Is Apple Planning to Make E-Publishing Easy for Everyone?

Reports are coming in that Apple’s Jan. 19, 2012, media event, once originally thought to focus more on textbooks and education, actually will focus more on the publishing than educational aspect of textbooks. Here’s the scoop …

ArsTechnica has some deep connections somewhere, because according to a lengthy report, people familiar with the event have told Ars that Apple is unleashing something akin to “Garage Band for e-books.” Essentially, it will be a simple application that can make it easy to develop, build and publish a complete interactive text. Considering Apple’s track record for easy-to-use software, including iMovie, iPhoto and Garage Band, I see no reason why iPublish — or something similar — can’t exist.

ArsTechnica takes the position that Apple wants to help standardized and proliferate the ePub 3 format and could be looking to standardize authoring software for e-books. According to Ars:

There’s also word that the late Steve Jobs was intimately involved, but that comes as no surprise.

As an avid digital reader, I’ve seen everything from brilliantly designed digital publications (New Yorker Magazine for iPad) to atrocities (scanned-in PDF books). But there is no one single method of attacking the digital content industry. Since many media-focused companies already are in love with Apple, this new possible application not only could be revolutionary, it also could change the way sites such as ours operate. For instance, could you imagine waking up to The VAR Guy’s interactive e-publication each morning instead of the blog we all know and love? That might not be to far off … maybe?

It’s all speculation until Apple takes the stage  Jan. 19 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Considering the location, however, I suspect Apple has a bit more to unveil than just a new piece of software.