• The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, January 12, 2012 11:58 AM

Does Apple have it out for students’ load-bearing backpacks? Well, the company is planning a big “education announcement” next week, which many assume will finally make textbooks-on-iPads a reality. The Wall Street Journal, for one, expects Apple to kickoff a much-anticipated foray into the textbook market. Regarding an invite-out event scheduled for next Thursday, WSJ is betting on Apple to “showcase a new push … into the digital textbook business, but … not feature any new devices.”

Last week, AllThingsD reported that the event would likely feature an educational spin on Apple’s iBooks initiative, potentially with some integration with iTunes U. “Talk of such a move by Apple has been bubbling since a biography of Apple’s late chief executive, Steve Jobs, came out in October,” WSJ notes. “In that book by Walter Isaacson, Mr. Jobs told him that he wanted to transform the textbook market by hiring prominent textbook writers to create electronic versions of them for the iPad.”

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