Apple Inc. recently released a new version of iBooks featuring support for textbooks. These interactive textbooks for the iPad signal the beginning of a new era in textbooks that is nothing if not promising.
    
Just think about it, instead of lugging around a backpack full of 50 lbs. of books, one could lighten their load with a 1.35 lb. iPad. Your back will forever appreciate your decision, especially when scaling The Hill or the sidewalk going up 17th St. north into Fort Sanders.
    
Speaking of giving thanks, your back won’t be the only thing thanking you for the change. Your wallet may be even more grateful for the change. As any current or former college or high school student knows, textbooks are anything but cheap. Dropping hundreds of dollars a year for books that will only be used for nine months at most is disheartening for many.
    
If you are a member of the aforementioned throng of the dejected, fear not! Apple is here to save the day, offering textbooks priced at $14.99 or less. This is not a typo — I repeat again $14.99 or less. That number must impress even the staunchest PC supporter.
    
While digital textbooks are by no means a new and innovative idea at this point, they are by no means flawless. Books are expensive, but paying the same price for a series of letters and numbers is even worse.
    
However, if you don’t already own an iPad, the $499 retail price of the iPad 2 calls for some serious deliberation. In the short run, the difference in price between buying physical copies of the texts and purchasing an iPad with the interactive textbooks from iBooks causes one to think carefully before switching away from traditional books.
    
One thing that comes to mind during this deliberation is that when buying the bound version of a book is resale. The current format of texts on the web is a 180-day rental that can cost as much as $100. For an incoming freshman, the long run money saved from buying books for $14.99 or less through Apple could sway parents minds when sending their children off to college.
    
There’s also the difference in reading a printed book against a screen. There is little doubt that the strain on your eyes would be higher when spending hours reading for class on an iPad.
    
Furthermore, the ability to highlight and annotate your reading is an important aspect of fully engaging yourself in your studies. While the interactive nature of the iPad allows a user to do some of these things, it’s possible that a significant amount of the cognitive learning process is lost along the way.
    
Nonetheless, the convenience factor can’t be discounted. The ability to buy literary books and textbooks in the same place in the comfort of your home is nice. Howaever, a physical book can’t suddenly stop working. If your tablet ran out of battery at the library and you’re there without your charger, the iPad might not seem as convenient.
    
The first textbooks to be added will be for introductory high school courses, which brings up an interesting aspect of this change: high schools. Will schools struggling with funding be able to stomach the upfront cost of a mass order of $499 iPads? The long run savings are beneficial, but the benefits can’t be enjoyed if a school doesn’t have the funding to make the leap to the interactive age of textbooks.
    
On top of that, in an age with increasingly shorter attention spans, it may be difficult for some students to reel in the desire to make a quick switch from a statistics or philosophy book to the much more appealing Words with Friends or Angry Birds. Students playing games on cell phones during class has already been a notable issue that high schools have dealt with, and an iPad makes taking down those evil pigs with your avian army just that much more enjoyable.
    
On the business side, this is a seemingly impeccable move by Apple. During a quarter that saw the loss of one of the most imaginative minds of our generation, Apple more than doubled their profits. With this move, it appears that Apple might be able to continue this momentum in 2012. The change could substantially increase iPad sales and make up for an impending decline in iPhone sales as customers await the release of the iPhone 5, which is rumored to be this summer. As of now, this change seems to be a win for both the student and Apple investors.


— Ashton Smith is a sophomore in communications. He can be reached at ssmit192@utk.edu.