The iPad iBooks App uses free, open-source ePub format

John Brownlee ()

The iPad iBooks App uses free, open-source ePub format

Oh, suck it, Amazon.

In demonstrating the iPad’s new slick iBooks e-book reading application, it was explicitly stated that the iPad uses the free, open e-book standard, ePub format.

This is a surprisingly rare but welcome move for Apple in embracing a non-proprietary media format.

ePub doesn’t mean no DRM, but it does mean you’ll be able, if only through third party Apps, to transfer your own books from other devices.

Jeff Bezos has got to be nursing a migraine right now.

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[image via Gizmodo]

15 comments »

About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in Apple Tablet, News |

  • porkchop1234

    and with one swoop Apple just gave the Kindle a enima

  • porkchop1234

    enema
    sorry for the typo

  • Reed Richards

    With so many DRM schemes allowed in epub format it’s unlikely that Apple will allow you to move the files from iPad to anywhere else.

    Apple never plays nice with its users!

  • Angela

    Move it? I don’t think many iPad users will want to move it.

  • Val the Reader

    I don’t care about moving files out. If i can only move my ePub files INTO this iBook app – I am happy camper.

  • http://linmagazine.co.il Uri

    I’ve recently returned such an “open” epub book I bought from Kobo Books. Though their iPhone reader is quite nice, you can’t read it on any other app (Stanza) or host it (Bookworm) your self. It is quite annoying considering we’ve gotten rid of DRM for music.

  • http://ryocentral.info Ryo

    What?
    ePub fine… but what DRM?
    You can’t move your ePub anywhere, nor is it compatible with any reader if it is not Abobe Adepbt DRM on ePub.

    I want a proper eInk display. I want to read an eBook, not a webpage. Might be okay for some text with graphics., but I’ll never read a novel on a non-eInk screen which glares like a mirror outside. Ridiculous.

  • Garrett

    It may be ePub but it is not going to be open and DRM-free. Trust me, the major publishers that have signed on would never allow that to happen. These are the same publishers that refused to allow the text-to-speech function on the Kindle.

  • http://sungame.wordpress.com sungame

    The iPad is supposed to accept most (if not all) apps for iPhone, presumably including Stanza. This means that it probably will be possible to read open, DRM-free epub-books from other booksellers on the iPad. However, if Apple -and/or the publishers – chooses a strict DRM-scheme for the epub-files on iBookstore, it will not be possible to buy books from the iBookstore and read them on other devices.

    Val the Reader might not care about this, but other readers -and smart publishers and authors – will. If the iBookstore is limited to iPad-owners, it will of course be useless to the rest of us. This dramatically limits the number of customers publishers will reach by selling their books through iBookstore, making Apple a far less attractive buisness partner.

    The big question is whether Apple and the publishers understand this. It took far too long for Apple to get rid of the iTunes / iPod lock in mechanism. Hopefully, they do know their history, and do not repeat it.

  • scstsut

    “This is a surprisingly rare but welcome move for Apple in embracing a non-proprietary media format.” !!!!!???

    Apple uses non-proprietary/open-standards format for everything. Name one proprietary media format that Apple DOES embrace. Apple is death on proprietary formats.

  • scstsut

    How is everyone missing this. Amazon has said they are going to put their Kindle software on practically every piece of hardware that’s popular. I read kindle books on my iPod Touch and PC. I’m waiting for the announced-by-Amazon Mac version. I’ll be getting an iPad and will use the Kindle app on it. Blackberry Kindle app is also coming.

    Amazon will either discontinue the Kindle if the iPad replaces it or they will continue if there is a market. Either way they sell Kindle books, lots of Kindle books.

  • ThunderSkull

    I was gonna buy an iPad til I heard this …
    I use calibre to translate ebooks from different formats. If I can’t read these books on the iPad, there’s not point in buying one !!!
    I guess I’ll stick to ebook readers until apple decide to revise this.

  • James h Jackson jr

    Or you cAn do what I do and still read hardcovers a lot of the Islamic books I love to read are not and will never be on a ebook format plus my books never need new hardware every for years when the old hardware no longer works I can share books with my cousin and what will happen to the rare book market how do u rate and value used ebooks and the used book stores what about them I love going in and parusing the shelves and chatting with the guy that owns the place some things should not be digitized in my opinion and for my needs ebooks are not good I get lots of books from Lebanon Jordan and places like that as well

  • Youre Just Talking Silly

    I would love to try to take a spin with the iPad vs my nook. I love the eInk screen on my nook but also love everything the iPad does. Calibre, I believe, does interface with the iPad now. This makes me even more interested.

    Also, If you look in the right places you can find digitized Islam books, Ive come across them from time to time.

  • Anonymous

    “This is a surprisingly rare but welcome move for Apple in embracing a non-proprietary media format.”

    MP3
    PDF
    JPG
    PNG
    MP4
    H.264
    AIFF
    AAC
    RTF
    HTML
    CSS
    XML
    XSLT
    OTF
    TTF
    Unicode
    …