ComputerDots.com

Nick DeLorenzo

Posted: January 24
Updated: Today at 3:38 AM

If you thought Apple was satisfied with its current hegemony over consumer electronics, you’d be wrong. It’s getting into the textbook market with the launch of the latest version of its iBooks software.

Textbooks, especially at the college and graduate level, are pretty expensive – due both to their specialized nature and distribution, and their captive audience. The markup on textbooks hovers in the 30 percent range. And what do you get for the exorbitant fee? In some cases, not much. I can recall spending more than $ 100 on a single textbook, only to have the professor tell us he wasn’t going to use it for the class.

With iBooks 2 and its companion program, iBooks Author, Apple hopes to change that equation. iBooks Author is aimed at “educators and small publish…………… continues on Wilkes Barre Times-Leader

Apple’s quarterly earnings, due Jan. 24, will offer a crucial first glimpse into the performance of not only its iPhone 4S but also how well its Pad franchise fared over the holiday season against Amazon’s Kindle Fire and other tablets.

“The critical number is going to be the iPhone number,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster told the Wall Street Journal Jan. 23, referring to how financial analysts and investors will view Apple’s overall results. He forecasts quarterly sales of some 30 million.

Although the iPhone 4S bears significant aesthetic similarities to its predecessor, the iPhone 4, it boasts certain new features—most notably Siri, a “digital personal assistant”—that made it a must-have for millions of customers soon after its October release. In addition to Munster, other analysts have suggested that the iPhone 4S sold strongly through the holiday season, but Apple’s official numbers will make that theory concrete.

Analysts will also be watching the iPad numbers for any softness in sales, particularly in relation to previous quarters’ growth. Although the iPad continues to dominate the tablet market, Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet—a full-color device capable of displaying e-books and playing multimedia content—proved a popular option among holiday…………… continues on eWeek