As Apple’s upcoming education event in New York City draws near, more information is leaking out about what to expect. The latest word on the street is that Apple exec Roger Rosner is in charge of the company’s digital textbooks tools.
The Wall Street Journal believes that Apple is set to unveil a new “digital textbook service” Thursday. As the head of iWork at Apple (Pages, Keynote, and Numbers), Rosner has been working on textbook creation tools for this week’s event.
According to people familiar with the matter, Mr. Rosner—Apple’s vice president for productivity applications, in charge of its iWork document, spreadsheet and presentation software—is closely involved in developing the new digital-textbook service. Apple last week said it was holding an event in New York City on Thursday for an announcement, which people familiar with the matter have said will be around digital textbooks.
Echoing a previous report from Ars Technica, The Journal claims that Apple is set to unveil new self-publishing tools for authors. Thursday will definitely center on the education market:
The announcement isn’t expected to focus on textbooks that exist today, but rather around tools for building digital textbooks, according to these people. That service is expected to be a way for a broad range of schools, publishers and others to develop learning material in a digital format, these people said.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Roger Rosner is listed as Apple’s “Vice President for Productivity Applications.” He has been with Apple for about 11 years. Rosner presented to the public for the first time at WWDC last year when he demoed iCloud. He reports to Internet Software and Services VP Eddy Cue, who is also expected to be involved in this week’s event.
