Apple announces textbooks and iBooks Author

Apple has announced iBooks Author, a new free tool which allows authors to create their own multimedia textbooks.

The app was launched by Apple’s Phil Schiller at a special event in New York’s Guggenheim Museum.

Authors can include interactive animations, diagrams, photos and videos in their books which can be submitted to the iBookstore for sale and distribution.

Apple also announced that education publishers including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson will be making their titles available via the store.

A new version of iBooks has also bee launch, adding support for the new textbooks.

“Education is deep in Apple’s DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet. With 1.5 million iPads already in use in education institutions, including over 1,000 one-to-one deployments, iPad is rapidly being adopted by schools across the US and around the world,” said Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.

“Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn, using the device they already love.”

iBooks Author is available today as a free download from the Mac App Store.

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