We reported earlier this month that Apple will be focusing on iBooks at its media event tomorrow. Bloomberg Businessweek tells about Apple’s efforts to bring tablets into education, noting that will be an important part of the iPad mini reveal.
Apple executives plan to make a point of highlighting the iPad’s educational capabilities at tomorrow’s event, according to a person with knowledge of the planning. Little wonder. Education spending on information technology, including hardware, was about $19.7 billion in the 2010-2011 period, according to the Center for Digital Education.
The report says Apple has realigned its educational sales efforts so they focus on the iPad, as they know that school budgets, and the desire for technology that is more engaging for students are driving the school’s buying decisions.
It was reported over the weekend, (igen.fr – Google translation), that an iBookstore title showed up in the store with compatibility for the as yet unreleased iBooks 3.0. The updated iBooks 3.0 is expected to offer compatibility with the latest EPUB 3 standard.
iBooks 2 was launched earlier this year, and Apple placed a heavy focus on support for the new iBook Textbooks, interactive textbooks that Apple says will revolutionize education.
UPDATE: 10/22/2012 – 9to5Mac is reporting that SKUs for the new iPad Mini show that it does plan to continue offering discounted 10 packs for education with the new device. The dicounts are liekly to be around the same discounts as are available with the new iPad, $20 to $40 a unit, depending on the inclusion of AppleCare.
Check out our iPad Mini tag for all the latest news and rumors!
