iBooks Rumored to Include College Material Soon

There are some rumors about Apple carrying college textbooks in its iBookstore in the near future, according to a new report. And it seems pretty much everyone is open to the idea.

A new report quotes several people dealing with education today regarding this rumor.

Daniel Koelsch, Titan tech supervisor in the Titan Bookstore, recently picked up on the rumors about Apple already planning to extend its textbook offerings to include college material.

He said, “They changed their iBooks app, so that it would have more interactive textbooks within it. They’re making a big push so that they can get textbooks into the digital era.”

“They plan to go into the college market, to my understanding,” Koelsch said. “The prices there, obviously, aren’t going to be that low – publishers don’t want to go that low; they want to make that money.”

Nattaya Mathitak, a 24 year-old Art illustration major is open to the idea of Apple expanding its textbook initiative to include what she needs for her studies. She currently owns a Droid but wouldn’t mind switching to the iPad, should the books be cheaper than those in print.

“I would consider purchasing an iPad,” said Mathitak. “The price would definitely matter but usually ebooks are cheaper, anyways.”

Frank Wong, 20, a business major with an emphasis in marketing, wouldn’t mind purchasing the Apple tablet either, in order to have college textbooks delivered via this medium.

“Currently, I’m more of a textbook person, only because I haven’t had a lot of experience with ebooks, but I think I can get used to ebooks,” said Wong.

At the moment, the iBookstore holds only a handful of textbooks created specifically for iBooks 2, with cool new features like animations, video, sound, as well as interactive material, such as tests or games. Apple is said to have served up hundreds of thousands of copies so far.