iBooks - page 2

When iOS 9 rolls out to the public this fall, it’ll be iPad users that appreciate it most, thanks to the many improvements Apple has made to multitasking. One of the biggest is Split View, a feature that’s exclusive to the iPad Air 2, which lets you run two apps side-by-side — just like you would on your Mac.

Split View lets you read articles in Safari while composing an email in Mail, enjoy a novel in iBooks while taking notes in the Notes app, and talk to friends via iMessage while organizing your schedule in Calendar.

But is Split View as game-changing as it looks at first glance? You bet it is.

Last night, Ursula K. Leguin, the author of seminal fantasy and science-fiction books like The Left Hand of Darkess and the Earthsea series, won a National Book Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

During her speech, she made an impassioned defense of fantasy books, saying we needed such literature because “hard times are coming” when novels that can transport the mind will have actual social value.

It sounds like Apple might have been listening, because they are currently promoting the winners of the National Book Award, past and present, on the iBooks Store.

iOS 8’s new Family Sharing feature makes it easier than ever for your entire family to share purchases on iTunes, iBooks and the App Store.

Family Sharing is about more than just sneaking copies of apps off your siblings’ accounts, though: It can bring harmony to your entire digital life by sharing photos, creating a family calendar and even keeping track of each others’ locations.

With minimal effort, you can sync up to six accounts. Here’s how to maximize Family Sharing’s potential.

There’s a reason the majority of apps in the App Store look like they fit together, and that reason is Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, a document that ensures all developers incorporate Apple-approved elements into everything they do on the iOS platform.

To make these guidelines transparent and readable, Apple has released an iPad-friendly version of its latest iOS Human Interface Guidelines reference material. Available to the public as a free download through the iBookstore, the guide covers everything from general design practices to rules about content, and features the usual iBooks flourishes such as page numbers, resizable fonts and annotation support. It also incorporates embedded videos to illustrate certain topics.

I personally can’t stand audiobooks except under one specific condition. I like them when I drive long distances. There’s something about listening to a book being read to me that puts me to sleep if I’m anywhere else, but for some reason, I’m able to listen in the car.

Now, I purchase a lot of iBooks, but not many audiobooks. One reason is that they’re more expensive, but I mainly avoid them for the reasons above. However, when I next take a cross-country trip in a car, I’m going to use this tip to turn the written iBooks into ones I can listen to off of my iPhone or iPad.

Next time you are traveling somewhere or commuting your way to work, look around you. It’s evident that the number of book lovers who have taken to reading on a digital format has risen significantly over the years. In 2011 and 2012, Amazon said it sold 105 books for its Kindle e-reader for every 100 hardcover and paperback books, excluding free eBooks.

Though it has become apparent in recent years that there is a slight fall in the growth of eBook sales (particularly so in 2013), eBooks are still far too compelling to die out, and today we tend to use more than one medium to consume the same thing. So next time you’re hesitating to pull out your Kindle or iPad mini on the bus or train due to the watchful eyes of a “book snob,” just remember that it’s not possible to please everyone, and that there are still thousands of benefits to the electronic book format.

Apple has today announced that iBooks Textbooks and iTunes U Course Manager are expanding into new markets across Asia, Latin America, Europe, and other countries around the world. The expansions brings the total number of countries supported by iBooks Textbooks up to 51, while iTunes U Course Manager is now available in 70, including Russia, Thailand and Malaysia.

Apple has added the ability to gift iBooks through its iTunes Store. Until now, the iBookstore was the only section of iTunes that did not support gifting. Here’s how it works.

It used to be fairly simple to add e-books (of the epub format) to your iPad or iPhone via your Mac, using iTunes file sharing. You’d simply drag and drop the book into iTunes, connect your iOS device, and sync the non-iBook file via the file sharing system in iTunes, just like any other file supported by apps on your iPad

With the advent of iBooks on the Mac with OS X Mavericks, there is no longer a way to sync epub books in this way. You might be stymied on attempting to get epubs from your Mac to your iPad, but thanks to an intrepid Cult of Mac reader, we all get to learn how to do just that.

Continuing its slow purge of felts, leathers and woodgrains the UI of iOS 7, Apple released an iBooks for iOS update today that finally dismantles the woodgrain shelves championed by former iOS Cheif Scott Forstall, and tosses them in the woodchipper.

The update features the same minimalist UI that Apple has embraced throughout iOS 7 and its other apps, though it doesn’t look like Apple actually added any major new features. Apple also released an update for iTunes U today with an all-new look and feel. Both app updates are available for free in iTunes now.

Source: iTunes

“It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy! Let’s go exploring!”

If you’re a comic lover, the world of iBooks just got a little bit more magical, as Bill Watterson’s classic comic strip about a boy and his stuffed tiger has come to Apple’s e-book store.

Alongside a few MacBook-related updates and a fix for Gmail in Mail, Apple has released its first update to iBooks for Mac today in Mavericks. Version 1.0.1 addresses “bug fixes and improvements to performance and stability,” according to Apple. It can be downloaded now in the Mac App Store.

iBooks for Mac hasn’t been particularly buggy, but this first update should fix many of the glitches with slow animations and other minor hiccups that have been affecting the app.

Source: Apple

For those of you who might want to listen to a book via iBooks, one option is to load an iBook on your iPhone or iPad and turn on VoiceOver.

That can change the way your iOS device works, though, so it can be tricky to the uninitiated.

Now that iBooks is on Mavericks, however, you have another option: get your Mac to read your iBook to you.

Following the release of OS X Mavericks on Tuesday, Apple has updated iBooks Author for Mac to introduce compatibility with the desktop iBooks app. So, books created in iBooks Author can now be previewed and read in iBooks for Mac.

Remember Federico Viticci’s review of the amazing new iPad “text editor” Editorial? Of course you do – it’s the one you pushed to your read-later service and never read later, because it was just too damn long for a single post on a website. Hell, the thing even had a table of contents. A blog post with a table of contents.

Now, though, you can enjoy Viticci’s opus in a form much better suited to a long text with multiple sections: a book. And being an Apple nerd, Viticci made it into an iBook.

Since it’s introduction last year, Apple’s iBooks Author app has only supported the creation of iBooks for iPad, but some new evidence on Apple’s website suggests  iPhone support might be on its way soon.

Apple’s added ebook support for the iPad mini and previewed the arrival of iBooks for Mac WWDC, leaving the iPhone as the only major Apple device that can’t view ebooks created with Apple’s proprietary software. However, Serenity Caldwell at Macworld noticed some curious changes to Apple’s requirements message:

While Apple decided to hold out for a court battle — that it eventually lost — five of the publishers involved in the iBookStore price fixing antitrust case have already reached settlements with the DOJ. Two of those publishers, Penguin and Macmillan, are already sending out emails to customers to notify them that they’re eligible to receive iTunes credit, or a check for the settlement.

Following up on the Department of Justice’s revised proposed punishment from Apple’s e-book antitrust case, Apple’s lawyers filed a response this morning claiming the DOJ is trying to give Amazon an unfair advantage on e-books.

Defense attorney Orin Synder said that the DOJ’s 12-page proposal is just trying to find a remedy that will give Amazon a competitive advantage again. Synder had the following to say regarding the DOJ’s proposal that Apple allow App Store developers  to sell e-books through their apps without Apple taking a cut:

The ongoing iBooks antitrust case between Apple and the United States Department of Justice took a very interesting twist this morning when the DoJ and 33 state Attorneys General laid out plans to remedy Apple’s wrongdoings and restore competition to the market.

The DoJ wants Apple to terminate all of its deals with book publishers, and refrain from entering into any new ones for at least five years. It also wants the company to start selling e-books from rivals like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Apple has begun giving away free content today via the App Store app for iPhone. Its first giveaway is for Color Zen, “a new and addictive kind of puzzle game” for iOS which is available free for a limited time “exclusively for Apple Store app users.”

The European Commission announced today that it has reached a deal with publisher Penguin regarding the e-book price fixing charges raised by the EU back in 2012.

Like the four other publishers charged with colluding with Apple to fix the price of e-books, Penguin has agreed to ditch Apple’s agency model for e-books that let publishers set prices for e-books while distributors like Apple, Amazon or Barnes & Noble get a cut of the sale.

Following a lengthy trial, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote has today ruled that Apple conspired to raise the price of e-books. Another trial for damages will follow at a later date, Reuters reports.

If you haven’t already watched Apple’s WWDC keynote, it’s probably because you just haven’t found the time. At just under two hours long, it’s not something you can just slip into your day. But you can now watch it at your leisure on any of your electronics devices because Apple just uploaded the entire thing to YouTube.

Eddy Cue is at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in lower Manhattan testifying in the Department of Justice’s e-books antitrust case, and he’s been sharing more information on the work that went into developing iBooks prior to its launch in 2010.

Cue reveled that Steve Jobs, then Apple’s CEO, chose to give away a free copy of Winnie-the-Pooh not just because he liked the book, but because its colorful illustrations showcased the capabilities of digital e-books in the iBooks app.

iBooks has been a big successful venture for Apple — despite the ongoing price fixing case from the Department of Justice — but it’s a service that may never have been if Eddy Cue hadn’t convinced Steve Jobs it would be awesome on the iPad.

Before Apple was gearing up to launch its popular tablet in late 2009, Steve Jobs wasn’t interested in the iBooks idea, and he felt e-books had no place on desktops and small smartphone displays.