![]() After it has been downloaded you can read it offline which gives you the ability to read any time and any place, which is for sure a convenient feature. The way the app works is that you choose a book in the shop, you download it, and then you’re ready to read it. You don’t even have to be a student to find things to learn about here. You'll find a large selection of textbooks, guides, and other informative information that can help you with your studies. What I do like about this app is the fact it can be used not just for entertainment but for learning purposes. Well I'm not sure about any of that since I have barely read anything. The best iPad apps for reading for kidsĪccording to the developer these books can be used to learn with, study with, and just entertain yourself with. Absolutely nothing moves along quickly with this app, which to me gets really annoying really fast. Launching the app is slow, loading the library is slow, downloading a book is slow, and then displaying it is slow again. If it fizzles, some major market or timing blind spot will have been missed.I have now lost track of how many times I have had to close and open this app again, hoping that it would load and move faster. But the company’s timing seems propitious, its technology chops are impressive, and it’s being backed by a strong group of partners. It’s not clear whether Inkling will emerge as a major force or a major fizzle. Or an app like eBooks by Inkling cannot be installed because the download does not start even though you are connected to the internet. Inkling has posted a video demonstration for those interested: With a used book market flourishing, the value of that alone is billions of dollars itself, so investing a few million in something that can staunch a bit of the bleeding makes a lot of sense. The textbook market is a $16-20 billion market. This last part is what I’m sure has the publishers salivating. In an Inkling future their revenue streams will recur with each new class. Today, publishers only make money selling new books. Publishers will like this model as well because, if Inkling’s technology is widely adopted, the market for second-hand books will go away. Students can buy single chapters of books for $3, allowing them to spread out the cost of expensive textbooks. Inkling’s business model is revolutionary too. It allows a professor to annotate a chapter, a kind of “director’s cut” version for students. Inkling lets readers electronically highlight passages, which automatically are saved in the cloud. While studying a graphic of the eyeball in Chapter 12 (on vision) in “Ganong’s Review of Medical Physiology,” a standard for medical students, the Inkling app allows the reader to use iPad’s multi-touch functions to zoom in and see every last capillary. Interactive elements are seamlessly woven into the educational experience. a feature allows the student to “jump to” a specific page number if, say, the professor says to do so. In a recent article in Fortune, Adam Lashinsky enumerates the benefits and possibilities as follows: Many attempts at digital textbooks have been made, from the Kindle DX platform to CourseSmart to ScrollMotion.īut Inkling’s investment friends are making people sit up and take notice. And, of course, as a recent PC World article says, digital textbooks are nothing new. With the recent addition of Pearson and McGraw-Hill, this may change. The appeal for these investors is easy to see - a game-changing device (the iPad), an innovative multimedia textbook platform, and a way to get rid of a portion of the used textbook market.Ĭurrently, the Inkling app gets mixed reviews, with many citing a lack of content as a downside. Inkling investors include McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Sequoia Capital, Felicis Ventures, Kapor Capital, and Sherpalo Ventures. ![]() I’m writing this to make others aware of it, and to begin a discussion. And if this seems a glowing review, please keep in mind a) I haven’t tried it, and b) I don’t know enough about the educational publishing space to see an obvious problem with their approach. īuilt by a former Apple educational products engineer, Inkling has attracted a lot of attention quickly. What is it? Inkling, a new app from a group in San Francisco. My iPad2 is on its way (yes, I’m giving the iPad another try), so I haven’t had a chance to test this, but the roster of investors and the product description are both compelling.
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