Image by Sam Webster

When Apple unveiled three new pieces of educational software this week, it also presented its vision for the future of education. The iBooks 2 platform will allow students to download fully interactive digital textbooks (350,000 textbooks have reportedly already been downloaded), while the iBooks Author tool will make it easier for authors to create and publish digital textbooks and other types of books. The third new product, the iTunes U app, will help educators create digital courses. These new applications leverage the iPad’s tablet technology and help position the iPad as the next big thing in education.
Today’s textbooks are impersonal texts that present static information for students to absorb. This format has changed very little since textbooks were first introduced. The digital textbooks that Apple demoed this week are dynamic, making full use of touch-screen interactivity, animated illustrations, audio and video. They are more personal, more interesting and more fun than traditional textbooks. According to Apple, iBooks 2 have the potential to transform how students learn.
By establishing itself as a leader in digital textbooks and curriculum, Apple hopes to put itself at the forefront of school modernization. This isn’t the first time the company has been in this position. The Apple II computer was widely marketed to K-12 schools in the late 1970s, making it the first computer that many students used. It was followed by the Macintosh in the 1980s, which introduced students to the type of graphical, windows-based interface that can now be found on all personal computers.
Placing Apple and Macintosh computers in the classroom was not only good for education, it was smart marketing. Apple influenced an entire generation of students and teachers who now have enormous loyalty to the company. When Apple turned its focus to personal technology, including the iPod, iPhone and iTouch, the company had a large base of customers who had already formed an emotional connection to the Apple brand.
Apple’s support for education can be traced back to founder Steve Jobs. In Walter Isaacson’s recent biography, textbooks are mentioned as the next business that Jobs wanted to transform. The book mentions Jobs’ concern about the heavy textbook-filled backpacks that many kids lug around all day, as well as his interest in tapping into the $8 billion in annual textbook revenue. Before his death, Jobs met with some of the leading textbook publishers to discuss joint publishing ventures. It appears that iBooks 2 is Steve Jobs’ final legacy in education.
Still, many questions remain unanswered following Apple’s new product announcement: Are digital textbooks a practical alternative to traditional textbooks? Will a lower-priced version of the iPad make iBooks 2 accessible to all students? Will Apple be able to control the quality of textbooks offered in their iBookstore? The answer to these questions and others will determine the success of Apple’s latest venture into the education market.

I avoided buying textbooks at all costs while in college. I knew I would only use them temporarily (if at all), and their high prices would have put a major cramp in my limited college budget.

I remember once discussing the issue with the dean of our business school. After bringing up my concerns, he asked me if I knew who the number one seller of textbooks on campus was.

I answered, “Amazon?”

He said, “No, the university is.”

While some students prefer to own their textbooks, there are other solutions. Check out Chegg.

Chegg allows you to rent textbooks and return them when you are done with free shipping. If I was going into college now, I would be using this.

In the face of sinking retail sales, textbook companies are turning to an old concept for a new system: rentals. With the advent of electronic books, improved and more readily accessible study guides, and the economic recession, textbook manufacturers have found their consumers noticeably timid to shell-out money for standard textbook purchases. While used textbooks have been popular for decades, new technology has made purchasing used textbooks easier, and has also offered students additional alternatives to buying new textbooks. Though the idea of renting textbooks is certainly not new, healthy demand for purchasing new textbooks made the jump to rentals unnecessary; until now.

Online textbook rental websites, such as Chegg and Bookrenter.com have rented textbooks to students for the past few years; however, as the New York Times recently reported, industry giants such as Cengage Learning and McGraw-Hill have announced that they will now offer a rental option for textbooks. Bookrenter, founded in 2006, claims to be the first online book rental store. With a user-friendly interface reminiscent of more mainstream booksellers, Bookrenter pledges in its mission statement to “reinvent the traditional bookstore by providing a convenient, cost effective alternative to retail book sales.” It would seem that we are now witnessing this transformation in the textbook industry 3 years later. Cengage rentals already offer textbooks at prices as low as 40% the price of a standard retail purchase.

Textbook rentals are now even making the jump to physical bookstores. Barnes and Noble is testing out a textbook rental program at hundreds of college campus bookstores. Hundreds more college bookstores have announced similar rental programs. While textbook manufacturers would rather sell books at standard retail prices, rental programs could significantly boost revenue lost through resold textbooks. When a student purchases a textbook, and subsequently chooses to sell the book used, the textbook’s publisher only profits off of the initial purchase. Used textbooks can circulate for years, without publishers ever seeing any more profits than the initial purchase. However, with rentals, textbook publishers and authors can repeatedly profit through rentals of the same copy of a textbook. The government has even become involved, with millions of dollars pledged towards textbook rental programs through the Higher Education Opportunity Act. Indeed, the recent move to rentals should soon find students happy with lower book costs, and publishers happier with steady profits.