It’s hard to get excited about textbooks, until you see something like this: Apple just made the notecard obsolete forever. No more index cards, no more boxes — no paper. iBooks 2 turns your reading habits into instant study help.
With the new iBooks 2 textbooks, anything you search or highlight will automatically generate a study card to be used later. Reading about the Franco-Prussian War or genetics? Anything you highlight, look up or take a note on becomes a card for reference and self-quizzing. No more keeping track of cards — organisation will be easy, simple and invaluable when exam time hits. This is a beautiful example of a device gracefully eliminating something mundane — who has time for rubberbands and those dumb index card containers? We need to study and learn things. Your iPad just became a very fine tutor.
MotorMouth
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 9:20 AMI dunno, I think it is the act of writing things down that helps commit them to memory. Anyway, it won’t work where I used to do all my study – at the beach. Waste of time if you ask me.
David Shears
Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 12:28 PMSo, just because you don’t want to take your iPad/iPhone/iPod to the beach you have deduced that Apple has wasted their time?
Josh
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 10:12 AMApple: Making $2 index cards cost $700 since 2012.
It will be AGESSSSS before this is widespread. It just costs far too much. I remain unimpressed…..unless there’s something that I missed. I miss a lot.
Commander Sheppard
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 11:27 AMwatch it be mainstream within 2-3 years….
David Shears
Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 12:35 PMApple has a way of making the improbable, mainstream.
iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes Music Store, App Store, Mac…
If you don’t already own one or more of these things then you know many people who do.
This isn’t about giving students a new way of accessing text books so much as it is about delivering a new way for educators to create and distribute text books cheaply and effectively.
bryan
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 12:20 PMMainstream by Sunday
Wok
Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 11:58 AMNothing new here… good reader already makes my notes for me by highlighting. It has the added benefit of allowing me to mark up the PDF there too.
Robert Mark Bram
Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 11:35 PMI wouldn’t want things that I search or highlight to automatically become flash cards. I would want some control over it – and not just by deleting all the excess afterwards.