Apple Education Event Planned for January 19 in NYC

Apple has sent out press invitations to an “education announcement” scheduled for January 19 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. According to AllThingsD, the event is likely to focus on bringing iBooks to the education market, and possibly have ties to iTunes U:

Details beyond that are slim, though we’re told that this is an effort in which Jobs had been involved with in the months prior to his death. That could mean that it’s the textbooks-on-iPads plan that Jobs famously discussed with biographer Walter Isaacson. Fox’s Clayton Morris is hearing something similar.
The textbook market is certainly ripe for digital disruption, but the players that have emerged so far are pumping in a lot of cash with little to show for it.

Currently, no major textbook publishers are partnered with Apple’s iBooks in any significant way. iTunes U offers a wide variety of free college level video courses from top universities, including Stanford University’s popular Developing Apps for iOS 5, and iPhone Programming courses.

It is not expected for the upcoming event to include any new hardware announcements, although the iPad 3 is anticipated for launch as soon as this March.

Update: The New York Times is reporting the event will indeed focus on textbooks:

The event will showcase a new push by Apple into the digital textbook business, but will not feature any new devices, according to a person close to the company who did not want to be identified talking about it before it occurred.

Presumably these text books will be offered on the iBooks platform for iOS.