Given this answer (and the amount of downvoting on my previous statement), I think that I might have been ambiguous and left too much space for misunderstandings.
What I am challenging is not the overall value of the initiative (through market effects such as competition), but its technological side: given our parent post's first paragraph, what is Apple's contribution to the current e-textbook toolset? Digital textbooks offer much potential for improving certain kinds of cognitive tasks in both sciences and humanities — the former being exemplified by gfodor. However, from this standpoint, I do not see a significant step forward; rather, I see the promulgation of what are mostly "vanity" features that offer limited additional value for study and learning over traditional tools, and which are often styled with a certain kind of eyecandy that I personally find distracting and detrimental in productive contexts.
What I am challenging is not the overall value of the initiative (through market effects such as competition), but its technological side: given our parent post's first paragraph, what is Apple's contribution to the current e-textbook toolset? Digital textbooks offer much potential for improving certain kinds of cognitive tasks in both sciences and humanities — the former being exemplified by gfodor. However, from this standpoint, I do not see a significant step forward; rather, I see the promulgation of what are mostly "vanity" features that offer limited additional value for study and learning over traditional tools, and which are often styled with a certain kind of eyecandy that I personally find distracting and detrimental in productive contexts.