Now we know what McGraw-Hill’s CEO was talking about when he leaked that the iPad existed and would support his company’s textbooks. As mentioned by Engadget, the Wall Street Journal reports that a number of textbook publishers including McGraw-Hill are partnering with e-book app company ScrollMotion to put their content on the iPad.
(We previously reported on ScrollMotion’s appbook format, and McGraw-Hill and ScrollMotion teaming up to put content on the iPhone.)
The Journal suggested that possible use in schools might have been one of the considerations during the iPad’s development stages. However, it will face competition from other readers and especially the cheaper netbooks.
In any event, if Apple is not objecting to these ScrollMotion e-textbooks, it certainly provides another reason to hope and expect that Apple will allow Fictionwise’s eReader, Stanza, the Kindle Reader, and other such e-book apps and their associated storefronts onto the iPad as well.
I will be fascinated to learn how the iPad, of all things, might be in any way accessible to the visually impaired.
Is what I’m hearing true? That iBook, the iPad reading software, has no: a. bookmarking capability, and b. possibility of annotating or underlining?
The only thing I can think about this — *if* what I’ve been reading is true — is that none of these guys actually went to college themselves.