I was awaiting Apple’s announcement with bated breath. It was an Apple announcement about education. We’re talking two of my favorite things here. Plus, it was going to be the first major announcement after the death of Steve Jobs. This was not going to be some piddly little we’re making textbooks easier announcement – this was going to be groundbreaking, this was going to be revolutionary. It had to be.

Enter the announcement. Enter my disappointment. WTF? (Yes, I mean “Why The Face?”).

The good: Textbook prices are going to be more reasonable… sometimes, for some people. Umm… I think that’s it.

The bad: Anybody can grab iAuthor and create his or her own iText. Did I miss the piece here about fact verification, proofreading, etc? I think most textbooks are way too expensive for the most part, but publishers to have a vital role. The publisher:

• recruits an author who is an expert in the subject to write the text
• has multiple people proofread the text
• has a team to design the text and make it visually appealing
• fact checks what the author has written
• many, many more things

So let’s say I’m Bob and I get the urge to write a book on how all major historical figures were actually aliens. What’s to stop me? Let’s say I don’t write very well and my book has misspellings throughout as well as just plain mistakes and bad grammar, etc.

If that’s the case, people will dismiss it, right? But what if only of the above is true? Let’s stick with Bob. He’s a nutjob, but he’s a great writer. So his book on historical figures being aliens is very well written, very interesting and it actually seems to make sense. What’s to stop kids from picking up this book and, since it’s a “textbook” thinking it’s the truth?

Let’s look at the other side. You have Dan. Dan is an expert in his field – say boating. But he couldn’t write a coherent sentence to save his life. He puts up a book that has great content but doesn’t really make a lot of sense. People don’t pick it up and this excellent content is totally missed.

If Bob would have gone to a publisher, he would have been laughed out of the place (or offered a great book deal to write fiction). If Dan had gone to a publisher, they could have hooked him up with proofreaders, editors, etc who could have helped him put out a quality product.

So I’m looking at this whole announcement and the only thing I can come up with it “WTF?” This isn’t revolutionary. This isn’t even a good idea.