The dubious logic of Apple's iBooks textbooks

I keep looking at Apple's announcements about ePub textbooks, and I just can't figure out how it works.

Sure technically, I can, but from a business perspective, it's really hard to see how this will take off.

Let's see if I have the story right so far:

• Apple is announcing a new iBook 2 application that has more multi-media and embedded logic capabilities, so textbooks can come alive for the readers.
  
  Bringing a more app-like experience to books is a great thing.
  
  
• Apple has released a free authoring program to support creation of this material.
  
  Good authoring tools are important.  When I see that the publishing format is HTML5, I think that there's a big dearth of good HTML5 authoring tools.  So anything that adds to the mix is great.
  
  
• Apple is insists that the books are priced $15 or less.  To support this, electronic textbooks, unlike physical ones, will be owned by the student and cannot be given away, transfered, or re-used.
  
  The idea is something like noting that a paper textbook has lifespan of a few years, but costs $75, so a $15 eBook that has to be re-bought every year is the same as a 5 year life-span on your paper text book.  Except that the eBook is always up to date, whereas your 4 year-old textbook may be out of date.  That seems like a better book at the same price.
  
  
• Apple insists that books be sold only through their store.
  
  They built the tools, they should benefit from them.  No problem there.

On the surface, then this all seems great.  Better books at the same cost, and we save a forest or two in the process. 

But under the surface, there are some real problems with this.

First, it's definitely an "I'm from the vendor and you can save money by buying my newest kit" kind of proposal.  True, the iPad is a wonderful device. But the lifespan of an iPad is probably the same as a textbook or less, especially in the hands of the K-12 market.  That $500 is the cost of 5 to 7 textbooks (given the $75 price point McGraw-Hill used as a comparison).  So is this still going to be the same cost as paper books?

Let's do some math.

Imagine that there are 5 textbooks needed for any given grade. ( I'm kind of far removed from K-12, so forgive me if they need only 2 or 10.) That's $375 of textbooks, but they last on average 5 years, so that's $75 a year per student for paper textbook purchases.  That's one side of the equation: $75/PSPY (per student per year).

On the other side, the iPad costs $500.  I would expect the average life to be about 4 years at best (either because the device gets destroyed, the battery dies, or it no longer runs the latest iOS and becomes useless), and you can figure on a $100 repair midstream (new battery, cracked glass, etc.), so that's $150 per student per year for iPads.  And, you still have to buy 5 text books at $15 each, so you're back to $75 per student per year for content.  Grand total is now $225 per student per year, or a 200% price increase to go eTextbooks.   That's the other side: $225 PSPY 

Since $75 does not equal, $225, where is that extra $150 going to come from?

It's easy to predict what will happen.  Either (a) A school will get a grant to buy a bunch of iPads and then not have money to repair or replace them over time and they will be abandoned, or (b) the costs of this will be dumped on the parents -- you can choose the eBook track of instruction if you keep your child equipped with an iPad, or you can choose the paper book track if you do not.  That's just going to further divide the haves from the haves not.  Buy your kid an iPad, they can go to the iPad classes.

The situation would be a lot easier with Kindle Fires or Nooks, since these devices are substantially cheaper.  But Apple doesn't sell cheap kit.  Perhaps, in the upcoming iPad 3 announcement, they announce that they're going to keep selling the iPad 2 but at a reduced price, say $300.  You still end up with an extra $100 PSPY in costs that have to be eaten by somebody. (Note that the iPod touch is $200, so if they try to move the iPad 2 below $300 they have to start squishing the iPod prices too).

Next, let's talk about content.  

Other than a few showcase efforts, how committed are textbook manufacturers going to be in creating spiffy interactive content for their textbooks when they still have to create dead-tree versions of the same books?  It would be nice to think the market will drive them towards richer content, but the decisions in textbooks are political, and I have to think publishers will turn their eBooks into shovelware.

Put another way, textbook publishers can already publish their textbooks as iPad apps in the app store.  Where are they with that?  Nowhere.  So a slightly better editing program and a PR campaign is going to change that?

I hate to think that I'm the guy saying that iTunes music sales aren't going to do anything at the dawn of the iPod.  But there are a lot of differences here.  First, the record industry already had its content in digital format (from CDs), so the conversion to iTunes format was completely automated.  Second, there is no real difference in the experience delivered by the downloadable music.  It's not like they all had to gain video or games or dorian mode explorer software. It was the same product as before.  No one was disappointed to discover the downloads had roughly the same quality and features as the previous format.

Finally, there's a philosophical issue.  

The approach as I understand it is fundamentally at odds with the new cloud-based world.  If you use dropbox or similar -- or even iCloud -- you're used to the idea that wherever you are, so is your data.  I read Amazon Kindle books.  The same book is on my iPad, my laptop -- heck, even my phone.  And as I make progress through it on one device, the rest are in sync.  If I am at my desk, I would much rather read a book on my 23 inch monitor than on my iPad.  This is how cloud works.  Apple knows this: see the commercials for iCloud? Change my presentation in one place, and it's updated the other.  Take pictures here, see them there.  But this is not how the new text books work -- you have to read it on the iPad only.  And it's locked to that iPad.

It's this last issue that makes this a real head-scratcher.  It's like the last 5 years or so of technology advances hasn't happened.

If the goal of Apple is to start to introduce electronic textbooks into the marketplace and see if they can make for better education, that's great:  it's a noble experiment.  But if the expectation is that this is going to have a radical impact soon, I think that is not realistic.  Look how long and hard Bill Gates has tried to make education better.  And that's with him throwing tons of his money at the problem. As much as I respect Steve Jobs, this is not a an area that lends itself to easy solutions.  If it did, our schools would be the best in the world.

A year from now, I expect this will all be moved to the back burner as Apple tries to figure out what went wrong.  Or they will realize the real market for this is college, where you can insist on students having an iPad -- and they find success there.  We'll see...

It was an extremely hefty bill for a drink from Apple. What I did about it.

Over the holidays, a bunch of us were gathered around the table, laptops open, enjoying the holidays when a drink spilt into my keyboard.  I cannot tell a lie, it was my fault.

After doing the customary recovery attempts -- turn computer off, flip upside down, let drain and dry over night, I discovered my computer still worked fine, but had developed a few keyboard quirks.  A few keys didn't type at all, others would generate two key presses, and some keys just kind of auto repeated endlessly. To see if the damage was limited to the keyboard,  I plugged an external keyboard into it and it worked fine.  The computer still ran, my iPhone still synced to iTunes.  It all ran just fine.

With a resigned heart, I knew the keyboard needed to be replaced.  Were this a desktop, it would be simple -- unplug old keyboard, plug new keyboard in. Kick yourself for being clumsy, but it's something you can fix yourself. But with a laptop, it is not so simple, and so I knew my best course of action was to take it to the Genius Bar in Altamonte Springs, FL.

I visited the Apple store a few days later, and awaited my appointment with a "Genius".  I explained the situation, and his first comment was "this is going to be expensive."  I knew a new keyboard was going to be expensive, and I was prepared for that.  I had priced them online, and the going price was around $250.  But I had just missed some important foreshadowing.  As we went over the situation, he commented about if the logic board was damaged it, alone, was going to be $800.  Of course, I knew the logic board was working fine, so I ignored the comment.  I had tested the computer with an external keyboard and it all worked.

He took the laptop in the back and was gone so long I assumed he had gone on break in the interim.  My level of anxiety was growing.  I went over his comment in my mind -- why did he assume, without any knowledge, that the logic board needed to be replaced? Is this a problem with the design of the Airs -- anything spilt on the keyboard goes right to the logic board? That would be bad if it were true.

When he finally returned, he told me he had bad news: both the keyboard and yes the logic board needed to be replaced.

I stared at him.

"You're kidding me," I told him, "the logic board is working fine.  It's just the keyboard that's not working."

He assured me that the logic board was covered in goo and it was only a matter of time before it was dead.

I challenged him: but it's obviously working now!  His response was that the goo on the logic board could, in time, do further damage (something about acids) and that keyboard problems pointed to logic board damage.  I did not believe him.

I asked him, point blank, if, even understanding what he said, I still wished for them only to replace the keyboard: would they do that?

No.  Logic board replacement or nothing.

At that point, a scenario flashed in my mind.  It's a car repair scenario, where the shady auto mechanic tells you that you need to fix things in your car that are not broken just so they can charge you a higher bill. In my mind, Apple had just become the shady auto mechanic, asking to replace a pricey part that gave no signs of being broken.  And to be clear, they had offered no proof that it was broken.  Just the word of some anonymous tech in the back; the computer had be returned to me completely closed back up.  I was at a disadvantage, because I could not inspect the logic board myself.

I took stock of the situation.  The computer was working fine, save for the keyboard.  They were offering me a my-way-or-the-highway expensive repair that they asked me to accept, on faith, contrary to the facts that were evident to me, was absolutely needed.

I came to one opinion:  I was being duped by Apple.

I was mad.  I declined to pay for what I felt was surely an unnecessary expensive repair and left.

Of course, that left me with a "Now what, smarty pants?" kind of problem.

I've seen the videos on the making of a MacBook Air on Apple's web site -- precision manufacturing, miniature assembly, etc.  Apple may be, in my mind, the analog of the shady mechanic overselling repairs, but that makes the MacBook Air the analog of high end cars, which are much more complicated than their predecessors and competition.

I went home and did some more research.  Apple sure doesn't encourage a DIY spirit of repair.  In fact, they invented their very own kind of screwdriver, the "Pentalobe", just so you cannot open your own computer! My first step was ordering a custom "Apple Tool" just so I could take the back off the thing.

I formulated a plan.  First, I would just look inside to assess the damage.  Was the logic board really covered in goo as the "Genius" implied?  Could it be cleaned?  Maybe I could prevent the further damage the "Genius" worried about. Could the keyboard be cleaned? In days of old, flushing a keyboard with water or alcohol could clear up mis-functioning keys. Worst case, I would replace the keyboard.  And if it really was as bad as they said, I would have to either suck it up and have them replace the parts (or replace them myself), or just treat the beast as a desktop computer (since the external keyboard worked fine) for as long as it cared to go on living.

It took a while to get the right screwdriver (heh, Apple has two different Pentalobe kind of screws, and I got the driver for the wrong one first). After the right tools arrived, I followed the instructions on the iFixit.com website to disassemble my MacBook Air.  I must confess some trepidation.  This was not a toaster I was taking apart, this was a $1500+ computer.  And if I broke something else, there would be no one to back me up.  Apple had already told me there was nothing they could do for me, as I had chosen the "highway". I was totally on my own with this.  On the other hand, if the Apple repair truly was $1000, I might as well upgrade the computer, so I figured my risk wasn't the entire $1500.

Disassembly went smoothly -- mostly --  and I saw that the computer design was sufficiently modular that it wasn't as hard as I worried.  Just very time consuming.  A few steps required some puzzling out to do, and there was some fearful moments along the way.

I saw two things when the computer was apart.  First, there was some goo under the fan.

But, also very clearly, the logic board was clean.  The fan is attached to the logic board, but is completely separate and easy to remove on its own.  The goo was not on the logic board.  Close, but not there.  There was a bit of goo under, but not touching the logic board on the keyboard:

The logic board mounts on stand-offs and is not in physical contact with the black plastic you see (the fan is in physical contact with that plastic, which is why some goo got on the fan itself.

Let me be really clear about this:  I will be charitable, and say that the tech was confused about what had been affected by the spill and/or was extremely overly cautious.  There is room for opinion in everything.  But it is my strong opinion that they overestimated the extent of damage, and that overestimation was in the direction of greater profit for Apple.  They were wrong in their recommendation.  You can ask, who am I to suggest my opinion is better formed than Apple's? Read on, and you decide.

I cleaned the goo off the fan with some rubbing alcohol, and set it aside.  Since the problem was with the keyboard, I thought that, perhaps, the problems were caused by some lingering dirt or goo in the keyboard itself.  I removed all the keycaps, and bathed the keyboard in alcohol and contact cleaner, and reassembled the computer.

Unfortunately, the behavior was the same.  It ran fine, but the same keys that either didn't work, generated multiple keystrokes, or auto repeated still did.  On the plus side, I had done no damage to the computer.  But on the minus side, well, no progress had been made.  So much for the cheap, labor-only repair.

I ordered a new "top case" (the keyboard and the aluminum top to the computer are an integral unit) from the web.  It took a few days to arrive, and then I once again tore my computer apart.  As it turns out, all the parts of the Air mount into the top case, so it's not quite like you're just swapping out a part.  You are basically taking your computer completely apart, and then assembling all those parts into your new top case.

As before, I was worried about some new damage in the process.  The connectors and sockets in the computer are fragile and not built for repetitive removal and insertion. I didn't want to push them to the breaking point.  I did my best to be careful.

When I was done, I pressed the power button.  It booted just fine.  I gave the keyboard a quick test, and it all appeared to be working.  All the problems were fixed.

And so here I am.  The MacBook Air works perfectly, and I am typing this blog post on it.  Just in case I've missed a letter: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.  Perfect.

Total cost? About $225 for the top case.  Or, about $800+ less than I would have paid Apple to replace the logic board and the top case.

There are few real lessons I've learned from this.

First, the "Genius Bar" is neither.  You should treat their recommendations for repairs the same way as you would as the guy who repairs your car or fixes your plumbing.  Most of the time, they're going to be right.  But if it seems like they are asking to do a lot more work than you expected, it's time for a second opinion.

Second, Apple isn't perfect, and that hubris we saw in Steve Jobs extends down to the lowest levels.  It's not pretty, and I hope that Tim Cook manages to bring some humility to Apple.  They definitely need to get rid of the arrogance about repairs.  I've been around computers longer than these kids have been alive, and I know one thing: you can never be certain of being right until the computer works.

Third, I'm going to be more active and less passive the next time I have a repair issue.  I should have pushed back hard.  I should have demanded to talk to a manager.  I didn't feel like I was on solid ground because I did not (and, at that point, could not have) see the extent of the damage myself.  Now, if I hear something that seems wrong, I will demand proof.

Fourth, the Genius Bar is just a "swap shop".  They replace parts, they do not repair them.  Something that could be a $20 repair but is a $200 swap is going to cost you $200 because they don't do real repairs.  Maybe I could have sent it off to Apple somewhere or somebody else and gotten a better repair, but I wasn't willing to trust Apple at that point.

Apple still is, in my mind, the best PC on the market, and I still recommend them to anyone.  But Apple's not perfect, and we need to keep that in mind. I will be caveating my recommendations to everyone from now on with those observations.

Finally, I recommend people keep all drinks at least foot away from their computer...