The Wall Street Journal claims to have some additional information behind Apple’s education event tomorrow in New York. According to the report, Apple’s iWork head Roger Rosner is in charge of Apple’s digital textbook tools rumored to be announced at the event.
Rosner has worked for Apple since 2011, and has headed the companies productivity application department for a number of years, having overseen the development of Apple’s iWork suite of apps.
According to people familiar with the matter, Mr. Rosner—Apple’s vice president for productivity applications, in charge of its iWork document, spreadsheet and presentation software—is closely involved in developing the new digital-textbook service. Apple last week said it was holding an event in New York City on Thursday for an announcement, which people familiar with the matter have said will be around digital textbooks.
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Mr. Rosner’s involvement is a sign of how strongly Apple intends to emphasize textbook creation, in a move to change the type of educational content that exists on the market. It also underscores how as textbooks—and all media—goes digital, it is increasingly important for tech companies to get media companies to create digital content with their software or in formats compatible with their services and devices.
Rosner may be better recognized as the man who demonstrated Apple’s iCloud service at WWDC in June of 2011 – his first public appearance while working for Apple. Rosner’s involvement might also suggest that the next textbook creation tools may be part of a new version of iWork, which hasn’t been updated since 2009.
