Apple to Enter 'Digital Textbook Industry' at New York Media Event

Apple is set to revolutionise the textbook and education industries by announcing new partnerships with publishers at a media event in New York this month, reports claim.

Tech blogs AllThingsD and TechCrunch both believe that Apple's upcoming New York media event will be about publishing and the iBookstore, rather than hardware such as the much-speculated iPad 3.

It has been known for some time that the late Steve Jobs wanted to enter the textbook industry with Apple; in his biography Walter Isaacson said: "His idea was to hire great textbook writers to create digital versions, and make them a feature of the iPad. In addition, he held meetings with major publishers, such as Pearson Education, about partnering with Apple."

Home of all things Apple, MacRumors claims to have heard gossip indicating that Apple recently filmed "a series of short interviews with textbook industry executives." The Apple blog believes that these interviews are similar in style to those often seen in Apple's promotional videos for new products and services.

It is also believed, according to 9to5Mac, that the iTunes team are in "lockdown mode" heading up to the as-yet unconfirmed event.

Adding further fuel to the fire, Clayton Morris of Fox News has written a blog post in which he reveals what he knows about the New York media event.

"The event will focus on iTunes University and Apple in education. I learned of the event back in September when it was originally scheduled for late Fall in New York but it was eventually postponed."

Morris continues: "The initiative has been in the making for years. The announcement will be small in size but large in scope: a big announcement in a demure space. I expect at least two large project announcements as they relate to Apple in education."

Finally, Morris confirmed that this will not be a hardware event - despite the iPad 3 rumored to be released soon - but said that "Steve Jobs was intinimately [sic] involved with this project before his passing. He gave a hat tip to the textbook side of this project in the Isaacson biography."

The iPad 3 is tipped to be announced imminently - although not at the New York event - and thought to be going on sale in March or April with a super-high resolution retina display and a more powerful A6 processor.