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TUAW's Daily App: Barnes & Noble eReader
"But Mike," I can hear you say,"I've already got iBooks on my iPad -- why would I want to download another eReader?" Try free books for an answer. Barnes and Noble is holding a promotion this month: every week, you can show up in their retail stores, and if you show someone on staff that you've got their B&N eReader app on your mobile device, they'll give you a code for a free eBook. This week, they're giving away Lee Child's One Shot, and next week it's Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg. Sure, neither of those are probably your favorite novel, but if you're just looking for something to read, they definitely seem like something you can bring to the beach this summer. If you've already paid for a few reads in iBooks, that's fine -- read away. But if, like me, you're still not quite sure how to jump into the eBook thing (I kind of still like turning paper pages), a few free eBooks to read might help you get a handle on the experience. Since the Barnes & Noble app is free, the only cost is a quick stop by a bookstore. Read on!
Calling all authors: How to sell your books in the iBook store
Have you got a novel or two in your bottom desk drawer? Did you participate in the National Novel Writing Month competition last November? Are you a budding author who needs that last nudge to actually get writing? If any of these describe you, Apple has just given you a way to get your masterpiece into the iBooks store for the iPad, and you can do it yourself. You don't need a publisher, distributor, agent or anything else for that matter. You can decide how much to charge and which countries (that have an iBook store) to sell into. You also get the same deal as the app publishers, meaning that Apple takes 30% and you keep 70% of the revenue. There are some requirements though but help is available.You'll need to have: ISBN numbers for the books you want to distribute the ability to deliver the book in EPUB format the book pass EpubCheck 1.0.5 a US Tax ID (sorry world, this is only open to the US at this point) an iTunes account backed up by a credit card a fairly good idea of where you'll sell and how much you'll sell an Intel-based Mac running OS 10.5 or better (sorry PC users, their game, their rules) and meet some reasonable technical requirements
Apple will open international Stores early for iPad launch this Friday, iBooks app available now
Apple may be a despot of its own walled garden, but that doesn't mean it's not benevolent. The iPad's international launch on May 28 has prompted the company to open Stores an hour early, at 8AM local time, in order to give its devotees a reprieve from hours of queuing outside. Then again, that little asterisk up there points us to an ominous "while supplies last" note at the bottom, which together with current pre-orders being fulfilled at some unidentified point in June, might force the most impatient to just get to the Store even earlier. UK buyers will get an alternative option thanks to Dixons Group stocking Apple's slate in Currys and PC World outlets, an arrangement that we keep hearing might be exclusive for the first sixty days after launch. Either way, you've been warned, don't be tardy if you wanna be trendy. P.S. The iBooks app has also made its debut outside of the US today, though at present it's limited to just freebie titles, and the iBookstore is still described as "US only." Update: The latest we're hearing is that at least some Apple Premium Resellers will also be getting stock of the iPad in the UK -- worth checking out if other options sell out.
When Steve says "No" we hear "Maybe." Here's why.
In a recent TUAW post, I wondered whether a closed Mac system might be in Apple's future in addition to the standard Mac offerings. Despite the existence of Apple TV, some are dubious. After all, Steve Jobs said no (or, more accurately "nope") to a correspondent who recently asked about a Mac App store under a far more universally closed system than the scenario floated yesterday. Jobs has said "no" (and "nope") before. Sure, we at TUAW love Uncle Steve, but when Jobs says "no," we're not always sure that he really, really means it. The following list includes TUAW's 6 top Steve Jobs "no way" moments. Each of these transformed into "yes way" actions some time after Apple's denial. It's not as if Apple doesn't mean "no" when it says "no." It's just that like any other corporation, Apple often moves in unexpected directions based on consumer pressure. And sometimes Pinocchio's nose grows a teeny tiny bit.
How to: Creating custom iBook covers
Do you find yourself downloading a lot of the free Project Gutenberg public domain books in the iBookstore? Sick of your bookshelf looking like a series of paper bags with text printed on them? Me too, so I decided to create my own covers for all the free books I've downloaded. If you've ever added custom album artwork to an iTunes song, you get the basic idea of how to change the cover art of a Project Gutenberg book in your iTunes library. If you haven't, I'll quickly list the steps here: In your iTunes library, select the Books category in the source list. Select any book that shows it has no cover, right click on it, and select "Get Info." Select the "Artwork" tab. Drag and drop any image into the white box on the artwork tab and click Okay. Voila! You've just added a custom cover to your ebook.
A tale of two media: Despite the iPad, traditional books aren't going anywhere.
A few days ago I was in London having drinks with a novelist and a literary agent. We discussed the pros and cons of the iPad as a book reader and how the iPad as a medium and its iBookstore affects the reading public. The novelist and agent gave me their impressions of the device and how it will, if at all, change the way readers consume books. We also spoke about Penguin's ideas to reinvent books as apps and discussed my previous article on the subject along with the notion that some people in the tech world think that the iPad and iBookstore will kill traditional books. Our conversation got me thinking: I normally read about 50-60 books a year in paperback format, but I had owned my iPad for a week already and had yet to try my favorite pastime on it. So I decided to compare how reading the same book in paperback would compare with reading it on the iPad. In order not to bias the medium I was reading it on by already having discovered the story on another device (and thus being a little bored with it on a second reading that so closely followed the first), I decided to read one novel -- every other of its chapters on the iPad and then in paperback.
International iBookstores opening on May 28th in most countries
When iPads fall into the eager hands of Apple fans in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK on May 28th, the iBookstore and Apple's free iBooks e-reader app may be there. Apple has confirmed that iBooks and the iBookstore will be available in all of the listed countries with the exception of Germany and Switzerland, and we'll be sure to update this post as soon as we've received word that those two countries have been added to the list (we're starting a rumor here that Apple has to stock up on digital umlauts and eszetts before opening these iBookstores). For those of you who will be getting your hands on an iPad soon and want to take advantage of the many books that are already available in the iBooks epub format, be sure to read Erica Sadun's post about filling up your iBookShelf. The post, and the comments that accompany it, offer some suggestions for fun and entertaining books. And remember, you can always use Stanza or Calibre to convert other document formats for reading in iBooks. [via MacRumors]
TUAW reader braintrust: Filling up your iBookShelf
Let's face it. iBook offerings are, at least for the moment, pretty limited. They're also on the slightly pricey side for anyone who emptied their piggy bank on a new iPad. Even those public libraries that offer ePub lending aren't set up to make those titles available for iPad reading. You generally need special Mac or Windows software, and there's DRM aplenty. That having been said, there are many great readable books out there for the asking. The problem is, as with nearly all free options, a very low signal-to-noise ratio. Sure, you can download one of the top Project Gutenberg titles, but those top twenty lists tend to be uninspiring. Getting a peer recommendation for a truly excellent read is often a lot better indication of whether you'll like a book or not than popularity charts. That's why we thought we'd open up this post to your free ePub recommendations. Our TUAW reader pool is full of passionate book enthusiasts. We'll get the ball rolling with a few of our suggestions and then we invite you to chime in in the comments with yours. Don't forget to say why you're recommending the book and who it might be a good match for, taste-wise. Let's help each other to find some quality iBooks. And don't forget: Just because a book isn't already in ePub format, there's no reason that it can't be converted using a tool like Stanza or Calibre! Parnassus on Wheels is a warm, delightful novel about a woman who buys a traveling bookstore and the adventures she encounters. Its full of fun for anyone who loves books and practical homespun self-reliance. Recommended for: Readers who like chick-lit The Egg and I tells the nearly-real story of Betty MacDonald's days as a child bride and chicken rancher. This hilarious comedy is the source of the "Ma and Pa Kettle" characters you may have heard of. Recommended for: Readers, especially women, who like humorous first person memoirs. Wizards Bane wonders what would happen if a computer geek got transported to a world of magic. Could you create a programming language for spell casting? It's a solid but silly fantasy that's fun to read. Recommended for: Computer geeks. Sheepfarmer's Daughter demonstrates what happens when classic fantasy meets an author with a military background. There are elves and gnomes -- but also patrols, cold weather, wet socks and a heavy dose of realism. Recommended for: Readers who like fantasy, military lit, or both Five Children and It is one of E. Nesbit's many amazing fantasy books for children. It's full of that "sense of wonder" that so many children's books strive for and never achieve. If you like this one, you'll want to try some of her other titles as well! Recommended for: Children and former children Magic Pudding offers a classic tale of silliness and mayhem among the Koalas. Make sure you download the illustrated version of this children's book! Recommended for: Fans of Pooh who want to range beyond A. A. Milne. Good for story time with younger readers. Marvelous Land of Oz proves that the Oz story doesn't end with the Wizard of Oz movie. I loved these books as a kid, both the Baum ones and the later ones by Ruth Plumly Thompson. Recommended for: Fans of the original book Wizard of Oz even more than the movie Also of interest: iPhone OS 4.0: iBooks for iPhone Apple announces "iBooks" application for iPad iBooks app now available in App Store
iPad defeats Kindle in reader poll
Over at Mashable, a poll of readers put the iPad up against the Kindle, by asking which device would "...win over the hearts and minds" of Mashable readers. The results were 48% for Apple, 36% for Kindle, and 11% preferred their books in analog format. Mashable is not a Mac fan site, so the results are, at least, interesting. Of course it's not a scientific poll, but it's an indicator that the iPad is catching on as a preferred device for reading books and magazines. I have a Kindle and an iPad. I really like the ability to read in low light with the iPad, and the text looks fine to me. I haven't experienced any eye strain, but some people are adamant that reading an LCD screen isn't good in the long term. At this moment, the Kindle book store is far superior to the Apple version. The number of books that Apple offers is relatively small, and it isn't as easy to find things. Of course, I can read my Kindle books on my iPad, but I hate having books scattered around between different apps. I know several Kindle owners who are, either, planning to dump their Kindle for an iPad or have already done so. What's your take? Do you own a Kindle and an iPad? Is the Kindle redundant now, or is it still, with that sharp e-ink screen, a better reading experience?
iPhone OS 4.0: iBooks for iPhone
While we don't have a lot of detail on this tidbit from today's Apple event, we do know for sure that iBooks, the ebook reader software now available on the iPad platform, will be coming to the iPhone platform with iPhone OS 4.0 this summer. There was also a hint, but no definitive statement from Steve Jobs, that iBooks will also be available for Mac OS X. Of course, having your iBooks library on all of those different devices might make life confusing, but according to The Jobs, there will be wireless syncing of your books between platforms. Let's say you're reading a book on your iPad, and you're going to a restaurant so you decide to just pick up your iPhone and head out. When you get to the restaurant, you fire up the iPhone and bring up iBooks, and it's on the same page that you were reading on the iPad. This is currently the way that Amazon's Kindle platform works, syncing books between a number of devices. I currently have Kindle Reader on my iPhone 3GS, iPad, and two Macs, and it is refreshing to be able to switch between devices and always have the current book and page available. As with iBooks for iPad, a free illustrated copy of Winnie the Pooh will be provided with each copy of iBooks on the iPhone.
iPhone OS 4.0: Over 100 new features
During today's Apple live event, it was noted that over 100 new features are being added to iPhone OS 4.0. We captured some of that information, and list just a few new features here for your reading pleasure: QuickLook: The feature everyone loves in Mac OS X now comes to iPhone and iPad Folder Storage: You can now have up to 2,160 apps on your iPhone through the use of folders Full app access to still and video data iBooks on iPhone: A smaller version of the iBooks app for the iPhone platform. Unified inbox for Mail: At last, all of your emails go can be viewed in one inbox; no more switching between inboxes. You can also have multiple Exchange accounts. The emails can be organized by threads, much in the same way that they are in Mail.app on the Mac. Wireless App Distribution: Companies that create custom in-house apps no longer need to distribute those through a "wired" connection; employees can now install the apps from anywhere, anytime. Homescreen Wallpaper, Bluetooth Keyboards: The iPhone and iPod touch will get these features that are now on the iPad. Fast app switching Background location: Apps can stay updated with location information even when you switch to another app. Selective use of location: Location can be enabled or disabled on an app-by-app basis. Local notifications: like push notification, but not requiring server access. It's all done on the phone. Task completion: Items that take some time can now complete in background while other work is going on in foreground. For example, uploading an image to Flickr can happen in background while you're doing something else. iAds: Developers get 60% of the ad revenue by adding interactive iAds to their apps. You can add fully interactive advertisements without taking people out of your app. Address and Date data detectors: Just like those in Mail.app in Mac OS X, these add information to Address Book and Calendar with a tap. More detail on individual features will be forthcoming. Stay tuned to TUAW all day today for all of your iPhone OS 4.0 news.
iPhone OS 4 unveiled, adds multitasking, shipping this summer
Just a bit more than a year after we first laid eyes on iPhone OS 3.0, Apple is back with the latest big revision of the OS that powers the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. iPhone OS 4 is shipping this summer (iPad in the fall), and the developer preview will be out today. iPhone 3GS and new-gen iPod touch will get all the features, but some features won't make it to the iPhone 3G, original iPhone, and older iPod touches. The biggest new feature is multitasking, which Apple says is going to be the "best" implementation in the smartphone space, though it's obviously not the first. App switching is activated by double tapping the home button, which pulls up a "dock" of currently running apps, and Apple claims it can do this without hurting battery life or performance for the front app. Unfortunately, this multitasking won't be available for devices older than the 3GS and new iPod touch. Multitasking is just one of seven different new "tentpole" features, including Game Center, enhanced Mail, and more... Notable new features for users ("tentpoles" are in bold): Multitasking. Spell check (like on the iPad). Bluetooth keyboard support (again, on the iPad). User-defined wallpaper (a jailbreak favorite). Tap to focus when recording video, just like with photos, and a 5x digital zoom for the camera. Playlist creation and nested playlists. App folders for sorting apps! You can even put an app folder in the dock. Enhanced Mail! You can have a merged inbox view, switch between inboxes quickly, and sync to more than one Exchange account. There's also threaded messaging (at last!) and in-app attachment viewing. iBooks, just like on iPad, only smaller. You can wirelessly sync books between platforms, a la Kindle. Enterprise features, including remote device management and wireless app distribution. Game Center. It's like Xbox Live, but for iPhone games. Includes achievements, leaderboards, and match making. It will be available as a "developer preview," and out for consumers later this year. Developers are getting plenty of new tricks too: New SDK, available today. 1,500 new APIs. Background audio (think Pandora). Background VoIP (think Skype). Background location data, both with live GPS for backgrounded turn-by-turn, and cell tower-based for lower power draw. Local notifications. Like push notifications, but sends a notification straight from the app without needing a push notification server, perfect for an alarm, for instance. Fast app switching. Saves the state of an app and resumes it from where you left off, without dwelling in memory. iAd. Apple says it's for keeping "free apps free." The ads keep you in the app, while also taking over the screen and adding interactivity -- using HTML 5 for video -- up to simple gaming in-ad. Apple will offer a 60 / 40 split on revenue, and users can even buy apps straight from an ad. In-app SMS. Map overlays. Quick look for previewing documents. Photo Library access. Calendar access. Full access to the camera. Video playback and capture. Date and address "data detectors." Automated testing and performance / power analysis (the same tools Apple uses). %Gallery-90056% %Gallery-90057% %Gallery-90058% Make sure to check out the iPhone OS 4.0 liveblog to see how it all went down!
iPad apps: books and comics galore
Reading on the iPad is something that is part of the device's DNA. Whether or not you think that LED-backlit display is a killer or a cure for the world's third favorite bedtime activity, you can't deny that Apple has pushed the idea of the iPad as e-reader pretty heavily. So, if you've got one you must be thinking about what kinds of reading choices you really have. Unlike a lot of platforms, you're not just locked into Apple's iTunes-integrated iBookstore for getting your textual kicks -- you can also utilize Amazon's Kindle service and a handful of other distribution channels for the books and comics of your choosing. So, which ones stand out? Take a look beyond the break and see our picks for reading on your magical new device. Oh, and be sure to check out our other app roundups right here.
iPad 101: User Guides and other helpful resources
You've bought your iPad. Congratulations! So are you ready to learn all the ways you can get the most from your new purchase? Here's a quick run-down of some indispensable resources as you're getting up to speed with your new purchase. Read the manuals: The iPad User Guide (pdf) provides an in-depth review. This user manual is not included in the iPad packaging. Instead, Apple hosts it on its support site. This 154-page long (!) guide covers all the basics for using the iPad and understanding how it works. If you'd like to convert this PDF-formatted guide into a format (called "ePub") that you can use to read on your iPad, there's a handy website called epub2go that will handle the conversion for you. After transforming the file to epub, just drop it onto your iTunes library and sync it to your iPad. You'll be able to read the book using Apple's free iBooks application. It won't look as nice as a standard ePub document, but you'll have it in mobile form. Take a guided video tour: Apple has posted videos that introduce many of the iPad's new features, including Safari, Mail, Photos, iPod, and more. You can watch these videos to get an idea of how each of these features work, and pick up a few pointers along the way. These aren't really meant as tutorials; they are marketing videos, but they can also work to introduce the iPad to you. Read our iPad 101 series: TUAW regularly posts tips and tricks for new users via our 101 posting series. In addition to the iPad, we often post Mac 101 and iPhone 101 hints, suitable for those just getting started with a new platform. These write-ups help introduce new concepts and don't assume that you're already an expert.
Kindle app for iPad now live
The Kindle app for iPad has hit the app store. Kindle for iPad is a universal app -- the same app works on the iPhone or iPad. Almost two weeks ago, Amazon first previewed the Kindle iPad app. The app has many of the same visual motifs as the iBooks app that was released yesterday including visual page swipes and book cover navigation view. A bit of eye candy that's unique to the Kindle app is that the sky behind the figure beneath the tree iconography will change according to what time of day it is. Note that books bought through the Kindle for iPad app must be read within the app itself and will not be viewable in Apple's iBooks app, nor will they show up in the Books library in iTunes' source list. Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
iBooks app now available in App Store
The app's page also states that only the ePub format is supported and to add ePub books from outside of the iBookstore to the iBooks app, they must be DRM-free and synced to the iPad using iTunes 9.1 or later. The iBooks app is free. I think I just heard Jeff Bezos shaking in his reading jacket.
iBooks app meets App Store, produces US-only iBookstore offspring
Get ready to welcome some amazing wood grain effects into your lives, future iPad owners, for the iBooks app has just landed at the App Store. Proudly proclaimed as being "designed exclusively for the iPad," this app gives you direct access to the iBookstore, which will offer free samples of books ahead of purchase and a brand new way for you to channel money into Cupertino pockets. Built-in search, highlighting and bookmarking features are augmented by text-to-speech functionality and ePub format support. Funnily enough, iBooks will only support DRM-free ePub files sourced from outside the iBookstore, but no mention is made as to whether its own wares will be similarly unimpeded. Speaking of restrictions, the whole operation is still limited to the United States, leaving the Stephen Frys of this world sighing wistfully from across the pond. [Thanks, Brian]
Answering your #1 question, as fast as we can
Earlier today, we asked you (via Twitter and @ask_tuaw) for your top inquiries about the product everyone's talking about. While we can't give you first-person photos and video -- yet -- we can give you an answer, straight from the lab and the lap, to the most popular question: Can you read iBooks in direct sunlight? The answer, surprisingly enough: Yes, you can. Even in bright sun, the high-contrast black type on a white page background was clearly legible, says our experimenter. In fact, the display looks quite a bit like the Kindle's e-ink screen under those lighting conditions. What does not look good in bright sun: video playback. The dark screen doesn't pump out quite enough candlepower to make TV shows or movies easily visible. However, that's a failing of most portable video devices, so you can't ding the iPad for it. Much. As many have inquired, the screen does hold fingerprints and you can see them most annoyingly in the sun -- but the oleophobic coating means a quick sleeve swipe fixes that. Our question-answering squad wasn't in a situation to deal with iTunes and networking details, unfortunately, but we'll try to get more on that for you all soon.
Amazon caves to book publishers
Amazon has submitted to pressure from the major book publishers ahead of the iPad's Saturday launch. HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster will now, like Macmillan, be allowed to use an agency model that gives them control over their book's prices. "Our digital future is more assured today than it was two months ago," HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray told the Wall Street Journal. Bestsellers will now cost between $13 to $15, up from the standard $9.99. While many other books will remain at the $10 mark, some will even be priced below Amazon's old $9.99 average. Amazon and others have been very concerned over the iPad's iBookstore. Just last week, Sony cut the price of its Reader Pocket Edition while Perseus Books Group, the largest independent book publisher, ignored Amazon's threats and penned a deal to sell their books on the iPad. At the iPad unveiling, Steve Jobs told Walt Mossberg that "publishers are actually withholding books from Amazon because they're not happy" and that "the prices [on the Kindle and iBookstore] will be the same." What he didn't clarify at the time was whether ebooks on Apple's iBookstore would cost what they do on the Kindle or vice versa. Now we know.
iTunes updates to 9.1, adds syncing for iPad
When our mailbox explodes, you know an Apple release has come out -- and today has proven no different as iTunes updates to version 9.1, introducing many features that are compatible with the iPad including: iPad syncing Organizing and syncing books downloaded from iBooks Rename, rearrange or remove Genius Mixes All of those features were predicted yesterday, but it's nice to see them up and running in the application officially. iTunes 9.1 is available now via Software Update. We're ready for the iPad -- bring it on! Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
