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Apple brings iBooks and iTunes U educational tools to more than 50 new countries
It's no secret that Apple likes its products to be a big part of the educational sector, not just in the US, but all across the world. With that in mind, the Cupertino-based outfit today is broadening the reach of some of its education-focused software, announcing that more than 50 countries are gaining access to iBooks Textbooks and iTunes U Course Manager. With the addition of these new markets, which include ones in Asia, Europe and Latin America, Apple's now making Textbooks and Course Manager accessible in 51 and 70 countries, respectively. As you might expect, Apple Senior Vice President Eddy Cue is thrilled to bring these tools to more people, stating that he believes things like iBooks Textbooks "represent a monumental shift in learning because they engage multiple capacities of each individual student."
Daily App: America in the King Years trilogy by Taylor Branch
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day set aside in the US to honor the accomplishments of the civil rights leader and to remember his role in the civil rights movement. As a result, we are expanding our app reviews to include several iBooks titles, starting with Parting the Waters, America in the King Years 1954 - 1963 by Taylor Branch. Parting the Waters is the first book in Branch's America in the King Years series, which tells the broader story of the American civil rights movement from 1954 to 1968. King's rise to the leadership of this movement is described in the trilogy, which mixes biography with the political and cultural history from those tumultuous years in the US. Branch spent 24 years writing and researching the books and won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History for the opening title, Parting the Waters. Parting the Waters is available from the iBookstore for US$17.99. The other two books, Pillar of Fire and At Canaan's Edge, are available for $12.99 and $14.99, respectively.
How do I dislike iBooks for OS X? Let me count the ways...
I banged the drums for OS X iBooks for years. Now, finally, Apple delivered. OS X Mavericks includes a desktop version of Apple's signature e-book-reading app. And after finally getting the iBooks I asked for, I've discovered that it's sadly not the iBooks I wanted. If anything, the desktop iBooks feels like an afterthought rather than a destination. It's slow and laggy, with awkward interaction and unsatisfying preferences. There's nothing there that feels like it adds to the reading experience, and a lot that detracts. Between clunky interface choices and poor rendering results, iBooks for OS X has been a huge letdown. Take interaction, for example. Unlike with Adobe Digital Editions, I cannot use my keyboard's Page Up and Page Down keys to navigate through books. iBooks assumes you want to navigate "bookishly" rather than "appishly," so left and right arrow keys are the shortcuts Apple has designed in. I've ended up using Keyboard Maestro, a key-remapping program, to restore my expected interaction styles rather than retraining my fingers. I know it doesn't make as much sense for a "book" metaphor to use page up/down, but this is the way I've grown used to and I'd rather the app do what I expect rather than adhere to metaphorical correctness. Worse, I cannot use the scroll wheel on my mouse in iBooks the way I can in Digital Editions. This is hugely frustrating when reading reference books -- especially if there's a bit of code I need to examine. I don't want to have it cross between pages. Some interaction is incomprehensibly fussy. Consider what it takes to turn a page. When tapping on my iPad, I can hit just about anywhere near the right or left margin and the page will turn according to my wishes. OS X iBooks is far less flexible Only about half the width of these margins causes the next page indicator (a circled chevron) to appear, enabling you to move on by clicking. Consider these two examples. The first shows a cursor position that allows me to click forward. In the second, the cursor is just slightly too far to the left. A click here does nothing at all. So frustrating! With iBooks, a lot of the text rendering can get downright unreliable when you adjust or reshape the page. This happens particularly when viewing material that goes beyond simple headlines and paragraphs. While the following sample renders perfectly in Digital Editions, no matter how I reshape the page, it takes just a few window tweaks to get iBooks to screw up. Until OS X iBooks debuted, most of my on-Mac reading was done using Preview for PDFs and a variety of e-book readers like Adobe Digital Editions for other formats like EPUB. Since none of these could handle Apple's DRM scheme, when it came to purchased items, I tended to limit my selections to the Amazon Kindle store. A few months with iBooks on OS X Mavericks has reinforced that rule of buying Kindle-only. Digital Editions may be ugly and unrefined, but it gets the job done and it currently does it a lot better than iBooks. I would never have expected to view that software abomination with anything approaching affection. How surprising it is, then, that I now do.
The Book and I: How the iPad has changed my reading life
Last week, I picked up a copy of The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter at the library. The book was sitting there on the shelf. I had heard some reasonably good buzz about it. So when it caught my eye, I did something I haven't done in a while. I checked out a dead-tree version. I also did something I had never done before. As I was reading the book, I stumbled across an unfamiliar word and, rather hilariously, ended up tapping the printed page until it finally occurred to me that the book wasn't going to offer me built-in dictionary and Wikipedia access. It's odd how three years or so changes you. Although the Kindle debuted in 2007, it wasn't until 2010 that I really jumped on the e-book bandwagon. My entry was due to the iPad. In fact, it was the iPad 2 even more than the original that firmly grounded me into the e-book world. Between the light, thin design of the tablet and my aging eyes, the iPad with its built-in iBooks app and the add-on Amazon Kindle reader app, I have become a devotee. I love e-books. In addition to in-line definitions and searches, I can zoom up the font however much I desire, read in the dark and lie in nearly any position while comfortably reading. My iPad also weighs significantly less than my hard-bound copy of Name of the Wind. In a way, the transition has been similar to the iPod revolution of the early 2000s. Instead of carrying around CDs, cassettes and so forth, the iPod made it possible to bring your entire music library with you. With the iPad, my library travels with me as well. With advances in connectivity, I'm now just a few taps away from buying and borrowing books while I'm on the go. I am now regularly borrowing books from the Denver Public Library. More and more local library systems are offering digital loans, and many of them deliver directly to the Kindle app. Admittedly, library culture hasn't quite caught up to the technology. The collections are often slap-dash and poorly curated. For example, here's a screenshot returned from a search for new Science Fiction arrivals. As enjoyable as My Fair Captain may be (Hi, Megs!), I suspect it doesn't really fall into the Science Fiction genre in any meaningful fashion. You're generally better off finding recommendations over at Goodreads rather than trying to spontaneously discover items through the library. Buying e-books has its occasional challenges as well. Take the new Moist von Lipwig book, for example. It debuted this November, in 2013. The e-book, however, won't launch until March 18, 2014. This shift, called "windowing", isn't an isolated incident, although it's not exactly a trend either. Publishers don't always release e-books at the same time as their print versions. For example, in the case of A Memory of Light, the final book in the Wheel of Time series, I ended up skipping the last volume entirely due to the shifted dates rather than wait several months for the e-book. (I did however read the Wikipedia entry, which had a vastly reduced amount of crossed arms, skirt smoothing and sniffing.) Patrick Nielsen Hayden tells me that windowing was much more practiced a few years ago. He says, "I think most of the editors and agents I know would agree that the practice is in decline." Instead, some books such as the re-release of Charles Stross' Merchant Princes novels are actually going digital first, appearing in the US several months before the print version to match up with their UK releases. So why is windowing still around? Nielsen Hayden says, "Some [publishers] were genuinely anxious about losing hardcover sales; some were doing it because their bestselling authors (or those authors' agents) were anxious. And for a lot of other reasons, most of which are summed up by William Goldman's observation about the entertainment industry in general: 'Nobody Knows Anything.' But here at the start of 2014, I think there's a growing consensus that, in commercial fiction publishing at any rate, 'windowing' isn't going to be the dominant model." I appreciate the way I can now download many e-book samples before buying. When a friend recommended I check out Cinder by Marissa Meyer, I was able to pick up a five-chapter trial version before splashing out my $8 on the full book. Turning that around, I was then able to pass along that recommendation to my friend Judy, giving her and her daughter a chance to try before buying. When buying e-books, I have had to perform major mental shifts. The whole "you don't own that" DRM approach means that at any time, I could possibly lose access to major parts of my collection. Baen Books and Tor are notable exceptions to this rule and I encourage you to check out Baen's e-book policy page and Tor's blog post about the change. I can't hand off books I no longer want to friends, to charities, or sell to pre-owned bookshops. Nor can I count on my books being there five, 10 or 20 years down the line. Fortunately, my children de-sentimentalized me pretty early on. They have completely different tastes in reading than I do. The special books I put aside assuming they'd love them (Nesbit, Eager, Wynne Jones, McKinley, etc.) have long since found new homes. I'm the first to admit as an early adopter that the technology has a long way to go. Both iBooks and the Kindle app are pretty awful at cataloging and organizing books. They haven't gone far past the "read the book" challenge into the "manage your library" one. My iPad collections are stuffed with items from various bookstores, from Project Gutenberg, and public libraries. In fact, the only way I have found to remove long-since-read-and-returned library items is through the online "Manage My Kindle" page. Despite this, I am more committed now than ever before to e-book reading. The comfort, convenience and overall experience blows the old dead-tree-style books out of the water. Stumbling across print-only books, such as John McWhorter's What Language Is, leaves me blinking and shooting off emails asking when the Kindle edition will finally debut.
Mac and iOS users can now gift iBooks
Your chances of buying tangible gifts for the holidays may be fading fast, but your digital options are now wider than ever. Apple has just enabled full gift support on the iBookstore for both iOS and Mac users; you can buy someone a specific book rather than giving them iTunes credit. As with apps and media, it's simple to either time the gift delivery or attach a message. An iBook may not be quite as elaborate as a present under the tree, but we doubt that many iPad-toting readers will mind.
Just in time for the holidays, iBooks Store adds the ability to send iBooks as gifts
Apple has just introduced a new way for you to buy gifts for friends and relatives. The iBooks Store has added the ability to give iBooks to those on your shopping list. It's been possible to send apps to others as gifts since 2010, and music or videos from the iTunes Store for many years. Buying those gifts is actually quite simple: When you find a book that you just have to give to someone as a present, click on the drop-down arrow next to the price (on OS X Mavericks machines with the iBooks app). On iOS devices, tap the Share button from the store page for the iBook and you'll be presented with a Gift Book option. In both versions of the iBooks Store, you're then provided with a place to enter the email address of the recipient(s), a personal message and a day that you want to send the gift -- up to 90 days away. Gifting iBooks is an easy way to introduce someone to the concept of electronic books if they're still clinging bitterly to their dead-tree editions, and it's all charged to whatever payment method you've set up for your Apple ID.
Vellum: Taking the pain out of e-book publishing
As someone who has gone through the fun of self-publishing e-books for use on everything from the Amazon Kindle to Apple's iBooks, I know what a pain in the neck it can be to get everything formatted and set up properly for publishing. Even Apple's iBooks Author has limitations once you've actually created your book, since you need to have a developer account and know how to use iTunes Connect to get everything uploaded. Vellum (free) is a new Mac app released today from 180g that turns book publishing into a pleasure instead of a chore. The company was founded by a pair of Brads -- Brad Andalman and Brad West -- last year. Before they made the leap to app development and electronic publishing, they worked at Pixar Animation Studios, both on the feature films and the animation software used to create those blockbuster movies. The idea with Vellum is to let people download the app for free, import their manuscript, play with styling and then view a preview that shows how their book will look when loaded onto certain e-readers. Once authors are happy with the e-book's appearance, they can send the preview to "beta readers" for feedback and last-chance editing. When the e-book is ready to go, the authors make an in-app purchase -- US$49.99 for one book, $99.99 for three books or $149.99 for five books -- to generate a file that's ready to be uploaded to the appropriate e-book store. That makes life a lot easier for author/publishers. Both Amazon and Apple have eliminated the requirement and expense to purchase an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) for each title, at least for domestic publishing. You'll still need to get an account for the publishing portals -- iTunes Connect for iBooks and Amazon Author Central for Kindle books -- and know how to submit the e-books. Let's take a quick look at Vellum and how it works. To begin with, authors can write their manuscripts and save them in a Microsoft .docx format. Vellum opens the document, analyzes it to find where it thinks chapters are and then converts it to Vellum's native format. You can edit the documents in Vellum, so typos that have made it past previous editing can be corrected without the need to re-import the document. If you're starting from scratch, it's possible to create an entire book in Vellum without resorting to using another product. Before you go further, you might want to add front- and end-matter to the book, which is a cinch -- you just add an element, whether that's a copyright, dedication, foreword or any other standard publishing item. Once the contents are set, you get to select the style of the book. At this time, Vellum includes eight "themes" plus a number of choices for heading, first paragraph, block quotation, ornamental break and paragraph after break. They're all very nice and professional-looking styles, and it's possible to preview what the book is going to look like at any time just by clicking the preview button. If you don't like what you see in the preview (for iPhone, iPad, Kindle Paperwhite and Nook Simple Touch), it's easy to change what you're doing. There's a tool for adding a cover image by dragging and dropping it onto a specific spot, and your entire book can be previewed for white, black or sepia pages if the e-reader supports those. You can also see how the layout will appear if the reader changes the font or font size. When you're ready to test the book in e-reader software or on a specific device, you click the Generate button. Kindle publishing requires the free download of the "kindlegen" plugin, which Vellum thoughtfully provides an in-app link to. I generated the sample book for both Amazon (.mobi) and iBooks (.epub) formats, and was able to open both of the formatted files immediately in the native Mac apps. All in all, I found Vellum to be an amazingly robust app for a 1.0 version, and I look forward to giving it a workout in real life. If you're interested in trying it out, I recommend downloading the free app and giving it a try.
Oh Siri, you tease: the iBooks plug edition
So what happens when you ask Siri to find you a bookstore? You may get some awesome snark ("Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.") Or, Siri might "suggest" another way for you to grab a book to read. Yes, Apple is now pushing iBooks as one of its canned answers for finding bookstores -- a fact we found amusing enough that we thought we'd share. The targeted marketing hints, surprisingly, did not seem to spread to requests for "Where can I buy music?" and "Where can I rent TV shows?" It may be only an iBooks thing at this time. In a related matter, Siri seems to handle book-specific queries in a new manner. When you ask "Where can I go to read a book?" Siri used to give you library and bookstore locations. Now you must ask something along the lines of "Where can I go to buy a book?" or "Where can I find a bookstore?" That's because the old question now responds with "I'm afraid I can't do that" or "Oh, that would be cheating" -- exactly the same responses as when you ask Siri "Can you read me a book out loud?" or "Can you read me a book?" It's always cool to see how Siri's processing evolves over time. Have you discovered some changed or intriguing behavior with Siri? Drop a note in the comments and share.
Apple pushes out iOS 7.0.4 update alongside redesigned iBooks and iTunes U apps
Apple may not have had all of its own apps overhauled in time for iOS 7's launch, but it's slowly but surely bringing them up to speed. The latest to get a complete redesign are iBooks and iTunes U, which expectedly now look a fair bit like Apple's Newsstand app and the App Store itself. What's more, the company's also pushed out the latest minor update to iOS 7, which now stands at 7.0.4 -- it promises a fix to the FaceTime issue that has been plaguing some users, along with the usual range of other "bug fixes and improvements." Not to be left out, iPod touch users unable to upgrade to iOS 7 can also download an update to iOS 6 that promises to remedy the same FaceTime problem.
David Sparks releases Email field guide for iPad
Blogger, author and all-around nice guy David Sparks has just announced the release of the fourth in his best-selling series of MacSparky Field Guides. The latest is a deep dive into the world of email -- the Email Field Guide (US$9.99) is an exhaustive look at email and the inbox as an incredible problem for so many people. By exhaustive, I mean that this iBooks masterpiece is loaded with information. It's over 46,000 words in length (just under one NaNoWriMo novel long), has eight audio interviews, 36 detailed screencasts totaling almost 90 minutes in length and a lot more material to get your email problem under control. Sparks doesn't just talk to the Apple cognescenti about email in his interviews; he's also nabbed such folks as actress/comedian Aisha Tyler and director and writer David Wain to lend their perspectives (and humor) on taming the inbox. The 1.15 GB iBook looks like it's going to be an instant classic, and we hope to have a full review of it soon.
iBooks for iOS update ditches the wooden shelves, iTunes U updated too
Apple has updated its iBooks and iTunes U iOS apps with an iOS 7 look and feel. The new iBooks app ditches the wooden shelves for a Newsstand-like frosted-glass background. The store portion of the app has also gotten a complete makeover, now mimicking the look of the App Store and iTunes Store apps. Not all skeuomorphic details are gone, however. Page curls remain. As for iTunes U, the app now has a very similar look and feel to the new iBooks app, with frosted shelves and a Catalog where users can download new content that looks similar in style to the App Store. Both apps have new icons. The only other app Apple needs to update with an iOS 7 look is Find My Friends. Both iBooks and iTunes U are free downloads.
Apple updates iBooks for OS X
Hot on the heels of other updates this week, Apple has released its first update to iBooks for OS X. Given that this is a rather quick release and that the release notes only say, "This version of iBooks includes bug fixes and improvements to performance and stability," users shouldn't expect to notice any radical changes off the bat. Hopefully Apple has fixed some of the bugs that plagued iBooks since launching on OS X, including users missing e-books from their library that were obtained from third-party e-book stores. Users can get the latest iBooks update by running Software Update on OS X Mavericks.
Apple updates iBooks Author with iBooks for OS X support
Apple has released an update to iBooks Author, its iBooks design, layout, and creation software for OS X. The iBooks Author 2.1 update addresses a number of stability issues and bug fixes, as well as adding support for the new iBooks app included in OS X 10.9 Mavericks. Now with the click of a button iBooks creators can quickly preview the current book they are creating directly in iBooks for OS X. What's New in Version 2.1 • Preview books in iBooks for Mac • Addresses an issue that removed enhanced caption tracks from some movies • Includes various bug fixes and performance improvements And with the new release of iBooks for Mac, books made with iBooks Author can now be read on the Mac. iBooks Author is a free download.
Deadly Premonition gets 352-page companion app for iPad
Deadly Premonition received a companion iBooks app for iPad this week, Rising Star Games announced. Priced at $9.99, the Deadly Premonition: The Director's Cut The Official Visual Companion is 352 pages long with over a hundred "interactive elements." The book offers players the chance to peek into the creative notebook of director Hidetaka Suehiro (also known as Swery65) to learn more about the development of this odd cult favorite. The interactive book includes three maps and concept art for the game as well as a soundboard and soundtrack. It arrives ahead of the Steam launch of Deadly Premonition: The Director's Cut, which is set for Halloween.
70 iOS 7 and Legacy Tips, Tricks and Secrets
TUAW has been providing you with some hints and tricks about iOS 7, but there are a lot more cool tips that we haven't even touched upon. It's About Time Products, which has been in the business of making Macs and iOS devices understandable for quite a few years, has just come out with a wonderful iBook titled "70 iOS 7 and Legacy Tips, Tricks and Secrets" (US$1.99, on sale for a limited time for $0.99). The book has been created to follow the design sensibilities of iOS 7, and it uses the same typeface (Helvetica Neue Ultra Light) that graces the new mobile operating system. It's designed to be used in portrait mode on your favorite iOS device, and features on-page video clips that perfectly illustrate the "tip, trick or secret" described. There are fifteen chapters of tips in the book, covering things you probably didn't know from "Control Center, Multitasking & AirDrop" through "Keyboard & Gesture" and all the way to "Weather, Compass, Reminders, Maps, Stocks, Videos, Calculator". The videos are silent, short and sweet, and the entire book is an eye-opening fast read. As with developer Saied G's previous iBooks and products, 70 iOS 7 and Legacy Tips, Tricks and Secrets is chock-full of things that every iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch owner should know. I was surprised with some of the tips, and I've been using iOS 7 since late June! There are some products that are a no-brainer to purchase, and this book is one of them. I highly recommend this for everyone who has updated their device(s) to iOS 7. Get it while it's on sale for $0.99 and you'll be glad you did. [Want to help your friends and family grok the iOS 7 story? Send them a link to our Don't Panic Guide to iOS 7. --Ed.]
Apple's AirPort Utility, iBooks updated with iOS 7-friendly look, compatibility
Sure, it's not the most exciting news to drop on this iOS 7 official "birth" day, but Apple has updated several apps to bring them into the brave new world of the new iOS. Both AirPort Utility and iBooks have received updates in the last few hours. The notes for iBooks -- which seems to be sporting the same non-flat icon that it has since it first became an iOS app -- show that "This version of iBooks improves compatibility with iOS and iCloud." The app is still as Scott Forstall skeuomorphic as it always has been, complete with the faux wood library shelves. For the AirPort Utility, the release notes simply say, "Adds support for iOS 7." I'd let you know what that means if I had half a clue, but there's just not a whole hell of a lot of detail there. If you're an iOS 7 user already and set up your devices for automatic downloads, those updates should already be installed.
Apple: DOJ wants Amazon to have a 'Significant Competitive Advantage'
Just hours after the Department of Justice filed a revised punishment proposal claiming Apple instigated the in-app purchase rule to "retaliate against Amazon," the Cupertino company has hit back by saying the DoJ wants Amazon to have a "significant competitive advantage," reports GigaOm. In court filings posted Monday morning, Apple's attorney stated: Plaintiffs are seeking a remedy that would give Amazon a significant competitive advantage over Apple -- an advantage it is neither entitled to nor deserves. This is plainly improper and highly counterproductive. Now -- after the trial is over and this court has ruled -- is not the time to adjudicate a whole new array of legal and factual issues based on evidence that is outside the record and which largely post-dates the events at issue. Among the proposed changes the DoJ wants are the ability for e-book sellers to sell e-books within their apps on iOS without Apple taking a 30 percent cut. Given that Apple's business model includes a 30 percent cut of all content sold, this is understandably a hot issue for the company. Apple is expected to meet with the judge overseeing the case later today to further discuss the proposals.
Apple updates iBooks with iCloud fixes
Apple has released an update to iBooks, its first update to the app in six months. iBooks 3.1.1 improves compatibility between the app and both iOS and iCloud. Apple doesn't explicitly list how compatibility has been improved with iCloud, but there had been reports on Apple support forums that sometimes bookmarks and page placements were not being synced properly across devices. Apple is planning to launch iBooks for OS X this fall, which would give the company extra incentive to make sure sync works well with the app. iBooks is a free download.
Apple seeds OS X Mavericks Preview 5 with iBooks for Mac
Apple has seeded the latest beta of OS X Mavericks to developers, which this time includes iBooks for Mac, reports 9to5Mac. This is the first Mavericks build seed to include iBooks for Mac. According to reports, the app doesn't look much different than what was previewed at WWDC this June. The iBooks app has the same features as the iOS version, functioning as both a store and a reader. OS X Mavericks will ship this fall.
Talkcast tonight, 10 pm ET: Ebooks and more
All-new dial-in experience! See below -- do not call into Talkshoe, we won't be there. Be sure to set up Fuze Meeting before the show if you want to join in live. It's Sunday, and it's time for the TUAW talkcast! In the wake of Apple's legal loss in the ebook pricing case, we'll talk about the next steps for the iBookstore. Of course, there's also the never-ending cycle of iWatch rumors; the Financial Times has the latest, with Apple supposedly recruiting aggressively for engineering talent to produce the wearable gadget. All this, and your comments and calls -- what more could you ask? Join us at 10 pm ET, and we'll have a grand old time. Reminder on new-style talkcasting: With some help from the fine folks at Fuze, we're using a new system to record the show. This should let everyone listen in live -- and, if you want, raise your hand as you would in the Talkshoe room to get unmuted and chime in. You can join the call in progress (meeting # is 20099010) at 10 pm ET from any computer via this link; if you download the Mac or Windows Fuze clients ahead of time, you'll get better audio and a slicker experience, but browser-only will work fine. Just click the phone icon to join the audio once you're in. Using an iPhone or iPad? Grab the native clients from the App Store and get busy. (Even Android users can join the party.) Still feel like using the conventional phone dial-in? Just call 775-996-3562 and enter the meeting number 20099010, then press #. While the Fuze web and native clients have a chat channel, we'd like to reserve that for host participants, requests to talk and other real-time alerts... so the full-on chat for the show will appear in this very post at 10 pm tonight. You'll need Twitter, Facebook or Chatroll credentials to participate in the chat. We'll remind everyone to check back in at that time. Your patience and forbearance with our new tech is appreciated in advance. For the time being, the podcast feed of the show will continue to originate from Talkshoe and should be there within 24-36 hours. See you tonight!
