Back to schoolers just got another great reason to convince Mom and Dad to buy them an iPad: CourseSmart, the e-textbook provider, just released an iPad app. Now, you can carry all your textbooks with you on the tablet instead of schlepping a backpack full of dead trees round the campus.
If any device was right for taking to lectures, its the iPad. Unlike a laptop, it doesn?t put a barrier between you and the teacher. It also doesn?t clatter when you type (meaning you can sneak in some YouTubing instead of paying attention) and the battery lasts, like forever. Now, with CourseSmart, it looks pretty perfect.
CourseSmart sells e-textbooks which can already be used on your laptop or your iPhone. The texts are typically cheaper than their paper counterparts and CourseSmart claims to have 90% of ?core textbooks? in its catalog. The iPad app adds a bookshelf (the thumbnail view used by most e-readers), sticky-notes for scrawling onto pages, and a neat thumbnail navigator for quickly finding the right place.
Best of all, the application is free, although you will of course have to buy the books. And if you do lose the iPad Mom and Dad are going to buy you, you?re just a login away from all your texts and notes when you get a replacement. Try that with a book-bag.
CourseSmart for iPad [CourseSmart. Thanks, Jennifer!]
CourseSmart [iTunes]
See Also:
Dual-Screen Tablet Maker Hopes to Reinvent the Textbook
Is the iPad Driving E-Book Piracy, and Does It Matter?
Colleges Dream of Paperless, iPad-centric Education
Why E-Books Are Stuck in a Black-and-White World
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