CourseSmart, a subscription e-textbook service, released its App Store software last week. The program, entitled “eTextbooks for the iPhone,” offers 7,000 different textbooks for college students from 12 different publishers. It is free for subscribers, and the company states that students save an average of 50 percent on books.
In an interview The Wall Street Journal Monday, CourseSmart Executive Vice President Frank Lyman said the application is more of an asset than a textbook replacement.
“Nobody is going to use their iPhone to do their homework, but this does provide real mobile learning,” he said. “If you're in a study group and you have a question, you can immediately access your text.”
The service, created in 2007, is a collaboration between six higher-education publishers. The subscription model allows students to rent textbooks, typically for 180 days. When the subscription expires,
