iBooks

Accio iBooks: Harry Potter‘s Apple Editions Have Animations and Annotations By Rowling

Being a Muggle is boring. That’s why we reread Goblet of Fire for the seventeenth time in hand-knit Slytherin scarves–to flee banal adulthood. Well, the Harry Potter books are cranking up the magic even more, with special editions for Apple devices, beautifully animated and full of little notes from JK Rowling herself. Starting today, the…

Apple Is Happy to Take Your Money if Amazon Won’t

Fresh off of settling a lawsuit that accused it of collusion with publishers, Apple is ready to take the money you were planning to give to Amazon but can’t. Since Amazon is in a fight with Hachette—the world’s largest bookstore and one of the world’s largest publishers respectively—and refuses to let customers pre-order any books…

Apple Just Put Its App Design Bible On iBooks For Free

Apple’s iOS Human Interface Guidelines, a set of tips and rules for designers that was previously only available through the developer portal, is free on iBooks as of today. It’s a little glimpse into how Apple hopes app developers will follow its lead when it comes to design. The “book,” which is more of a…

Best Buy is selling $100 iTunes or App Store giftcards for just $85 shipped, a pretty surprising savings in the Apple ecosystem. [Best Buy via 9to5Toys]

OS X Mavericks Is Here Today and It’s Free!

When Apple introduced the latest version of OS X back in June, it did so with little bombast. Mavericks, as it’s called, is no iOS 7 in terms of radical overhauls, but it is full of subtle however powerful behind-the-scenes changes. And the best part about it? It’s free, and it’s available right now. https://gizmodo.com/os-x-mavericks-first-impressions-a-little-good-going-a-513804371…

Why Do We Keep Making Ebooks Like Paper Books?

Comparing books to ebooks is like comparing mechanical watches to digital watches, or manual cars to automatic cars. No one doubts the convenience, reach, and flexibility of the ebook format, but it will never convincingly replicate the experience of a paper book—nor does it need to. Ebooks are a fundamentally new medium, stuck in an…

Explore the Universe From Your Couch With This Free, Stellar iBook

Happy holidays from space; there’s a new, free, astronomic e-book in the iTunes store and all you need to check it out is an iDevice and some time. Hubble Space Telescope: Discoveries boasts a collection of picture, video, and animation that lets you stare out into the beautiful void like never before. From the iTunes…

There’s a New Version of iBooks with Synced Pages and Continuous Scrolling

Apple just announced a new version of iBooks. It’s got a continuous scrolling reading option, which is pretty great. It’s also got its own iCloud-enabled version of Whispersync, that will sync your current page across any device you’re reading on—iPhone, iPad, etc. You’ve also got more sharing options, like copying and sharing quotes. It’s got…

Sell Your Book in the iBookstore and Apple Won’t Let You Sell It Anywhere Else

Selling a book with Apple’s iBook Author program is now a one-way ticket to Apple being the only place you can sell the book. Maybe selling your book on iBooks isn’t such a great deal after all. Dan Wineman of Venomous Porridge went to publish his first book from within the iBooks Author application when…

A Story About Apple and Textbooks

It was almost definitely not the first time Apple thought about how to revolutionize textbooks and education, but Joe Peters and a couple of Apple interns won its annual iContest, “sort of an American Idol for great ideas that gives interns a chance to present their best thoughts to executives,” by presenting a plan for…

How to Make an iPad Textbook in Under Five Minutes

iBooks Author, Apple’s new iPad textbook maker, is purported to be so easy to use that [insert stupid animate object here] could go and make one. So we figured we’d try our hand at it. Even if we won’t win any education or design awards, making a three page book was a walk in the…

Apple’s Mysterious New York Event Is Just About Books?

TechCrunch has an anonymous source in their ear, saying this month’s alleged Apple powwow is all about iBooks. TC’s Alexia Tsotsis says the event “will not involve any hardware at all and instead will focus on publishing and eBooks (sold through Apple’s iBooks platform)” and be “industry-oriented.” This sounds rather dull, but could potentially mean…

Read an iBook, Throw a Shuriken, Tether your iPhone, and Let’s Go Sailing

iBooks gets a substantial update. Unleash Shurikens upon your enemies. Get the best tethering app and let’s go sailing. I hear sailors get to curse all the time. If you want to see all the apps on one page click here. iBooks: I do most of my reading while snuggled up in bed. The latest…

The New iBooks 1.5 for iPad and iPhone Is a Must Have Upgrade

The new iBooks 1.5 is out. It’s great. It has a nighttime mode to make reading books in the dark easier on the eyes and full-screen layout with none of the stupidly gimmicky backdrop. Just beautiful typography. More useful features: • New typefaces, including Athelas, Charter, Iowan and Seravek. Some are great. • Redesigned annotation…

Apple Breaking iBooks on Some Jailbroken iPhones

Over at Social Apples, a recent 4.2.1 jailbreaker noticed something disconcerting after firing up iBooks on his newly-liberated device. Many of his ebooks didn’t work. Since using the greenpois0n jailbreak, I have been unable to open some of my iBooks that I rightfully purchased from the iBook Store. I thought it was a problem with…

Did Apple Just Neuter iPad Ebook Apps? (Update: Sorta!)

Do you remember when everybody was worried what Apple’s iBookstore meant for apps like Amazon’s Kindle? The undercurrent of dread Apple would kneecap competing ebook stores the way it does iTunes competitors? Well, those fears may have come true. Updated. Update: So Apple’s finally offered some comment on the situation with blocking Sony’s Reader app:…

NY Times Anoints Ebooks With Their Own Best-Seller List

Starting early next year, the venerable NY Times is going to include ebooks in its weekly literary sales ratings. Taking their place alongside paperbacks and hardcovers, ebooks will be ranked based on a system that it took the Grey Lady two years to perfect: “We’ve had our eye on e-book sales since e-books began,” Ms.…

How the iPad Changed This Disabled 7 Year Old Boy’s Life

Click to viewThe iPad, and other tablets like it, may actually be a magic and revolutionary device after all. Because at least in this instance, it’s given a disabled 7-year old boy the ability to communicate with the world. Owen Cain lives with spinal muscular atrophy Type 1, a motor-neuron disease that that leaves him…

iBooks App Updated to Support Audio and Video Content

The iBooks app‘s been updated to not only include support for audio and video content, but to also offer “substantial performance improvements when reading PDFs.” The free update appears to be gradually showing up in iTunes. [iTunes via Mac Stories]

The First iPad-Only Novel Is Coming, With Literal Bells and Whistles

Highly regarded Japanese novelist Ryu Murakami isn’t releasing his next novel on hardcover or paperback. He’s releasing it exclusively on iPad, and including all the multimedia goodies that the platform allows. Murakami’s novel, A Singing Whale, will feature video elements as well as orchestration by composer Ryuichi Sakamoto—an Academy Award winner for his work on…