On the iPad and Networked Books

My friend and next-door neighbor Frank Lyman put this video up at the blog for Coursesmart, his start-up specializing in digital textbooks.

This is a much smarter version of Apple’s book reader and really seems to work as a textbook-replacement app.

As I watched it, I realized something else which I hadn’t thought of. When used as a networked book, the iPad may well be on at the same time as a laptop or a desktop computer. The disconnect between the two will be the tricky thing to handle. Will you want to have the ability to copy text from the iPad and put it in the other machine? Or is that disconnect going to be productive?

On the down side, Dan Visel over at the if:book blog laments that the iPad locks us down with a proprietary system. Indeed it does and, as Dan says, “maybe technology’s become something we let others understand for us.”

Not only that, I had hoped that iWork might be rewritten as a set of tools that would allow easy construction of media-rich books for the iPad, but that didn’t happen. So much for the Netlab’s next book being on the iPad (a crazy thought I had).

Also disappointing is that reading on the iPad in the Apple book app is such a solitary experience. All the research that people like the Institute did on networked books was ignored. A pity. Still, I have faith that Coursesmart, other companies, individuals, and even open source efforts will compete with Apple’s book system. That will be a good thing.