According Chris Foresman at Ars Technica Apple is going to announce a self publishing platform for e-books on the January 19th event in New York.
Apple already offers tools for professionals and home users to create and edit digital video and audio content (Logic, Final Cut Pro – GarageBand, iMovie) hence a publishing platform would fit the overall strategy.
Ars Technica also interviewed Matt MacInnis, CEO of Inkling. MacInnis worked for Apple on education projects before he started Inkling in 2009.
“When you think about what Apple is doing… they are selling tens of thousands of iPads into K-12 institutions,” MacInnis told Ars. “What are they doing with those iPads? They don’t really replace textbooks, because there’s not very much content on offer.”
MacInnis also points out that Apple does not want to go into the publishing business, the want to offer the distribution platform and consumption devices similar to what Apple offers for the music and movie industry through iTunes.
Source: Ars Technica
