CHE > iPhone Textbook Apps Just Keep Coming

The Chronicle Of Higher Eucation / August 13 2009 / 1:00 pm / Josh Fischman

It may not be great as a phone–don’t scream, Apple fans, but the iPhone has taken some knocks on call quality and battery life, though the latest version has improved–but the iPhone is getting more and more fans as a college-textbook reader.

CourseSmart, an e-textbook supplier, has come out with a reader app that draws on a library of 7,000 college texts from a dozen publishers, including McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Pearson, and Elsevier.

The app is free, and the e-books seem to be cheaper than hardcovers. [snip].

For algebra students who need extra help, Pearson Higher Education has rolled out its AlgebraPrep app, with tutorials and mini-tests you can take at the student union while waiting for class to begin. [snip]

Students can even use the iPhone to buy paper textbooks online. Bigwords, a book-shopping Web site, now offers its own app that does price comparisons of particular books from various online sellers.[snip].

Finally, and this online development has nothing to do with an iPhone, those who don’t want to buy can rent. Cengage Learning, a large publisher, announced today it will start CengageBrain in December.

That Web site will offer students the option of renting books–in either electronic or paper form–and returning them after 60, 90, or 130 days. The company claims the price will be 40 to 70 percent lower than the retail buying option. [snip].

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Source

[http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/iphone-textbook-apps-just-keep-coming]