Apple wants to do e-textbooks

[elf]

Apple's announced it's going to reinvent textbooks by turning them into multimedia extravaganzas that only work on an iPad. Setting aside, for the moment, the idea of textbooks only for those students whose families can afford a $400-600 device to read them (and the risk of sending said device to school with a teenager), and that the Terms of Use may not work for minors, who can't enter legally binding agreements. Assume we're living in Perfect Apple-land, where everyone can afford an iPad for every child and parents happily assume full liability for all actions their kids might commit with unrestricted internet access.

Okay then. On to the textbooks. Apple's big slide on the screen says they'll have

• Gorgeous, fullscreen books
• Interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos
• Fast, fluid navigation
• Highlighting and note-taking
• Searching and definitions
• Lesson reviews and study cards

( Why that isn't going to work )