iBooks 2: Revelation For (Many) College Students

College text books are way too expensive. Apple hopes to stop this long-lasting trend with the release of the recently-announced iBooks 2 for iOS (and more specifically the iPad), a cheaper and more interactive solution to the age-old paper solution. Before this, shelling out $300 a semester on books was considered a cheap semester, with closer to $500 being the norm. Apple’s pricing of $14.99 or less completely changes the e-textbook game.

With the textbook publishing juggernauts on board, such as McGraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin, and Pearson, many popular textbooks are available in a more environmentally friendly manner. Furthermore, the textbooks contain the ability to create virtual flashcards to study for an exam and can be updated frequently, removing the necessity of buying new editions of textbooks every several years.

There is, however, one big unforgivable caveat. While Apple is certainly establishing an excellent $14.99 or under price point for textbooks that could easily offset the $499 cost of a base iPad, demanding iBooks exclusivity from publishers is inexcusable. If a publisher or author signs on with Apple and uses the iBook Author application to create them, he or she can price his books at any price at or under $14.99 but must stay exclusive to the iBooks 2 platform. While iPads may be the market leader in terms of tablet sales, publishers should be able to release Kindle, Nook, and Android versions of their textbooks so that everyone can benefit from the cheaper business model. By making publishers choose (which means likely iBooks 2), other tablet users, and more importantly, poor college students, can’t take advantage and have to continue suffering through buying expensive dead tree textbooks.

While I applaud Apple’s efforts, I also condemn them their overt superiority and desire for ultimate control not only over their own locked-down iOS, but over the tablet and smartphone markets in general. Regardless of the business acumen of this move, forced exclusivity is wrong and detrimental to students everywhere.