CourseSmart Brings 7,000+ Textbooks to the iPhone and iPod Touch

[Surely]

If executed correctly Apple cements the education market, and makes bucco bucks! If executed poorly we still get the tablet mac. This could turn tablet from a niche market to mainstream if students embrace having text on a portable device. E-readers might be a niche market, but college students not so much!

E-textbooks for college students is still a niche market.

Hmmm... I always thought that a laptop was a portable device.

Nothing replaces having a real textbook.

 

[twoodcc]

sounds perfect for a tablet.

 

[mac*jedi*g]

Yeah, it's called a laptop. You don't need a new tablet device to do any of that.

Not necessarily true.

For the sake of saving space, if you had a tablet device it would be lighter and less cumbersome than a laptop. Plus, you have touchscreen advantage here as well. If my suspicions are true, one of the interface for the device will be 'write to text'. Can you imaging having the ability to extract notes from your textbook application from cut and paste > place them on the side> go back to them and add your own notations without using a keyboard or a mouse. When you are a student most of the time you are in a classroom jotting down notes from the lesson, or lecture. Many times, the notes are incoherently written while you are trying to copy from the textbook, and what is on the board to a notepad. And if you have a laptop, it becomes a device that is in your way, because, in many cases, it's not a device you could use during the class is instruction (at least not in HS.) A tablet does what it does -- organize your thoughts temporarily. In this case, you can back them up.

 

[BTW]

Is this a potential lawsuit for Apple. Reading websites is one thing but the amount of reading required for some classes is huge. Consider the eye strain on such a small screen. I certainly couldn't do it for the same number of hours of reading I did when I was in school.

 

[theheadguy]

Books will never be replaced or go out of style.

Are you joking?

Honest question.

 

[wackymacky]

Crap App for a iPhone! (I've tried to read journal articals on my iPhone and my eyes ache after a few minutes)

On the the other hand, a tablet. Well thats another story. Perhapps Apps like this would tempt me to by a tablet.

(Mind you I already have access to >100 text books and >1'000 journals on my iPhone (wifi or 3g) via my works subscriptions to various services .....ummmm... I think I am just selling my self a tablet.)

 

[phillyeagles615]

TURKEY.

If Apple had a larger format, like a TABLET, this might be worth it. Digging around and spending hours squinting at an iPhone for school work is insane.

for sure. who is going to actually study from an iphone screen? this is a cool feature but doesn't seem very realisitic

 

[Simgar988]

Extreme fail. This makes the textbook no cheaper than buying the physical book. In fact, I would say it's more expensive for the electronic version. For most textbooks, you can buy used and sell used, and you would be out of pocket much, much less than "50% of corresponding printed editions".

Example. New textbook costs $150. That would make the electronic version $75 and I can't sell it back when I'm done. You could buy that same textbook used at the bookstore for about $100 and sell it back for $50 when you're done, for an out-of-pocket cost of $50. And I don't have to squint at a tiny iPhone screen for hours upon hours.

Maybe it's different for other kinds of books, but I primarily used math and engineering textbooks (which themselves are really just math books) throughout college, and looking at a tiny screen full of math equations is not my idea of a good time. There's something about being able to physically flip between pages and having a sense of where certain equations can be found physically within the book; most math books aren't read linearly and there's a lot of flipping back and forth.

When the textbooks are free or only cost like $5 per subscription, then let's talk.

free or $5? Yea, right...

It's kind of a rip because no one buys text books new anyway. It's just frustrating that it expires. There should be an option of renewal for a much cheap price. Interesting coincidence, but the biology book that is in the trial is the biology book I use. Ive used it in three classes over the past three semesters and need it again. As much as I'd love to use the ebook, 75x4= 300 bucks, which is much more expensive than the hard copy

 

[dtlm]

first post

This is the future guys! Publishers are going to come out with completely interactive textbooks eventually, and actually they have some now, sure you wont be able to sell them back, and going to amazon or half.com is the cheapest way, however with coursesmart...

you can copy and paste what you want into a text document and then print it, and you only have to print the chapters or highlights (notes) you've made required by your professor. So, if you're concerned about the environment this is probably your best bet. Besides, I hate lugging around a bunch of books, and most of the time I don't need them in class, but i like them for reference anyways.

I've used a coursesmart book before, there great, but ill be honest, i would get the downloadable version myself, and this would be GREAT with a TABLET or , probably not the best for your iphone!

you can see the demos on their site
http://www.coursesmart.com/videostudent

 

[jason221]

Interesting idea.

 

[guifa]

How is this any better than the PDF version of the last textbook I bought? Mine came with a CD with review sheets and a PDF edition of the entire textbook. And the PDF lasts forever and doesn't expire, PLUS I get the physical edition as well.

THAT'S the model of the future if you ask me. And it's been here for a while. A lot of textbooks I've seen follow the book+pdf or otherwise digital approach.

 

[Burnsey]

This is incredible! It would be great for college students who just quickly on the spot need to look something up.

 

[uberamd]

I have tried digital, and sorry but I still want a paper copy of my book. Easier to flip through pages, don't need to stare at a screen to read it, can highlight with real marker, and can return to the store after the semester is up. Digital books just don't cut it for me yet.

 

[villageindian]

To be honest, I agree with that statement partly. Reading a book on a computer screen strains your eyes after a certain period of time, which varies among people. But still squinting to read the text legibly is pretty hard no matter if you have 20/20 vision.

Secondly, there are some people like me who like the crisp smell and turning of paper. There are some like me who prefer to keep a paper copy of books that contain fundamental knowledge and have no need to buy constant updates or revisions with the latest information. An occasional need with major updates is fine.

Thirdly, how does one take notes in this? I can paste a Post-It note on that page or insert a small page with notes. On a electronic device, how do i do it? On a separate piece of paper and store it with my other papers? Or on an electronic device on which you read this? Just imagine if someone activated a kill switch to replace the old edition with a new edition and you stored notes with the old edition? Or an update that wipes out old notes stored in the device? Oh wait............

Fourthly, this is DRM at its best and worst. Best because things are electronic and saves paper. Worst because it is valid for 6 months as well as the cost involved in purchasing and unable to get a refund.

Edit: One thing i forgot to add: Is the text a scanned version of the book and then converted to read properly on an iPhone? Or is it completely re-written from scratch for an optimized version of iPhone? If it is optimized like Stanza does, then it might be fine. But if it is a scanned PDF, you need a large screen or a paper copy of the page for reading and notes.

Are you joking?

Honest question.

 

[mambodancer]

I have tried digital, and sorry but I still want a paper copy of my book. Easier to flip through pages, don't need to stare at a screen to read it, can highlight with real marker, and can return to the store after the semester is up. Digital books just don't cut it for me yet.

Have you checked out the latest versions of the eBook readers like Stanza and the Kindle app? You can annotate text, look up definitions and bookmark pages. Very cool. And that's just the beginning.

 

[FF_productions]

TURKEY.

If Apple had a larger format, like a TABLET, this might be worth it. Digging around and spending hours squinting at an iPhone for school work is insane.

Hit the nail right on the head. I didn't even have to go to the second page.

This is why we need a tablet, not everybody can whip out a little iPhone and read textbooks and study for exams on a small screen like that.

 

[frankly]

Renting the book for 180 days? I didn't know they could rape people any worse on textbook costs.

Just buy your books on something like half.com and save yourself money and have something at the end of class that has actual resell value.

Many people get rid of their books after the semester and sell them for less than half the original price. This isn't the right answer for everyone but it works for some. Let's not forget a few other things:

1) It takes time to list a book online and ship it when it sells.
2) A new edition can be released during the semester making a used copy of the previous edition worthless.

So I'm assuming this is an extension of the e-books you already have through them, and you don't have to pay for an additional subscription for iPhone friendly books, right? This last semester I had an e-book through them, and for the most part it was really nice to be rid of one more book (although sometimes I missed the ability to flip back and forth through the pages)

That is correct. I'm a professor so I have access to many textbooks through the CourseSmart website and I downloaded the app, logged in, and had instant access to all of them on my iPhone.

Most books that I have are reference manuals for my job (computer helpdesk & administration) so the kind of stuff I want to hold on to for a few years. While expensive at first, I don't have to pay to use them over & over again.

Let's not forget that many courses taken while earning a degree are non-major courses. I don't think you would necessarily save the books from history, english, etc.

50% of a retail, physical textbook?
this is outrageously expensive.

and then the material disappears after 180 days?

if there is a market for soft copies of textbooks then this company has set up its business model for failure. waaaaay too expensive. what are their competitors doing? where will their competitors be with their pricing in 6 months time?

How much of the cost of a textbook do you think covers printing it? Do you think it is 50%? More than 50%? Then why do you think this price is so outrageous. Sure, we would all like things to be cheaper. I would love for the overall price of textbooks to be cheaper for my students but I don't think that comparatively speaking 50% of the printed cost is outrageous.

Personally, I try to select books that I know my students will be able to buy online used for much less than the retail price if they so choose. But not all teachers do that. A colleague of mine selected a book that cost close to $200. I guarantee you that some students would love to pay 50% of that cost if they were given the option.

The one thing that concerns me is if someone stole my iPhone or it broke...there goes $1,000 in textbooks too. I'd hope I could re-download it or re-sync it from iTunes!

These aren't on your iPhone. They are downloaded from the Internet after you sign into the app. Note that if you purchase books this way you also have access to them via www.coursesmart.com

Books will never be replaced or go out of style.

Text books are HEAVY. Imagine only having to carry your laptop. What about going to the library to work on some homework and just carrying your iPhone. I wouldn't recommend reading the entire book on your iPhone but this is a great way to access the end of chapter exercises or to look up something quickly.

As a professor (or anyone actually using their books in real life), you need these books later in life. I still have many of my college books. To be honest, most people don't *really* learn it until later in life,when they are working. That is when the book starts to make sense.

Do you still own ALL of the books you used while in college?

When the textbooks are free or only cost like $5 per subscription, then let's talk.

Spoken by someone that has no idea the time and effort it takes to write a text book.

How is this any better than the PDF version of the last textbook I bought? Mine came with a CD with review sheets and a PDF edition of the entire textbook.

It isn't but how was the PDF secured?

 

[LanPhantom]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A400 Safari/528.16)

Has no one thought of the massive Ecology savings here?? Paper books are so yesterday. I'm no tree hugger, but you can't talk about global warming without mentioning the massive raping of our forests to print paper books that will get lost, forgotten or trashed. Resale business will go away once this goes mainstream. Costs will come down and collages will start subsidizing the price on certain courses. This is the future people, you guys who love paper, better stock up on sun screen too!

--LanPhantom

 

[designgeek]

This is awesome! I love technology.

 

[spillproof]

Eh, I guess it is "cool"

 

[mgauss7]

At $ 100 a book I'd rather carry it

For the price of textbooks I'd rather at least get some paper per $ 100 per book

 

[H. Flower]

It's simply a terrible idea, much like trying to watch a movie on your phone.

 

[DanielWestman]

Seth Godin has written a post that pretty much sums up my opinion on textbooks:Add

I've spent the last few months looking at marketing textbooks. I'm assuming that they are fairly representative of textbooks in general, and since this is a topic I'm interested in, it seemed like a good area to focus on.

As far as I can tell, assigning a textbook to your college class is academic malpractice.

They are expensive. $50 is the low end, $200 is more typical. A textbook author in Toronto made enough money from his calculus textbook to afford a $20 million house. This is absurd on its face.........

They don't make change. Textbooks have very little narrative. They don't take you from a place of ignorance to a place of insight. Instead, even the best marketing textbooks surround you with a fairly non-connected series of vocabulary words, oversimplified problems and random examples.

They're out of date and don't match the course. The 2009-2010 edition of the MKTG textbook, which is the hippest I could find, has no entries in the index for Google, Twitter, or even Permission Marketing.

They don't sell the topic. Textbooks today are a lot more colorful and breezy than they used to be, but they are far from engaging or inspirational..........

They are incredibly impractical. Not just in terms of the lessons taught, but in terms of being a reference book for years down the road.......

In a world of wikipedia, where every definition is a click away, it's foolish to give me definitions to memorize. Where is the context?

The solution seems simple to me. Professors should be spending their time devising pages or chapterettes or even entire chapters on topics that matter to them, then publishing them for free online. (it's part of their job, remember?) When you have a class to teach, assemble 100 of the best pieces, put them in a pdf or on a kindle or a website (or even in a looseleaf notebook) and there, you're done......

This industry deserves to die. It has extracted too much time and too much money and wasted too much potential......

[Update: got more mail about this post than any other post ever. People pointed to Flatworld and to Quirk, and so far, more than 94% of the letters aggressively agree with me. Most of the people are either students, parents of students, former students or other disgruntled customers that are tired of being ripped off by a senseless, broken system. I also heard from a handful of people who said that I was jealous, that the union won't permit the system to change, that textbooks are really good, that professors are underpaid, that professors are too busy or (possibly and) that I'm delusional. I'll note that not one of these letters came from a textbook user.]

I typically pay $50-100 for a new textbook. As long as no major updates are released in a new edition the resell value on my university is typically around 50%. So if a new book costs $100 I can buy a used one for $50 and sell it for $50 the year after.

Let´s say the cost to print a textbook is 50% of the retail price. If a textbook is $100 you pay $50 for the knowledge in the book and the rest to cover the cost of printing. So paying $50 for the electronic version and then being forced to return it after X couple of days is far from a fair deal.

Textbooks are way too expensive relative to the value they bring. Most of the info you find in a textbook you can find for free on places like Wikipedia. I´ve played with the thought that the Swedish education system would embrace the internet, get rid of textbooks, and instead spend a couple million dollars on compiling open source 'textbooks' that are free for all. They could then lower the monthly grant($370) that all >200,000 university students in Sweden get. If each student buys books for $200 each semester the Swedish government would save ~$80 million per year with this new model. That´s $80 million that now (mostly) ends up in the publishers hands.

As for paper vs ebooks, I hate reading books on the computer. I want to hold something in my hand, underline it with a marker, have something to put in my bookshelf. I think a tablet would kick ass though. I love the thought of being able to carry with me all my favorite books where ever I go.

A drawback to digital books: Imagine if we only had e-books. Then imagine some maniac blowing up an EMP bomb that covers the whole world. Then all written knowledge would be destroyed in a second! Not a likely scenario, but still..

 

[uberamd]

Have you checked out the latest versions of the eBook readers like Stanza and the Kindle app? You can annotate text, look up definitions and bookmark pages. Very cool. And that's just the beginning.

I also can't imagine any serious college student reading their books on a small screen like that. I am already paying $1100 just for the single class, more in many cases, so why be a cheapskate and try to save $50 on a book?

I actually had a real Kindle for a few weeks, as well as the kindle and stanza app. Not for me. Convenient? Sure, but for the books that are targeted at me (mainly programming books), trying to use a small screen or a kindle is a disaster. The way the Kindle formats the code snips was a nightmare.

 

[bytethese]

Subscriptions are priced at an average of approximately 50% that of corresponding printed editions, although the electronic versions typically expire after 180 days and resale is not permitted.

Sorry, but I think this is the stupidest thing ever, at least for grad students such as myself. Anyone who is serious about their field would keep their textbooks for reference material. Sure the price is more attractive, but after 6mo you can't reference it any longer? What if you took a later course that used that same book as a secondary title? I like the idea here but expiring? No way.