Apple and McGraw-Hill Reportedly Collaborating on e-Textbook Tablet Offerings

BusinessWeek reports that Apple has been in talks with the educational arm of publishing giant McGraw-Hill to bring e-textbook content to Apple's tablet device. The discussions also reportedly include portions of McGraw-Hill's Connect online learning system.

Apple's talks with McGraw-Hill cover how the two companies can market textbooks for the tablet and ways their software development teams can collaborate to publish digital textbooks and educational content on Apple's latest device, two people say. "The talks are as much about marketing as they are about software development," says one of the people involved in the discussions.

According to the report, Apple and McGraw-Hill have held extended discussions for about a year, supporting earlier claims that McGraw-Hill had been actively working to bring its content into the iTunes ecosystem. McGraw-Hill is also one of the partner's in CourseSmart, an e-textbook company that has already brought thousands of titles to the iPhone and iPod touch and has envisioned how its offerings might work on a concept Apple tablet.

McGraw-Hill's Connect, which apparently developed out of the collaboration with Apple regarding e-textbooks, offers professors a convenient means to manage electronic homework assignments and testing while offering students the ability to watch video, read textbook materials, and complete assignments.

McGraw-Hill is certainly not the only publishing company talking to Apple about tablet possibilities, as the report notes that both Hachette and Wiley have been in discussions, and a report earlier this week claimed that HarperCollins was also participating in negotiations.