Apple scores with digital textbooks and app

USA Today

By Edward Baig

Feb. 1

The sizzling rate at which e-books are growing suggests that digital textbooks almost certainly will be the norm when your kids’ kids are in school. What we don’t know is how quickly a transition to a mostly all-digital textbook education system might happen, how it could affect the way students learn, and which companies will be leading the charge.

Two weeks ago, Apple declared its intention to be at the head of the class, with the unveiling of the iBooks 2 for iPad app and the iBooks textbooks that are the first to exploit the app.

I’ve spent time diving into some of these textbooks on the original iPad and the iPad 2. Initial works in algebra, biology and chemistry come from major educational publishers McGraw-Hill and Pearson. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and DK are also early publishing partners (the latter produces books on dinosaurs, insects and mammals).

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/edwardbaig/story/2012-02-01/apple-ipad-ibooks/52923518/1