Apple Makes Push Into iPad Textbooks - WSJ.com

With More iPads in Classrooms, Education Push Would Help Fend Off Android-Device Competition

Apple Inc., expanding its ambitions in education, joined the race to sell digital textbooks, hoping to get students to trade their book bag for an iPad.

The electronics company unveiled a new version of its iBooks digital book store that supports textbooks featuring quizzes, note-taking, study cards and other features, like the ability to interact with a diagram of an ant.

The service launched with a small number of high-school titles from McGraw-Hill Cos., Pearson PLC and others, with some from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt coming shortly. Textbooks for courses such as algebra 1, environmental science and biology will be available first, priced at $14.99 or less.