Apple education event 'being blown out of proportion'
updated 01:20 pm EST, Tue January 17, 2012
Original source suggests comments misinterpreted
Apple's upcoming education event is being "over-hyped," a new Forbes report suggests. The business publication cites for instance an anonymous former Apple executive, who claims that the event "is being blown out of proportion." More critically Forbes says it has interviewed Matt MacInnis, the Inkling CEO used as a source for an Ars Technica piece suggesting Apple is working on a "GarageBand for e-books."
"Apple is not trying to kill the incumbents," according to MacInnis. "They've learned their lesson from upending the music industry." The CEO is noted to have told Ars something similar -- specifically, that Apple "does not want to get into the content publishing business" -- but been misinterpreted.
MacInnis mentions GarageBand for iPad in his Forbes interview, but only in relation to a sample iPad textbook produced by Apple that would serve as a reference for publishers. GarageBand for iPad, he comments, became a model for what developers could do with the iOS platform. Apple is on the other hand expected to show some sort of new tools for producing iPad textbooks, and a content repository that would make textbooks easily accessible to teachers.
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Apple v. Amazon
By staying out of the content creation business, Apple's being far wiser than Amazon. Tastes vary widely Content needs a rich diversity of sources.
Amazon is also courting federal anti-trust intervention by not only controlling some 70% of the ebook market, but by taking over the role of publisher as well as retailer and by working out exclusive 'only from us' deals with authors. Any of those moves can spell legal trouble. All three almost guarantee it, although at the glacial pace the judicial system typically moves at.