Apple Launches Stunning iBooks 2, Author and iTunes U Apps

Apple has announced iBooks 2 for iPad, featuring fullscreen “textbooks” with interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos, and all-new ways to navigate content; iBooks Author - now on the Mac App Store; and iTunes U, now available as a native app for students and teachers.

Fulfilling Steve Jobs’ dream of having education updating itself on-the-go, “iBooks textbooks can be kept up to date, don't weigh down a backpack and never have to be returned,” Apple said.

Publishers like Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson are taking it upon themselves to deliver educational titles on the iBookstore with prices in the $14.99 range.

Cupertino also introduced iBooks Author, a built-in authoring tool that allows anyone with a Mac to create iBooks textbooks. It can be downloaded free of charge from the Mac App Store today.

“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 Philip 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.”

As for iTunes U, Apple has launched a native iOS app today, tailored for the needs of teachers and students worldwide “to teach and take entire courses.”

“The all-new iTunes U app enables students anywhere to tap into entire courses from the world's most prestigious universities,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services.

“Never before have educators been able to offer their full courses in such an innovative way, allowing anyone who’s interested in a particular topic to learn from anywhere in the world, not just the classroom.”

iPad-wielding students will be able to access tons of free educational content, including 20,000 education apps and hundreds of thousands of books from the iBookstore, all through the native iTunes U app — also available as a free download from the iTunes App Store today.