Summary: It’s actually cheaper to go to another planet than to give an iPad to every child. This month, Apple dropped a bombshell on the academic community by introducing iBooks Textbooks and iBooks Author. In combination, the two create a compelling framework for re-engineering the textbook in electronic form for K-12 students, permitting for rich color educational content and possibly an entirely new textbook ecosystem that could be made accessible to tens of millions of schoolchildren. The problems with Apple’s daring textbook plan are twofold. First, in that the iPad as a hardware platform is completely unsuitable to the needs...