Textbooks for Apple’s Tablet?

Not since Moses came down from Mount Horeb with the Ten Commandments has a tablet been the focus of so much attention. As most of you probably know by now, Apple may introduce its tablet computer on Wednesday (read here).

(The company hasn’t said what the “latest creation” is that Moses — Oops! Did I say Moses? I mean Steve Jobs — will unveil in San Francisco this week, but it’s widely expected to be a gadget called the iPad, or the iSlate, or maybe the iTablet. Whatever Apple calls it, it’s a safe bet that a lower-case “i” will be involved.)

As with just about anything Apple does, the buzz is that it will transform all of our lives. In my mind, one area that can definitely use transforming is the buying, transporting, and eventual disposal of textbooks: especially college texts, which cost a fortune, weigh a ton, and for the most part are of absolutely no use to students once a course is finished. (Except for propping open doors or elevating computer monitors, their utility is nil.) So when I read that Apple is in talks with the education divisions of McGraw-Hill and Hachette Book Group about including educational content on the tablet, I was jazzed. While it’s too late for those of us who bent our backs hauling heavy textbooks around campuses in previous decades, think of the future generations of scholars who will be freed from the burden of textbook hauling. Given Apple’s popularity with the college set, students are a perfect target for the tablet. If (as some have predicted) the tablet’s screen measures about 10 inches diagonally, the device will be bigger than the iPhone and smaller than a MacBook, making it large enough to view blocks of text and small enough to be easily carried around.

The market potential for electronic textbooks hasn’t been lost on major players, such as Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, its rival Follett, and others. Indeed, Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largest bookseller, recently bought its scholastic sister company back from chairman Leonard Riggio in a bid to gain a foothold in the small but growing market for electronic textbooks. Late last year, the #1 operator of college bookstores, Follett, formed Follett Virtual Bookstores to distribute digital textbooks.

While representatives from both McGraw-Hill and Hachette have refused to comment on their private talks with Apple, it makes perfect sense for the tech giant to pursue the education market given its longstanding popularity with students and professors. Students, accustomed to spending hundreds of dollars each semester for books, are apt to be willing adopters of digital texts. (How the prices of electronic vs. paper textbooks will compare still remains to be seen, but there’s potential for substantial savings.) In addition to saving students’ backs, think of the trees that will be spared.

But before I get too carried  away … like the rest of you, I anxiously await Wednesday’s big announcement.

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Photo by Stephen Cummings, used under a Creative Commons license.