E-Textbooks Should Be Free-Textbooks

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/01/apple_s_e_textbooks_should_be_free_textbooks_.html

The rules of the game dictate that any effort to move into America’s large and lucrative education publishing industry must be swaddled in pieties, and the electronic textbook initiative announced by Apple last week was no exception. Apple, which is normally willing to state that customers will be willing to pay a premium for superior design, was reduced to platitudes about how “when you integrate photography, video, audio, interactive objects, and Keynote animations right into the page, the material becomes so much more immersive and compelling.” The real truth, of course, is that Apple’s getting into this market to make money, not because they “really believe that technology can make a profound difference in the way teachers teach and students learn.” If digital textbooks are a game-changer for education, what they’ll change is the dollars and cents, cutting prices in a market where high-school textbooks currently sell for over a $100 a pop.