Thinking about applications for the iPad
Some random thoughts about the iPad.
I strongly believe that the iPad will revolutionise education around the globe. I do not think that we will all have an iPad and that we will all now all of a sudden use the iPad to consume content. I do however believe that the iPad has started a wave of change, soon we will all have easy access to digital books and other digital media on devices like the iPad.
The iPod started a change in the way we consumed digital music /mp3’s. Mp3’s have been available for a very long time but the iPod and iTunes made it easy to buy and manage. Many others followed and there are hundreds of online stores where you now can buy mp3’s and podcasts. Each individual was given the means to create and distribute recorded shows around the globe. Having the ability to create, distribute and consume on one device made the difference and others followed.
Now we have the iPad, I believe that this device will do for print media what the iPod did for the record industry. Others will follow with innovative more affordable designs and publishers will probably at first have DRM on all content, but I believe in a few years we will all have our reader in hand. Be it in church, at work, at school or on the plane. It will be the way we get our print media. We will save a tree or two and we will make it easy to keep up to date with new editions of a book.
Yes this is where I believe we will see a revolution like never before. If you buy a text book for your studies you now have a “living textbook”. As new technical information in the specific subject field comes to light your textbook can be updated automatically. When you buy a book you buy a relevant and up to date book. Like software the books will have version numbers. Sociology by Giddens Version 2.1 etc.
The iPad in my view may not be a revolution in it itself, but it has opened the gates for a revolution in the way we consume and learn and share knowledge. Always updated, always relevant, always fresh.
Now that I think about it, you will probably never really BUY a book, you will subscribe to a book! Authors can write a book the way many writers write a soap opera. Each week a new “episode’ is made available and published! Your book is a “living book” This will make War and Peace look like an abridged version of a book.
Please share your ideas on the iPad and also educational applications of this great new device.
