iBooks Author was part of Apple's big education announcement today, at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. It's new software, available for free in the Mac App Store, that can be used to create interactive electronic textbooks. These books can then be read on the iPad.
Compared to traditional textbooks, iBooks take advantage of being in electronic format. They can include "text, shapes, charts, tablets, and Multi-Touch widgets", like 3d objects and animations. An entire photo gallery can be put on a single page, and the reader can swipe between pictures. HTML widgets let an iBook pull in things from the web, and iBooks can be edited at any time once they're already published, keeping them up to date. Finally, textbook authors can build quizzes into the end of each chapter.
Here's a look at who will be able to use this new software from Apple:
People with a compatible Mac
The only place you can download iBooks Author is from the Mac App Store. It is available as a free update, but only for Macs running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later (this includes 10.7 Lion).
If your Mac is running OS X 10.5 Leopard or earlier, you can upgrade to Snow Leopard for $29, by purchasing a disc from the Apple Store. Snow Leopard requires an Intel Mac, though, so if your Mac uses a PowerPC processor (meaning it was build before the switch to Intel in 2006) it won't be able to run Snow Leopard, or the App Store.
Windows and Linux PC users are out of luck.
Parents and Educators
You don't need to be a certified textbook author to write an iBook. Even if you're just creating something for your high school class to use -- or creating a bedtime story for your child -- you can just create the book and share it or publish on iTunes.
Students and Authors
If your school has a Mac lab that's equipped with Intel Macs running Snow Leopard, students there can also create and share their own books. And again, you don't have to be connected to education to use iBooks Author. Aspiring storytellers can create their own iBooks and sell them (only in the iBooks store).
iPad owners
You can't create books on an iPad; the iBooks Author app only runs on a Mac. iBooks itself runs on the iPad, though, as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch. So if you have one of those devices, you can preview your books as you're writing them.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
