> Steve Jobs promoted the iPad as a replacement to the 'heavy schoolbooks kids had to carry all day'

This is largely an American phenomenon. If you visit some other countries, students don't walk around all day saddled with what look like Medieval tomes in backpacks that come comically close to dwarfing the student. There is no reason for them to be so thick, so heavy, so expensive, hardcover, or even loaned. And there is no reason to lug them around all day either.

Frankly, teachers should be relying more on delivering material in class without a textbook.

In many places it's the teachers who move around all day while the students remain.