the software, converting my Sakai book to iBooks Author, getting an iTunes Connect Account, figuring out iTunes Publisher, and getting a book published.
My conclusion is that virtually everyone has it wrong. iBooks Author is a brilliant move on Apple’s part.
I have long called for a decent desk-top tool as the single MOST CRITICAL missing link in empowering teachers to become authors. I rail over and over that most of the Open Educational Resource funding effectively wasted on organizations that are trying to enhance their own brand by republishing faculty products in their name instead of trying to improve teaching and learning.
Here are a few of my recent rants with a theme of editable exchange formats for authors:
What are the Key Challenges for the OER Movement?
OER Rant 2.0 (Angry teacher and student)
Open Educational Resources (OER) – Rant-Fest
So now someone has heard my lonely cry for help and answered. Apple (like it always does) saw the massively obvious missing use cases in the endless lame offerings for authors and given us a tool that it the right use case (at least the best we have seen so far).
Apple’s iBooks Author tool was announced Thursday January 19 and my Sakai book was uploaded by midnight on Friday January 20. I little mistake in my metadata took a few days to figure out (their tech support is obviously swamped). Once I figured the metadata out and fixed it – 36 hours later I am in the book store with a very pretty book with swipe-style table of contents, revenue model, distribution channel and the whole works.
You can click the link below or search for “Charles Severance” or “Sakai” in iTunes and you get my book. It is free for a while because a pay account takes longer to get approved than a free account. So hurry and download the book while it is free.
Technically, the path was not too bad. I downloaded a LaTeX to RTF convertor, then imported the RTF into Pages and then pasted the text into iBooks Author one chapter at a time, cleaning up extra whitespace here and there. It could have been better and the documentation could have been more helpful – but you cannot argue with moving 230 pages from LaTeX to iBooks Author in 5 hours. And it even caught a couple of spelling errors I had missed.
But this book (Alpha) is just the start. I want to add pictures, multimedia, and supporting material like E-Mails that will slide out over the text. Over the next few months, I will enhance the book with these materials and create an awesome enhanced book that I will call (Beta) and sell. I want to see how Apple handles all the extra stuff and makes a truly beautiful book.
I need to do a rewrite of my Python for Informatics book because of copyright issues. I am simply going to convert to iBooks Author first and then do the rewrite there because it is far easier for me AS AN AUTHOR (are you getting the picture????) to be creative and produce an excellent book where I am spending my time on the creative aspects of creating an enhanced book and not worrying about the technical pain of HTML5 that is still emerging.
(This next bit is the MOST IMPORTANT PART of this entire post.)
People complain about the state of iBooks Author at this moment in time. What they miss is that we authors have a pipeline of work. Some books take 6 months and others take two years, there is a need to revise over and over. I can live with the few imperfections in today’s iBooks Author because by the time my next books come out, nearly all of those problems will be resolved. I really do not like the Pages/iBooks Author interface – but I have years to figure it out. This is a moving target and Apple is just getting started.
The Market Impact
Remember that it was *years* before iTunes became profitable – it was not an overnight success. All the people nay-saying iBooks Author are reacting to what it is *right now*. Already it is surprisingly impressive – but what is more important is that if folks could stop complaining about the EULA for a second and imagine where this roadmap leads – they would immediately see that the publishing industry has about five years before the door is completely shut by Apple.
The good news is that it will take Apple some time to strangle the industry. Companies like Amazon or Pearson or some startup could build a good tool or a funding agencies like Gates and Hewlett could fund an open effort to build a tool. Or perhaps one of the startups that are trying to multi-publish book authoring “in the cloud” (whoever came up with this idea never spoke to a single author) will change direction and build a desktop tool. One way or another the market can and will build a “Zune Author” to compete with iBooks Author. The “Zune Author” will likely be better, cheaper, more usable, and more open, and better in an infinite number of ways. But since so many people in this industry think about the next six months rather than the next five years, “Zune Author” will arrive too late, and technical superiority will not matter.
So the question is who in this educational space will take this on this problem head-on. I predict that no one will. Venture capitalists and philanthropic funders will continue to fund last year’s good ideas that we see over and over in keynote speeches from education futurists in the pursuit of the quick buck while Apple quietly sits in their spaceship-like headquarters and quietly builds on their lead in the publishing market and then all the “futuristic thinking geniuses” will wake up one day gasping for air and with their last breath, saying “DAMN YOU APPLE!” and wondering where things went wrong.
And on that day in 2017 when the publishing industry has been killed by Apple, please do a google search and find this blog post where I told you what to do and you did not listen. Of course it won’t change anything. And whatever I am telling you in 2017 – you won’t listen to that either. It is very frustrating to be right and have no one listen.
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If you liked this rant, you can read 200+ pages of my ranting about what worked and what did not work in the Sakai Project between 2003 and 2007 on your iPad –
Sakai: Free as in Freedom (Alpha) is now available in iTunes and the Apples iBookstore.
I’ve seen a lot of caution with this from my edtech circles when typically it’s “apple can do no wrong”. It’s also funny because I find myself on the opposite side of where I thought I’d be on this one as I typically am very anti apple (written on my mbp ;)).
Where I think you really hit the nail on the head was “The good news is that it will take Apple some time to strangle the industry”. Much like we’ve talked with other innovations, it’s not so much the 1 tool but the ideas and reactions that tool generates. Overall I think the iBooks tool sounds neat, may or may not be closed output (based on reviewing http://alanquatermain.me/post/16179111286/ibooks-author-vs-epub-author ); but ultimately I don’t care as long as it brings attention to the utter lack of solid content authoring tools for educators. For years now it’s felt like everyone has assumed because there are text editors and CMSs and Word docs and google docs that content authorship must be great for educators. Like so many other techs built and then used by educators they were ment to be generic and solve issues of content creation in general, not specific to book authoring / educational topic dissemination.
I think the challenge now for EDU platforms is to be inspired by the concepts in apple’s ibooks approach and make online authorship just as easy, interactive and seamless. The important thing we can bring to the table that I’m not sure apple will (yet unknown) are open standards for publishing, distribution and export/import. As with any Apple / google / microsoft product i’m skeptical of their attempt to corner the market in an area (as far as edu goes) but I’m also very happy they’ve shed light on this issue — spot on post!
I agree. Flipping my argument around, it would be so fun to try to sprint to beat Apple to where they are going starting immediately – but it would take a well-funded effort to compete with them. And unfortunately when something gets a lot of funds, it usually gets a lot of management constraints. Apple’s is successful because they generously fund innovation without ham-stringing the innovators.
Hi Charles
I’m glad not everybody is pointing fingers at Apple because of some lame “it’s no EPUB” arguments. iBook authors is simply brilliant and the second part they deliver, the whole university/course thing is also awesome because it is actually dad simple to use. They really nailed it and are going to be very successful. The education world will be a better place thanks to this tools.
BUT: I am a bit surprised that you as an Open Source guy are supporting it and actually publishing a book about Sakai on iTunes. As you might remember (we met once at University of Zurich when you were implementing LTI with Guido from the OLAT team (BTW we forked OLAT to OpenOLAT as we are not happy how OLAT evolves)), I’m also an Open Source guy.
At the same time I’m also an Apple guy and although I really think the iPad is a core revolution regarding e-learning, I still can not fully support iBook Author because it is really an Apple/iPad only thing. In US it might be possible to publish e-learning materials exclusively for the iPad as some institutions give iPads to all their students, however in Europe you can forget that right away. There is no way publishing something that can only be read on the iPad. Even when everybody knows that the iPad is THE device.
So I think the iBooks way only works for content where you can force users to have an iPad and in Europe this is going to be a very very limited market. Your initial book was written in LaTex, so you can publish it also to alternate sources, however once you want to use all the interactive stuff in iBook Author you will soon start building your next book directly in iBook Author. Then it will not be as simple to bring it to other devices, specially because all the cool interactive stuff is missing.
Apple should really open up the content format or implement players for other devices. I would even be fine if the format remains closed but could be licensed by other parties. Unfortunately I see little hope for such a move, but one can still dream… If they did, they owned the e-learning marked completely.
Regarding your post: Are you sure in 2017 you are still using google ;-)
All the best
Florian
PS: we would love to see an OpenOLAT tattoo on your arm as well :-)
Florian, Thanks for the comment. You hit the nail on the head. I *am* an open guy and wish for high quality open solutions in spaces that I care about (i.e. teaching and learning). If I were not an “open guy”, I would have joined a big company a long time ago and got my “pay off” and sat back and attended meetings wearing a suit and tie for the rest of my career for a large six-figure income and administrative assistant to arrange my travel. I prefer to fight the good fight rather than cash out the progress to date. What makes me angry is that the open community and those who would fund open innovation will not react to this, continuing instead to fund and give keynote speeches about dull, failed, well-funded, recycled ideas. I would like nothing better than to work with a worldwide open community to take on this problem work with Apple to define a glorious future where open was a part of it. But it is hard and needs a lot of resources – one guy in a faculty office with a few months of spare time in a summer will not get there. This is where funding is needed to speed things up and give the “open” a fighting chance. But it won’t happen because people who think they are visionaries are oh-so-often mere followers focused on kissing a** to get their next funding chunk rather than being real leaders and taking real risk. Since I have no resources and am too curmudgeonly to kiss the necessary a** to get resources, I write a vitriolic blog post, and simply join the Apple Borg and happily float along with the rest of the teachers and authors, breathlessly waiting for Apple to release its next innovation. At least in 2017 I can tell the world that “I told you so” :) P.S. I already have an OLAT Tattoo! It will be featured on the cover of my next book! Of course that next book is a few years out so by then, you will need a iPad to read it since there will be nothing else in the marketplace :)
Dear Charles Severance;
I just finished your blog on publishing with iBooks Author. It could have come at a better time for me. I am planning to create an iBook of some of my photographs, and I plan to use iBooks Publisher and iBooks to publish my eBook. I have been looking for a simple but elequant way to create an ePub without having to learn HTML5 or WordPress. Thanks to Apple I have that tool. Please if you have any advise on publishing and marketing it would be very appreciated.
Sincerely
Jerry Kolnick
P.S.
You can check examples of my work at flickr.com/photos/jkolnick
So Chuck – about those pieces critical of the EULA. Now that your book is offered for sale (instead of for free), does this prevent you from offering your book through any other distribution channel? I’m confused myself over the wording, if this applies to the actual content of the book or to the entire packaged-up file, and how Apple would even go about enforcing this. Getting the legal and policy aspects right in my opinion is as important as getting the technology, user experience, and business/distribution model right. I’ll add that in my opinion the distribution model also isn’t quite right, and we will likely eventually see “Apple iBook reader” offered as an app on Kindle, Android, desktop app, etc. (Kindle and Nook definitely beat iPad when it comes to sustained reading of text – much easier on the eyes. If iPad3 doesn’t address this, I think there is still room for one of the others to maintain an edge, at least on the device end, for some time.) My guess is that they’ll also choose to do this over using a fully-open content format at first, then be forced to open up their format like they did by offering MP3 files through iTunes later down the line (also giving a chance for these standards/formats to more-fully develop and take hold). Interesting insight and predictions nonetheless. Thank you for your post.
George, The EULA does not apply to the *words* in my book – simply the exported epub-like output of that software. I have the book itself for sale lots of places (Amazon, Kindle, Nook) but those books were authored with software other than iBooks-Author – which means Apple has no say in those books. There are little contracts abut pricing in various channels – but that is a contract and not the “dreaded and much maligned EULA for iBooks Author”.
I think you are quite right that this will evolve based on how Apple sees the market develop and how it sees competition develop. But the rantiness of my post is because I think the market will *not* respond with the “MP3 of eBooks” and a good set of authoring and publishing tools – leaving Apple to own the future market and interchange format all on its own. The rest of the market is too gutless to rise to the challenge because it would require companies to get out of their comfort zone. They would prefer to pretend Apple is not a problem, huddle in their comfort zone and hope that they have retired before Apple puts their company out of business.
Thanks for the interesting take on this Chuck. The whole iBooks issue has been met with rather more skepticism down here for one reason that is being missed by US competitors – Apple has an appalling record in dealing with territorial rights. Only a small fraction of the the world actually have have app stores with itunes, movies or books. To give you an example the South African store only has public domain works and Apple manuals – you book is not visible (though some say they found it via the direct link I’m not sure if they could actually download it).
So to quote the general line seen here “This may be a revolution but its no ours”
David – you are quite right. One of the downsides of proprietary innovation is that the owners of the innovation decide who gets it and when. To be clear I wish there were an open movement in this area – but I fear that everyone will maintain their selfish and non-bold positions and play into the hand of our Apple overlords. This is a perfect example of the Nash Equilibrium http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo5aAz9UWB0 where groups are maximizing their individual strategies, ignoring the group strategy, and finding themselves stuck in an equilibrium lose-lose situation with no ability to alter their strategies. In a sense, the participants in the marketplace are facing a multi-player prisoner’s dilemma with Apple as the police who have set the game up so Apple wins.