Just a quick followup. I purchased the bundle (books and electronic format) to see if the vital source product was worthwhile. I was disappointed that there is no way to read your books in an ebook format on the iPad.
It is possible to read if you have Internet connectivity but the experience has been lackluster since you cannot zoom and the browser they provided is slow in reading the pages. The company has posted an app through the app store (rated 2 stars). The poor rating is on account of the application only showing notes you’ve made on the text. There is no ability to make adjustments to the notes.
The format will work well if you have a desktop/laptop format. There is a reader that you can download for free from the website. Ironically, where mobile devices have problems with the text being too small, the desktop/laptop reader text is too large for ease of use. Both appear to lack the ability to control zoom.
Vital source has announced it will be releasing an application to enable you to read your books on the iPad. This is expected to be released before the fall school year begins.
Some Concluding Thoughts:
At this stage, the reader lacks the necessary capabilities to make it a useful mobile reader. There are other companies that have been more successful but we lack the ability to choose providers. Without an available .vdk to .PDF converter, the ebooks have limited value. (Note: there are also ramifications of using such converters as it could be construed as a violation of our ethical obligations since we would be circumventing copyright protection).
Let’s hope the company lives up to it’s word in addressing the issue but as it stands, the physical books have more mobility than the ebook version.