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New Textbooks for iPad

D

Dustin925

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 4, 2012
3
0
I've been waiting for iBooks to release some real text books, rather than national core versions. They seem very generic, and if anyone knows how college is, they're always forcing us to buy the most current textbooks by sometimes-obscure publishers.
I just wanted to know if anyone knew about any publishers singing on with Apple so that they can really start pumping out a larger selection of textbooks. I'm really excited to see how many of my future courses will be using iPad versions of the text.
 
Dustin925 said:
I've been waiting for iBooks to release some real text books, rather than national core versions. They seem very generic, and if anyone knows how college is, they're always forcing us to buy the most current textbooks by sometimes-obscure publishers.
I just wanted to know if anyone knew about any publishers singing on with Apple so that they can really start pumping out a larger selection of textbooks. I'm really excited to see how many of my future courses will be using iPad versions of the text.
Click to expand...

iBooks textbooks are k-12 right now.

Try Inkling or Kno for college books. Blackboard may have books also. Not sure.
 
Dustin925 said:
I've been waiting for iBooks to release some real text books, rather than national core versions. They seem very generic, and if anyone knows how college is, they're always forcing us to buy the most current textbooks by sometimes-obscure publishers.
I just wanted to know if anyone knew about any publishers singing on with Apple so that they can really start pumping out a larger selection of textbooks. I'm really excited to see how many of my future courses will be using iPad versions of the text.
Click to expand...
It amazing me how many people make it through HS with no literacy skills.

Top K-12 publishers are creating textbooks now.
Click to expand...
http://www.apple.com/education/ibooks-textbooks/

Or, just watch the keynote; then, you wouldn't have to read.

I often used previous edition books from used bookstore. Few changes occur, most professors support students in this in my experience. They may list the newest published version, but the professor should be able to tell you out right how many editions back you can go and still follow lesson plans.
 
I use my iPad for field work on machinery. I have found the app Notability to be very useful for this. I am able to take pictures of a bearing, for example, mark it up to highlight defects in the picture and write notes beside the picture for added detail. For you, this might be helpful in labs.

I also use it to take hand written notes in meetings, so I think you should be able to use it to take class notes as well.

It's my most used app, very happy with it. I also recommend the bamboo stylus and if you do buy one, try to also buy the spare tips as soon as you can, because the tips lasts about 3 months, your mileage may vary. What I'm getting at is Wacom seems to produce these in batches, so if they run out, which they have, then you might be stuck with paying 4 times as much on e-bay...buy extras.
 
Get one of these: ScanSnap S1500

Best scanner I 've purchased. OCR's a 700 pg. book in an hour.
 
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I've had good luck using CourseSmart of e-texbooks. Great iPad and online apps.
 
Ok, i'll just say it....this is totally no worth the time....NOT AT ALL.

Destroying the book, so you can scan it in?

Rebind? Are you kidding me.
 
ZipZap said:
Ok, i'll just say it....this is totally no worth the time....NOT AT ALL.

Destroying the book, so you can scan it in?

Rebind? Are you kidding me.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't rebind, but I would totally do this if I were back in college. Beats lugging around bricks in my bag all around campus.
 
Not sure if this will help, but a lot of the books have PDF versions that you can download, and they are a fraction of the costs of the actual book. I recently downloaded a PDF version of a book for a summer class that I will be taking and have it on my iPad and it looks fine. You may just have to look at multiple different online book stores that sell college books, but you should be able to find them.
 
CourseSmart is Good

I agree, I've had great success with CourseSmart. You can highlight and annotate the textbook and it saves everything for you. Just like writing in the margins, only digital. Best app I've used so far.
 
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