Apple Enters the Digital Textbook Market

They say that many school texts become outdated as soon as they have come off the printing press. When I was in high school, our texts were so old (how old were they?), in my junior year we took up a collection to buy new history books just to find out how the Korean War turned out. (Rim shot)

When Apple announced its entry into the digital textbook arena last week, my initial reaction was, "It's about time." We’ve been hearing about the “coming age” of digital textbooks for years now. What has been missing however is a common platform and a solid distribution channel. With the widespread use of the iPad and Apple’s iBooks Store, those two problems may have finally been overcome. Granted, other tablet makers can rightly charge that Apple is trying to corner a market, but I hope that just motivates them to compete and to invest in the effort to push the digital text market into the mainstream once and for all.

In the four or five months that I've owned an iPad, I find myself reading far more than I used to. I often have two or three books going at the same time, depending on my mood, and the iPad lets me carry a small library without the bulky weight associated with printed books. I know the argument that an ebook will never replace the printed text and I don't disagree with it, but for many people, me included, the digital text opens up all kinds of possibilities and options.

One of the most attractive features of digital texts is weight, or rather, the lack of it. Last fall, I purchased a digital version of The Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America and published digitally by Inkling. The print version of this book weighs nearly 7.5 pounds. The digital version, of course, weighs no more than the iPad, but has far more going for it. It includes video demonstrations of various culinary techniques, hyperlinked text (what was the definition of remouillage again?) and interactive quizzes at the end of each section to reinforce the lessons.

Interactive texts are not new. Publishers like Inkling have been experimenting with them for several years. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has offered several iPad textbooks to students since 2010. The company claims that students using the digital texts scored approximately 20 percent higher than their textbook-using peer.

You can see what digital texts have to offer with some sample chapters of E.O. Wilson's Life on Earth, available free from the iBooks Store. The book is a stunning achievement of text and interactivity to make learning more complete. Chapters include beautifully photographed slideshows that illustrate, for example, what the world’s deserts and tundra regions look like. Students can tap a photo to see a video of Wilson himself explain what an ecosystem is, or they can slide a finger across a global map to see how the latitudes of peak photosynthesis change with the seasons.

If this is the future of textbooks, I say bring it on.

As I write this, there are eight titles available in the iBooks Store. In addition to Wilson’s book, there are titles from Pearson (Biology andEnvironmental Science) and McGraw Hill (Chemistry, Geometry, Algebra I, Biology, and Physics). The books are each maximally priced at $14.99. That’s some savings, considering Amazon lists the Pearson Biology book for $78.49, and the McGraw Hill Chemistry book for $111.96. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is said to be revamping its offerings (which currently sell for $59.99) for the iBooks store. The initial releases are geared to high school students, but college-level texts won’t be far behind.

The other attractive feature of the texts is that they are always current. In 1990 I was fortunate to win a complete set of Grolier encyclopedias. But by the end of 1991, the Soviet Union had collapsed rendering at least the “S” volume obsolete. But digital texts can be updated as needed. With rapid advances in medicine and science, this capability will make it easier for today's college students to become the doctors and scientists of tomorrow.

But wait—there’s more. Building on the success of its iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand applications, Apple has also released iBooks Author, an app that makes it easy for anyone to create and distribute an interactive digital text. In this economy, as publishers increasingly cut back on the print titles they release, iBooks Author offers an attractive option for professors and researchers to get their work out. (Note: The iBook Author agreement stipulates that if the book you create will be offered at no cost, you can distribute it any way that you want. If, however, you plan to charge money for your book, you must use Apple as your distribution method, and the company gets a cut of your profit.)

So, Apple may be able to do with digital textbooks what it did with music distribution and apps. If successful, it will save paper, printing, and distribution costs, and if initial studies are correct it may improve how students learn. And we may find out how the Korean War ended.