Last week, Apple officially unveiled its iBooks 2 textbook platform where iPad users can download electronic versions of textbooks that are not only interactive, but cheaper too. Apparently, it was just what educators and students were waiting for because early reports are saying that in just its first three days the iBooks store saw 350,000 downloads of e-textbooks.
Apple has partnered with the three textbook publishers Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, who together represent 90 percent of the textbook market. The e-textbooks come equipped with features like 3D animated models, random pop-up quizzes and the ability to create sticky notes on pages and then have them assembled into digital 3 x 5 notecards for use as study aids.
The digital textbooks also come with the advantage of being updated whenever new information comes along, keeping owners from having to purchase subsequent editions. Even with these added elements, high school e-textbooks cost $14.99 or less.
Studies have shown that once a certain threshold of e-books are downloaded, replacing the purchase of hard copy books, the carbon footprint of the e-reader or tablet itself is canceled out and from that point forward users are making a positive environmental impact.
With the size and weight of textbooks, that threshold could be even lower than with a typical book. Between the Amazon's Kindle textbook store and the new Apple textbook store, students now can save their backs, their wallets and help the environment: win-win-win.
via Engadget
Here at EcoGeek we've been long-time supporters of e-book readers. The publishing industry (including books, newspapers and magazines) is a serious environmental threat with a huge carbon footprint and raw materials that result in the harvesting of some 125 million trees per year.
