iBookstore Lets You Scan and Compare Online Textbook Prices from Your iPhone
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 by Chris Lesinski 
So, how 'bout this?: textbook comparison shopping in your pocket. iBookstore is an iPhone app that'll let you scan in a book's barcode right there in the store and then see rough prices for it online.
Now, when you're in the bookstore, you can know for sure that you're getting ripped off. That's actually kind of my problem with it. Duh -- we know that it's cheaper to buy textbooks online than in a bookstore. Unless you're at a garage sale or some other strange book-buying situation, there's no need to check. I can tell you right now, without even looking, that all of your textbooks will be cheaper online.
Actually -- here's how you could use iBookstore in an actual college bookstore:
- Enter bookstore.
- Approach line of people buying books.
- Scan students' books before they checkout.
- Tell them exactly how much of an idiot they are for buying a book in the bookstore.
The other problem is that the ISBN scanner doesn't work all the time. At least, it only worked on one of four different textbooks I tried in multiple lighting situations. Even if it worked 100%, most book stores slather on a huge proprietary barcode sticker on their used books, which covers the old one. (I doubt it's to prevent such scanning, but I suspect it's for some other evil purpose.)
If you have those problems, you can still enter the title/author manually, but that's way less badass, especially when you're harassing a whole line of angry book-buyers.
Reader Comments (6)
That's a good idea, but our book store doesn't let students have physical access to the books. Makes it much harder to scan.
So, so very true. It's insane how expensive textbooks are nowadays, but if you're dumb enough to buy them from a college bookstore instead of online, maybe you don't deserve this app anyway.
Nice entry. I like the idea of harassing in-store-buyers.
@alexpriest
Wow its so interesting!I was passing by this site and came across this post.Its really good informative as i also was not aware of this software.I will share with my friends also.
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I read this article. This is a nice article. I like it. You give good idea everyone. it is crazy how textbooks are expensive now, but if you are stupid enough to buy in a bookstore instead of the school, maybe you do not deserve this app anyway. Thanks for sharing this information with me.
The cheapest way is going online or swapping with friends, I use http://www.cheapesttextbooks.com to buy and sell my used textbooks online. which saves me a lot b/c they pay for shipping and have these cool coupons that dont expire! check them out i hope you find what your looking for
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