Apple Confirms Entrance into Digital Textbook Marketplace. Education Publishers Realize More Money to be Made from Digital Copies with no Used Marketplace.

Flush with almost $100 Billion in cash and vibrant earnings numbers, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has confirmed its plan to enter the textbook marketplace. It is teaming up with major educational publishers to publish digital copies of textbooks to be read on its iPad tablets. The textbooks will incorporate graphic manipulations, videos, testing, note taking and more. 

At least 12 educational textbooks are already available via the iPad, and surprisingly they cost less than $14.99 each. Students will not be able to re-sell or pass-on their textbooks to other students, eliminating the ability to buy used books for less. Major publishers are already realizing that this ability will enable them to make more from many books than they do now.

Apple also announced a number of lecture courses already available for free on iTunes that will hopefully help them to build a stronger brand in the educational marketplace. 

Clearly, Apple already has reaped huge benefits in the publishing market with iTunes, and now iPublishing should be able to generate even more commissions on digital media sales. As the early adopter, Apple is developing an excellent competitive edge over other late entrants.