I couldn't find a thread about this since January, so did anyone try using electronic copies this semester? I just downloaded a couple of samples of my textbooks for this previous spring semester from the kindle app and I am considering going all iPad for my textbooks in the summer. I like the ability to search throughout the entire book, although I didn't like that there wasn't matching page numbers to the real books. Could make it a little difficult to find assignments posted by page number. Any other apps better than kindle that helps you do this?
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Textbooks on iPad?
- Thread starter Ghderf
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I used the Coursesmart app for one of my classes on both my iphone and Ipad 2 (once I got one) worked great.
My other classes had normal books that I got on the Kindle App.
No Complaints here.
Although with coursesmart, at least for my book, I just digitally rented it. However that doesn't stop you from going through and taking screen caps and making a photo album of the pics if you either want to save copies of the book, or if you only have a wifi ipad and need to read away from a wifi access point.
If you access on your computer, coursesmart lets you print pages, but only in small batches, but that is useful for printing out vocab terms, or questions for homework.
My other classes had normal books that I got on the Kindle App.
No Complaints here.
Although with coursesmart, at least for my book, I just digitally rented it. However that doesn't stop you from going through and taking screen caps and making a photo album of the pics if you either want to save copies of the book, or if you only have a wifi ipad and need to read away from a wifi access point.
If you access on your computer, coursesmart lets you print pages, but only in small batches, but that is useful for printing out vocab terms, or questions for homework.
I say to google the Name of the text book you need and put ebook after it. And if all else fails you can search for the PDF version of your textbook and download it from the iPad to iBooks, and I believe you can still use that search feature.
One downside of Kindle is the lack of page numbers. If your assignment is to read pages 45-67 and answer the questions on p 68 your going to have hunt around a bit to find the material. Not a game stopper but it is something to consider.
Do books expire on Coursesmart? Out of my 8 textbooks, only one came up and it was $10 cheaper than a text version I can keep... Bout to tell the school to go f itself with all these "custom" books that can only be bought at the school.
I used Kindle for iPad this year for all my school textbooks. I love the search and the different font sizes, and since they added real page numbers to most of the books, it makes it super simple to follow along in class since the iPad's page != real textbook page.
A lot of etextbooks allow you to just rent for the semester. The rental price is roughly comparable to buying a book, and reselling it at the end of the semester.
The one I got was for 180 days of use, but I think they have full ecopies too.
You can always take screen caps to make your own copy.
You access the coursesmart books online, so if you only have a wifi iPad like me, making you own copies as you need works. Coursesmart also lets you print copies, but that wastes paper.
I think I would rather pay $10 more and get a hard copy and be able to sell it later...I thought about this before but none of my books are ever available 
I think I would rather pay $10 more and get a hard copy and be able to sell it later...I thought about this before but none of my books are ever available
In my case it was like $60 for the digital copy, and $120 for a hard copy.
It's been a couple of semesters since I used course smart. At the time, as Kupp said, you had access to the material for 180 days and were permitted to print a certain number of pages a day. They offered two options, one you could access the material from any computer but you had to have an Internet connection, with the second option you could access the material off line but were tied to a single computer. I tried the first option. The user experience was OK but nothing markedly better than a real text book. My opinion was for the minimal savings over a text book, maybe $10, it really wasn't worth it. This was before I had my iPad2. I might consider giving it another try but so far I've been able to find the books I need on Kindle or Safari Books Online.
I hate those damn custom books too. So expensive and you cant even sell them back for much. Ive also had clases where you have to buy the online version to hand in the hw. They just keeping finding more ways to make money for publishers who add 1 paragraph to a textbook and make it a new edition.