(CNN) -- Apple on Thursday lifted the veil on its plans to remake the educational landscape in a way that centers on its best-selling tablet computer, the iPad. "Education is deep in Apple's DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet," Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of marketing, said in a statement. At a press conference in New York, the company announced three products that aim to get students and teachers to use the iPad's touch-screen interface to read, write, plan classes and communicate with each other. First, a free app called iBooks Author lets anyone create a digital, interactive textbook. In a demo at the event, an Apple employee created an e-book with the app in about five minutes, according to live blogs. Isaacson gives insight into Jobs' life Second, an update to a piece of software called iTunes U lets teachers plan their curriculum and communicate with their students over the iPad. The new iTunes U, which also is free and available on Thursday, will "allow anyone, anywhere, at any time to take courses for free," Schiller said, according to Fortune.com's Philip Elmer-DeWitt, who was live blogging from the event. Fortune is a partner site of CNN.com. "If you're an educator at a university, college, or K-12 school, now you have an easy way to design and distribute complete courses featuring audio, video, books, and other content," Apple's website said Thursday. "And students and lifelong learners can experience your courses for free through a powerful new app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch." Finally, a new textbook store called iBooks 2, also a free app, will feature digital e-books for schools. Apple said it is partnering with several major textbook companies -- including Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, who will make e-books for the store, according to Fortune. COMMENT: I think its a very good idea to use all those apple products instead of books because whe have tu use less paper and other natural resources. And you can do all the work in an easier and faster way. Unfortunatelly it will be very expensive and not all the persons in school will buy them.