The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

As a parent of two adult children, with one just having left school and the other finishing a Master's degree, I know that buying textbooks at their staggeringly high prices adds insult to the injury of tuition, housing and living expenses.

Using a sample reading list (I called my daughter), I got to work and tried to determine pricing. In the spirit of full disclosure, here's the list:

• When Kids Can't Read: What Teachers Can Do: A Guide for Teachers 6-12 by Kylene Beers
• The Power of Grammar: Unconventional Approaches to the Conventions of Language by Mary Ehrenworth
• Purposeful Writing: Genre Study in the Secondary Writing Workshop by Rebecca Bowers Sipe
• Local Acts: Community-Based Performance in the United States by Jan Cohen-Cruz
• Respect for Acting by Uta Hagen

At list (bookstore) prices the lot would cost $144.10. Going through Amazon and paying no shipping (Amazon Prime), the price would be $128.88.

Using the Bigwords.com app, with options set for no eBooks, no rentals, no guaranteed buyback, standard shipping, having Amazon Prime, and looking for the cheapest new or used volumes, the best price was $98.16-a savings of $45.95 over the bookstore or $30.72 less than Amazon Prime.

The results suggested two books from Textbooks.com, one book from Half.com, one from Amazon and one from Abebooks. Three books were used and two were new. If it is too much trouble to use three sources, Bigwords also suggests the cheapest price using only one vendor which turned out to be $106.38 from Half.com for all used books.

The app has a 'buy now' button which takes you to the various web sites to purchase the books, with one 'buy now' button for each vendor. What I consider to be a quirk is that when you click on the 'buy now' button, you are shown a badge saying: "Reminder Buy the item for $xx.xx from the app selected vendor." The only response is clicking a button marked 'Okeydoke.' It would be nice to be able to go back without jumping out of the app. On the bright side, when you build a book list either by title, author or ISBN (I recommend ISBN since it's the most accurate), your list gets saved in the app, and the app icon then shows a little number indication of how many books are in your book bag. Once you are sent to the vendor site, you are on your own, which is why I can see that the one vendor option can be attractive.

I found the shipping prices determined by the app to be correct and the prices to be accurate.

The Bigwords.com app, of course, is not the only game in town. Earlier today we covered Courseware, an eBook service which happened to stock none of the books on my list, or Amazon's Kindle which sold two of the five books for $9.99 each. The Kindle download can be read on a Kindle, with the Kindle app [iTunes Link] or Stanza [iTunes Link] depending upon DRM constraints.

Personally, I can't see using an eBook reader for a textbook without at least the ability to mark things up, but preferences are subjective.

I really like the Bigwords.com app. It's simple, straightforward and will save you money, What more can you ask for?