Apple News Discontinuing services relatively rare, but today the company has announced the end of two of them: the iBooks Author it’s the iTunes U.
iBooks Author
IBooks Author, for those who do not know, is a service brought by the company at the time of the launch of Apple Books (then called iBooks) which allows authors to write, edit and publish their own books directly in the company store, without the intermediation of a publisher.
Today, Apple announced that the service will no longer be updated and will no longer be offered to new users from next july. Anyone who has downloaded the app will still be able to retrieve it in the Mac App Store’s shopping area, and it will continue to run on macOS Catalina or below even after that date; books previously published by iBooks Author will continue to be normally available on Apple Books.
In order not to let writers see ships, Apple announced that the next updates to the Pages will bring specific resources for writing and publishing books. The word processor has had similar capabilities for years, but will receive extra tools, such as the possibility to import books; Apple published a support document for users who want to transition from iBooks Author to Pages.
Sorry, app not found.
Pages
in Apple
Version 10.1 (299.9 MB) Requires macOS 10.14 or superior
iTunes U
ITunes U, in turn, is Apple’s tool integrated with iTunes that can be used to distribute educational material in schools and universities – elements like books, videos, podcasts, audios and more. Through it, teachers can also monitor the performance of students’ tasks and give individual guidance to each student.
If this description is familiar, it is because Apple has introduced more modern tools for similar purposes in recent years: Classroom (Classroom) it’s the School Project (Schoolwork) are applications integrated with frameworks and recent Apple technologies, with a more dynamic approach and expanded functionality. As a result, iTunes U lost its function.
Therefore, Apple has announced that it will discontinue the platform on end of 2021. ITunes U will be fully supported by the company during the 2020-21 school year; then, education professionals using the service will be encouraged to make the transition to the Classroom and School Project apps.
The company announced that iTunes U will soon gain support for ClassKit so that teachers and institutions can more easily transition from content to new apps. Those who prefer can also export their materials from iTunes U to third-party platforms or specific education systems.
iTunes U
in Apple
Version 3.7.4 (40.3 MB) Requires iOS 11.0 or superior
And so humanity walks, therefore.
