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Apple adds Breakout Books to the iBookstore to spotlight the self-published
As glad as we are that digital bookstores let authors skip the usual gatekeepers, that doesn't help much if they can't get noticed. Apple is giving those self-publishing writers more of a chance to shine with the launch of a permanent Breakout Books section in the US iBookstore. The section highlights hot-selling and well-reviewed independent books, many of them from distributors like Smashwords. Don't see the placement as a purely altruistic gesture, though: many of the books sell for significantly less than their peers from major publishers, which might help Apple snag a few more impulse purchases than it would otherwise. We doubt there will be many complaints when the category could pad both sides' wallets.
iBook Lessons: Book Creator for iPad
iBook Lessons is a continuing series about e-book writing and publishing. You wouldn't think that the iPad makes a natural match to e-book content creation, would you? Red Jumper Studio thinks otherwise. Its US$4.99 app, Book Creator for iPad, enables you to build EPUB works directly from iOS. Aimed at light projects such as photo collections and kid-created stories, Book Creator provides a simple layout system to integrate text, pictures and sounds. I found the app relatively straightforward to use, although it would greatly benefit from presets. Libraries of header and body styles would make the tools so much easier to use, especially since this is more an expressive tool for kids and hobbyists than a tightly controlled design environment. I wish I had a Siri-ready iPad around to test with, as this app feels like a perfect match to dictation. Using a built-in iPad camera to snap pictures and then describing what I see using words feels naturally synchronous. As it was, Book Creator worked fine on my iPad 2. My favorite feature was e-book export. I was able to build my book and place it into my Dropbox folder, ready to share by email or read back on my Mac. The app also exported directly to iBooks. Although dedicated self-publishers are not the right target audience for this app, I'm sure it would be a great match for schools, crafters, photographers and others. Not every book needs to live on the iBookstore or Amazon. Here's another way to use e-publishing technology, but just for fun.
iBook Lessons: Advanced page flipping demo
iBook Lessons is a continuing series about ebook writing and publishing. Much as I love iBooks' beautiful page scrolling, there's always room for improvement. By studying the way people interact with real books -- browsing for information and adjusting pages while reading -- the developers of the "Smart E-Book Interface Prototype" have added a lot of clever into the ebook. A video demonstrating the interface follows. It presents some intriguing directions. The KAIST Institute of Information Technology Convergence, who produced this video, has an English-language summary page about their ongoing research. It's a really impressive video for R&D work. Hopefully this kind of advance will soon make its way into consumer e-readers. And, no matter what wiseacre YouTube commenters say, you probably shouldn't roll up your iPad and use it to swat any flies. Hat tip, Jeremy Tregunna
Harvard Medical School content to be part of HeartDecide
Orca Health's HeartDecide app is now powered by data from Harvard Medical School, thanks to a newly formed partnership. As AllThingsD reports, the new union has already yielded a wealth of new content for iOS devices. The app, which is designed to help educate users, is offered free of charge. A litany of heart ailments can be simulated using the app's 3D heart model, including rheumatic heart disease, atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease. You can also use the app's directory to find heart specialists and browse tips on staying healthy. The partnership between Orca and Harvard doesn't end there; A total of four iBooks from the pair are also now available covering various topics -- angina, angioplasty, atherosclerosis and cardiac catheterization -- in greater depth. However, unlike the free app, these interactive tomes will set you back US$4.99 each.
Apple's iBookstore to hit Japan this year
Before Apple rolled out the iBookstore in Japan in 2010, it failed to negotiate the necessary contracts with Japan's biggest book publishers. As a result, the iBookstore in Japan was stocked predominately with free, public domain e-books. The only paid e-books in the store have been from very small publishers or self-published authors. That's set to change later this year, according to AllThingsD. Citing "sources with knowledge of the situation," AllThingsD follows up on an earlier report by Nekkie, which claims that books from major Japanese publishers will be on sale on the iBookstore later this month. Now, AllThingsD says a January launch date is "far too optimistic a date for launch." However, they claim that Apple's conversations with publishers Kodansha, Shogakukan and Kadokawa are "going well" and that the companies will have deals settled "soon." In October, Apple updated the iBooks app to support Japanese-language e-books.
Apple ordered to pay settlement in Chinese App Store copyright case
Imagine you're an author and you find out that someone has been selling your books on the App Store without your consent -- and, worse, you don't see a dime of the profits. That's what happened to a group of eight writers in China, and a court there has decided that Apple owes them compensation, according to The Wall Street Journal. While the copyright-infringing apps weren't actually sold by Apple, the court found that the company was responsible for allowing them onto the store in the first place. As a result, the company must pay a total of 1.03 million Chinese yuan (about US$165,000) to the writers. When the suit was first filed back in February of this year the plaintifs had requested 23 million yuan ($3.65 million) in damages. The judgment in this case was handed down by the same court that ordered Apple to pay 530,000 yuan ($84,990) to a publisher in September after unlicensed versions of its encyclopedias appeared on the App Store. [Via Cult of Mac]
NASA offers free e-book for iPad owners
What a nice holiday gift from NASA: it's an interactive e-book available in the iBookstore called Hubble Space Telescope: Discoveries, featuring beautiful images, video and animations relating to the space telescope that is giving us striking new views of the universe we live in. "These new e-books from NASA will allow people to discover Hubble and Webb in a whole new way - both the science and the technology behind building them," said Amber Straughn, an astrophysicist on the Webb telescope project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "They collect all of the amazing resources about these two observatories in an excellent product that I think people will really enjoy." The e-books are highly interactive and include image galleries and videos. Tracy Vogel of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., is part of the design team that put them together. "For instance, the readers can watch a galaxy collision simulation video, manipulate a telescope model to see it from all angles, or flip through a gallery of planetary nebulae - all right there on the page," Vogel said. If you have an iPad the book is available at this link. Be forewarned; it's a hefty download, almost 900 MB. The e-book requires iBooks 3.0 or later and iOS 5.1. %Gallery-174005%
Apple settles with EU over e-book pricing, hands Amazon a victory
Apple's long battle with European Union regulators over e-book pricing has ended with Apple and four publishers offering to let retailers set prices or discounts for the next two years and suspend "most-favored nation" contracts for five years. The EU responded positively to the news. Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia stated that "The commitments proposed by Apple and the four publishers will restore normal competitive conditions in this new and fast-moving market, to the benefit of the buyers and readers of e-books." The deal essentially stops Apple's agreements with publishers Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette Livre and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck (owner of Macmillan) that barred them from selling e-books to rivals more cheaply than to Apple. The publishers are now free to make deals with Amazon and other e-book sellers for pricing that may be less than what's available on Apple's iBookstore.
DevJuice: Stanford iTunes U course on iOS dev launches free textbook
If you're a fan of the highly popular Stanford iTunes U course on iOS development (CS193P), you'll be happy to learn that an official companion text is now available on iBooks. iPad and iPhone App Development covers the latest release of Xcode and the newest Objective C enhancements. Approximately 300 pages in length, this is an iPad-only (i.e., iBooks Author) text. The book supplements and updates the iTunes U videos for Xcode 4.5 and iOS 6. It is available in all 50 iBookstore countries. Best of all, it's free.
Flipboard adds support for Apple's iBookstore
The developers of Flipboard, the magazine-style feed reader for the iPad, have announced integration with Apple's iBookstore. The new "Books" category lets customers browse a book's title, image and description. If you find one you like, there's a link to buy in from Apple right in the app. All of the categories currently in the iBookstore are available for perusal in Flipboard. Users in US, UK, Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands and Brazil will find this feature available today.
Apple awarded design patent for iBooks page turning animation, Smart Case
When it comes to the question of how many patents Apple can possibly hold, the answer is easy: at least one more. To that end, the company has been awarded a patent on the page curling animation used in iBooks. You know, that neat way the page curls and follows your finger as you slowly leaf through your books, showing text on the opposite side of the page and even curling from the corners if you move your finger vertically. It's one of those effects that elicits an "oh wow" from pretty much everyone the first time they see it, and now it's Apple's. In related news, Apple has also been awarded the patent for the Smart Case. If you recall, this variation on the Smart Cover was introduced last year alongside the third-generation iPad with Retina display and combined the multi-panel Smart Cover design with a full polyurethane enclosure for the tablet. [Via AppleInsider]
DC Comics makes deal for Kindle, iBookstore, and Nook
I've written a few times here about Comixology and its strong hold on comics on the iPad, and DC Comics has now signed a deal to put its funny books on three big digital platforms, including Apple's iBookstore. iBooks already had some DC graphic novels available, but this deal is set up to bring DC's monthly releases to customers there as well. DC says that digital sales per title top out at about 40 percent, but overall are up 197 percent year over year, showing that there's a huge amount of potential in selling digital comic books over devices like the iPad. This news is bad for Comixology. While that company still has a great app, a huge userbase and licenses for all kinds of awesome content, you have to think that the iBooks audience is bigger, and Apple's licensing department can eventually get whatever it wants. If comics become a big deal on the iBookstore, that seems like it can only hurt Comixology's sales. Comixology is a company that's being run very well, and I have no doubt that they're already thinking about how to compete with iBooks. But for now, this is just good news for comic book fans; you'll have one more way to grab your monthly issues on the iPad.
Sony reader for iOS now available
If you own an iOS device and have for some reason been refusing to simply use iBooks for your e-book needs, Sony is swooping in just in the nick of time two-years-late with its own Reader app. The new app is rather basic in its feature set, with exciting bullet points like "Create your own bookmarks," and "Adjustable font size." The app is free, and works with Sony's own Reader Store. If you already have a library of titles on the service, you'll finally get the chance to incorporate them into your iPad or iPhone reading schedule. However, like other third-party e-book apps on the App Store, you'll need to purchase your reading material using your computer, as in-app book buying is not available. [Via: The Digital Reader]
iBook lessons: Mac clients and built-in updates
iBook Lessons is a continuing series about e-book writing and publishing. Since yesterday's announcement, I've been having a series of conversations -- in email, on the phone, on Twitter -- regarding iBooks, the iBookstore, and why iBooks for Mac remains missing in action. Many in the book world are well aware that Amazon's Kindle reader runs on nearly every platform you can think of, from iOS to Android, OS X to Windows, and in web browsers as well. In a world guided by DRM, readers can ubiquitously access Kindle purchases. Apple's iBookstore continues to have a single client: iBooks for iOS. Yes, the iPad is a delightful reading platform. At the same time, there's no denying that Amazon outpaces iBookstore sales for nearly every title I've worked with. Customers like the control Kindle offers them in how and where they read their books. When faced with a buying choice, readers regularly choose Kindle by a wide margin. There isn't a practical option for a third-party iBooks solution for OS X and Windows. DRM encryption means reverse-engineering Apple's system, an unrealistic basis for establishing a business. Plus, I'm sure Apple has already explored the notion of a desktop client in the run-up to the January 2010 iBooks announcement and since then. I remain puzzled though as to why Apple is not pushing to release iBooks for Mac. I can't imagine that the technical issues for a desktop-based reader are that insurmountable, so it must be a marketing and business decision, or a failure to staff and push the initiative. A Mac and Windows reader would certainly increase book sales; could it depress iPad sales? I wouldn't think so. iBooks 3 launched yesterday, bringing with it expanded dictionaries and continuously scrolling titles. This latter is what Mike T. Rose calls "Megillah" mode, referring to a book traditionally presented as a single scroll of text. In addition, the iBookstore will now allow publishers to push book updates, letting books receive new versions the same way apps do. From an author/publisher's point of view, this provides a mixed bag of blessings and frustrations. For the most part, when a book is done, it's done. Books go through an extended process of reviews and edits that put most apps to shame. Publishers do their best to produce the most polished creations they can, and post errata for any flaws that slip through the cracks. For top-selling books, errors can be fixed in subsequent printings, but all updates involve a huge investment in production overhead and page layout. The costs have to be worth it. In the apps world, it's common to push out point releases that offer simple bug fixes. The new iBookstore update feature is where books meet apps, and it's something that offers mixed benefits. Publishers will welcome the ability to tweak and refine manuscripts. Readers, however, may expect a commitment to relentless perfection that book creators cannot provide. With updates, e-books -- like apps -- become a project that never ends. Will readers revolt with one-star reviews when authors create enhanced and new editions -- now a common practice -- rather than pushing those updates to existing customers? Book updates, like app updates, don't offer a paid upgrade path and there are, as yet, no in-book purchase programs. Mistakes happen; they are part of the human experience. As an author and publisher, I'm glad the update mechanism exists. Trying to push an update through Amazon last year was a huge hassle, and Apple's approach looks far friendlier. But will updates become a big part of my publishing methodology? At this time, I see them as a safety mechanism, not an opportunity for growing a new business.
Apple releases iBooks 3, iBooks Author 2
Hours after announcing updates to iBooks and iBooks Author at Tuesday's iPad mini event, Apple has released iBooks 3 through the App Store and iBooks Author 2 through the Mac App Store. iBooks 3 changes include: The ability to see all iBookstore purchases in iCloud in iOS 6 Endless scrolling Receive free updates to purchased books, including new chapters, corrections and other improvements Look up definitions in German, Spanish, French, Japanese and Simplified Chinese in iOS6 Share book excerpts through Facebook, Twitter, Messages or Mail iBooks Author 2 changes include: The ability to create portrait-only books Embed custom fonts into books Additional interactivity with new scrolling sidebar and pop-over widgets Support for mathematical expressions with equation editing using LaTeX and MathML notation Automatic media optimization for iPad Improved support for embedded audio Improved publishing workflow, including automatic book samples and pre-publish checking Additional templates Version numbering Retina display enhancing for the new MacBook Pros Other performance and usability improvements
Apple's Oct. 23rd event roundup: iPad mini, 4th gen iPad, new iMac, 13-inch Retina MBP and more
Apple teased that it had "a little more to show" us prior to today's San Francisco event, but it's clear now that the phrasing was humble at best. Not only has the much-anticipated, rumored and leaked 7.9-inch iPad mini been officially revealed, but so has a smattering of new and refreshed offerings across its range of gizmos. The standard iPad is seeing its fastest refresh yet (about six months) to a Lighting port and A6X-packing fourth-generation model, and the iMac has ditched its optical drive to go Air-thin in its Ivy Bridge-driven seventh-generation. Mobile power users should be especially be pleased, too, as a 13-inch variant of the MacBook Pro with a 2,560 x 1,600 Retina Display is now a reality. Lest we forgot that the iBooks app and iBooks Author have both been updated -- right on cue with that book-like iPad Mini. Hop past the break for a full listing of all the news and all of our on-scene coverage that came out of today's event.
Daily Update for October 23, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Apple updates iBooks Author with support for multitouch widgets, OTA book updates
Apple used its press event today to introduce a new version of iBooks Author. The latest version of the book authoring tool lets users embed custom fonts, insert mathematical equations into a book and add multitouch widgets. There's also over-the-air book updates and a handful of new templates including some for portrait mode. iBooks Author is available for free in the Mac App Store. The latest update will be available later today.
Apple iPad sales topped 100 million two weeks ago
Just two and a half years after creating the product line, Apple announced today it has already notched its 100 millionth iPad sold. While we're still expecting to see a new, smaller model (get all the 4th gen info, including the new mini right here) unveiled today Apple is leading off its tablet talk with some chest thumping. According to its stats, it sold more iPads in the June quarter than any one PC manufacturers sold of their entire lineup, a hefty feat even if you take into account customers waiting for Windows 8. It's also referencing data that says the iPad accounts for 91 percent of web traffic among tablets. If that's not enough, there's also love for the education sector with a new version of iBooks author, which should get plenty of use with 2,500 schools in the US using them, and 80 percent of the curriculum available in iBooks. %Gallery-169061% For more coverage, visit our Apple Special Event hub!
Apple announces iBooks 3
Tim Cook announced iBooks 3 today, with iCloud integration, continuous scrolling and the ability to share excerpts from books via Facebook and Twitter. iBooks 3 will support more than 40 languages, including Chinese, Japanese and Korean. It will be available through iTunes, most likely at some point today. There are 1.5 million books in the iBookstore with more than 40 million downloads to date.
