I have previously written about my frustration With
<https://9to5mac.com/2019/02/09/apple-software-rot/> iBooks Author and
<https://9to5mac.com/2020/05/30/itunes-u/> iTunes U, and Apple has now
announced both of these products are being discontinued. iBooks Author will
no longer be updated, and iTunes U is being discontinued at the end of 2021.
iBooks Author will continue to work, but you'll need to make
<https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211136> preparations to transition to
Pages in the near future. Much of the functionality from iBooks Author has
made its way into Pages over the past few update cycles. This announcement
shouldn't come as much of a surprise as we never saw iBooks Author
transition into Apple Books Author or include a native iPad app. Apple will
be including an import function in a future version of Pages.
iBooks Author will no longer be updated, and it won't be available to new
users as of July 1, 2020. If you've previously downloaded the app, you can
still access it from your App Store purchase history. You can continue to
use iBooks Author on macOS 10.15 and earlier, and books previously published
to Apple Books from iBooks Author will remain available.
If you have iBooks Author books you'd like to import into Pages, a book
import feature is coming to Pages soon. It will allow you to open and edit
iBooks Author files (.iba) in Pages.
Apple has also announced that iTunes U will be
<https://support.apple.com/guide/itunesu/welcome/web> discontinued at the
end of 2021 (not the 2021 school year). I
<https://9to5mac.com/2020/05/30/itunes-u/> published a recent article about
how the lack of updates from Apple regarding iTunes U has led to Google
Classroom growing in popularity during COVID-19.
Apple has been hard at work building the next generation of apps for both
teachers and students:
* Classroom turns your iPad into a powerful teaching assistant,
helping teachers guide students through a lesson, see their progress, and
keep them on track.
* Schoolwork helps teachers save time and maximize each student's
potential by making it easy for teachers to share class materials, get
students to a specific activity in an app, collaborate with students, and
view student progress.
In addition to Classroom and Schoolwork, Apple also introduced Apple School
Manager to enable IT Administrators to easily manage iPads, Macs, Apple TV,
Apple IDs, books, and apps, while ensuring data is kept secure and private.
Apps such as Pages, Numbers, Keynote, GarageBand, iMovie, Clips, and Swift
Playgrounds have education-specific features that are used regularly by
teachers and students.
With this in mind, Apple will discontinue iTunes U at the end of 2021.
iTunes U will continue to be available to all existing customers through the
2020-2021 educational year.
Much of the content in iTunes U can easily be transitioned into platforms
like Apple Podcasts and Apple Books. If you are publishing private content
in iTunes U, Apple recommends using
<https://9to5mac.com/2020/05/26/apple-schoolwork-app/> Schoolwork going
forward. iTunes U will continue to be available to all existing users
through the 2020-2021 educational year before it is discontinued at the end
of 2021, so if you're school or university had plans to continue to use
iTunes U, you have a full academic year to make plans.
By <https://9to5mac.com/author/bradleychambers/> Bradley Chambers
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