Creating a more interesting textbook platform is not the sexiest thing Apple has ever done, but it was one of Steve Jobs’s final vocalized goals.
Apple revealed its new iBooks 2 platform at a media event in New York City yesterday. Part of the plan is to create a digital textbook standard that makes it more engaging and interesting for students to learn.
In an interview with Allthingsd.com, Terry McGraw of McGraw-Hill, the leading textbook publisher in the US, said this was a direct initiative set by Jobs before he passed away.
“Sitting and listening to all of this, I wish Steve Jobs was here,” McGraw said. “I was with him in June this past year, and we were talking about some of the benchmarks, and some of the things that we were trying to do together … This was his vision, this was his idea, and it all had to do with the iPad.”
So Jobs was very actively pursuing this idea just four months, or even less, before his untimely death.
McGraw-Hill is fully behind the new platform, planning to take full advantage of the rich features like 3D graphics and interactivity.
The new iBooks 2 app is already live on the App Store. Read more of our coverage of yesterday’s event here.
