Apple wins trademark case over ‘iBooks’
Apple has won one of its many lawsuits involving “i” products — a federal judge threw out a case in which a New York publisher claimed that it, not Apple, has the rights to use “iBooks.” Read more »
Updated: Apple expands iBookstore in Japan with new publisher partnerships
For the first time Apple’s iBookstore will offer paid ebooks in the Japanese market, from major Japanese publishers including Kodansha and KADOKAWA. The iBooks 3.1 update also brings reading improvements for other Asian languages. Read more »
iTunes launches Breakout Books section to highlight self-published titles
Apple has launched a new section of the iBookstore, “Breakout Books,” that highlights popular ebooks from self-published authors. Read more at paidContent »
How to use your iPhone, iPad or Mac to borrow ebooks from the library
photo: Shutterstock / Gts
You don’t have to pay for ebooks on your mobile device or your Mac: your local library will lend you ebooks, digital magazine and audiobooks. Here’s a quick guide to getting set up. Read more »
Apple will sell ebooks in Japan
photo: Flickr / Marcus Vegas
Apple will launch a fully fledged iBookstore in Japan this year. Kobo, Kindle and Google all launched Japanese ebookstores in 2012 — greasing the wheels for Apple’s launch in a country that has been slow to embrace ebooks. Read more at paidContent »
Review: iBooks 3′s new scrolling view, collections, sharing
We take a look at the new ebooks software Apple updated on Tuesday. The new scrolling view and social sharing of iBooks passages are interesting features updates, but may not be for everyone. Read more »
Apple releases iBooks 3, expands to more countries
At Apple’s iPad Mini launch event in San Francisco on Tuesday, the company also announced updates to its e-reading platform, iBooks. In addition, Apple is reportedly expanding the iBookstore to 18 more countries, including many in Latin America. Read more »
Hiptype wants to be the Google Analytics for ebooks
Mobile analytics companies provide app publishers with data about their users. Hiptype, a Y Combinator startup, wants to do the same thing for ebooks. That could be huge for data-starved book publishers — except that for now, Hiptype only works on platforms that support HTML5. Read more at paidContent »
Where Apple spends its money in Washington, plus 4 other Apple stories to read today
Here’s our daily pick of stories about Apple from around the web that you shouldn’t miss. Today’s installment: the political issues Apple cares about, Apple’s capital expenditure machine, closing the in-app purchase loophole, coming changes for the iPhone dock, and the ebook buying dilemma. Read more »
Hands on: Retina-enabled reading apps for iPad
The main appeal of the high-resolution Retina display of the new iPad to voracious readers is the improved text viewing. We go hands on with the major reader apps that are now Retina-capable — the Kindle app, iBooks, Comixology and Zinio — to see which adapted best. Read more »
Subscriber Content
Tablet market to hit over 377 million units by 2016
Tablets represent the next evolution in the advancement of mobile computing, and by 2015 or 2016, the tablet will begin to replace the laptop and the desktop operating systems market will begin to level off or perhaps decline. Our latest forecast examines these trends in detail. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
iBooks 2 Is ‘A Huge Missed Opportunity’, Publisher’s Developer Says
Apple’s new big play for the education textbook market is a big letdown, according to a developer for one of the leading interactive kids’ e… Read more at paidContent »
McGraw-Hill is Apple partner, but still has questions about iBooks
In talking with an executive from Apple iBooks partner McGraw-Hill, it’s clear the company has high hopes but also concerns about maintaining consistently high-quality textbooks that are published with iBooks Author. Here are some of the most interesting points from our conversation. Read more »
Apple Move Will Spark Flurry Of New Companies, Content In Education Market
photo: Shutterstock / olly
At Apple’s event today in New York, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) unveiled iBooks2, a new version of its iBooks software that is tailored to interactiv… Read more at paidContent »
Apple Launches K-12 iPad Textbooks, New iTunes U & Self-Publishing Platform
According to Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), education in the U.S. is plagued both by major institutional problems — low high-school graduation rates,… Read more at paidContent »
E-textbook veteran CourseSmart defends its turf
Apple is not the first company to introduce the idea of interactive and digital textbooks for mobile devices. And the players that are already doing that are, unsurprisingly, not super thrilled with all the attention Apple) is getting today. And they’re defending their territory. Read more »
Why textbooks of the future are not books
Apple’s e-textbook tools and platform announcement wasn’t a huge surprise. But what’s become more clear after hearing Apple’s pitch, which is aimed at K-12 school teachers, school districts, homeschooling parents, publishers and students themselves, is that the future of textbooks isn’t a book at all. Read more »
Apple education event live blog
We’re here at Apple’s education event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The company is expected to launch a set of tools that allow self-publishing of textbooks and possible partnering with textbook makers to push a digital learning initiative. The event and our live […] Read more »
Apple education event on calendar for Jan. 19
Apple will be holding a press event in New York City this month, according to invitations sent Wednesday. The invitation has few details, but says the topic will be “an education announcement.” The event will take place at the Guggenheim Museum. Read more »
Europe probes Apple’s e-book deal with publishers
European antitrust regulators have announced the launch of a formal investigation into the relationship between Apple and five of the world’s largest publishers, in a move that could reshape the digital book market. Read more »
A cautionary tale about why to back up iTunes content locally
Access to past iTunes purchases through iCloud is a big plus when it comes to transferring media, and a competitive advantage for Apple’s digital sales ecosystem. But users who depend too heavily on it stand the chance of getting burned, as one customer recently discovered. Read more »
Taking stock of Steve Jobs’ legacy
Steve Jobs was a visionary, instigator, leader, motivator, marketer, pitchman and showman. Gary Morgenthaler of Morgenthaler Ventures recalls Steve’s many contributions that have changed the world as we know it. Read more »
Get a taste of iCloud, right now
iCloud doesn’t fully launch until iOS 5 arrives this fall, but you can check out some features right now. Apple has pushed out updates to the iOS 4.3 App Store, iBooks and iTunes apps that let you check out your purchase history, and setup Automatic Downloads. Read more »
How To Use Collections To Manage Your iBooks Library
Between prior purchases and poor self-restraint, I now have an e-book library several hundred titles strong on my iPad, and it’s growing constantly. Built-in sorting isn’t cutting it. Thankfully, user-manageable Collections in iBooks adds some much needed depth to iPad e-book organization. Read more »
New iPhone Ads Play to Apple’s Strengths… and iBooks?
Apple introduced three new ads for the iPhone that focus on key competitive advantages the iOS platform provides. Or, two of them focus on competitive advantages, and the last talks about iBooks and the iBookstore, which may be a sign of trouble to come. Read more »
Random House Finally Comes to iBooks
Apple’s iBookstore originally launched with many major publishers on board, but Random House was a longtime holdout. Then, just over a day ago, Random House switched to the agency model for e-book pricing and today began populating the iBookstore with its titles. Read more »
Only Apple Loses With iBooks Jailbreak Block
Apple’s latest efforts to counteract jailbreaking are more likely to hurt the company, its reputation, and its revenue than to prevent iPhone owners from going out-of-bounds with their device software. I’m talking about recent reports that iBooks stops working on jailbroken devices. Read more »
iBooks Update Brings Illustrated Books, Collections, AirPrint
As we reported earlier, Apple today introduced new illustrated titles to the iBookstore. The titles come alongside an update for the iBooks app, which delivers enhanced support for illustrated books, a new Collections feature and the ability to print PDFs and notes via AirPrint. Read more »
Apple iBookstore Adding More Picture Books, Canadian Content
Apple’s iBookstore for iOS devices is getting an influx of new content. There’s a major injection of illustrated titles set to arrive today, according to the New York Times, and the Canadian government just approved the sale of Canadian content in Apple’s e-book marketplace. Read more »
Google Books: The Worst iOS E-reader, But Still a Winner
To say Google’s Books app lacks polish would be kind indeed. If Apple can be accused of sometimes favoring form over function, Google does neither with Books. Instead, Google leaves out expected features, adds a few bizarre ones, and wraps it in a barren interface. Read more »
E-readers Are the Future, But Is the iPad Among Them?
A recent survey quoted by Marketing and Research Resources Inc. found that more than 40 percent of respondents said they now read more on their e-readers than in print. They buy more books, too — more than 3 times more, according to Amazon sales data. Read more »
Can Borders Unseat Amazon in the E-Book Market?
Borders today launched its digital e-book store and debuted software readers for both BlackBerry and Android devices. While Amazon has the early lead in this market, Borders is taking an Amazon-like approach with a “buy once, read anywhere” mantra. Will such a strategy work? Read more »
Quick Tip: Send PDFs to iTunes for iBooks Syncing
Getting PDFs into iTunes to sync them with iBooks on your device can be a bit of a chore. But by using the method below, you can send any document or even web page straight to the Books section of iTunes for syncing with ease. Read more »
Showdown: 5 iPad Reading Apps
Now that all the commercial e-book distributors have made their iPad apps available, it’s time for an overview of how each app performs, along with their pluses and minuses. So, here’s how I found each app to hold up. Read more »
iBooks Moves to the iPhone, Gains New Features
At WWDC today, Steve Jobs actually mentioned iBooks, the iPad native e-reader, twice: once before and once after announcing iPhone 4. The first time was to say that later this month, the iBooks app will be receiving an update. Read more »
iPad at WWDC: One Sold Every 3 Seconds, iBooks Gains Adobe PDF Support
Steve Jobs says that Apple is selling an iPad every three seconds and that 8,500 applications are available for the tablet. Five million ebooks have been downloaded and the iBooks software is getting an upgrade with support for Adobe PDF documents in the bookshelf. Read more »
Will ePubs Replace Your Library?
The idea of reading on mobile devices is not new. Devices like the Amazon Kindle and the Sony eReader have been around for a while, but with the buzz surrounding iBooks sparking more interest, are digital books worth it? Read more »
Zinio’s iPad Magazines Suggest Disappointing Future
Just like Apple with its iBookstore, Zinio has established relationships with an impressive array of publications. As such, you can expect to find enhanced editions of magazines Cosmopolitan, T3 and Rolling Stone among others. However, unlike Apple’s iBookstore, Zinio certainly doesn’t live up to the hype. Read more »
iBooks and the iBookstore: A Walkthrough
When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad several weeks ago, one of the key announcements was that the new tablet device would feature an e-reader. I have spent the last couple of weeks using the iBooks app and shopping in the iBookstore to see how it works. Read more »
iPhone OS 4.0: Mail, Folders & iBooks
iPhone fans around the world will rejoice with the improvements coming in Apple’s iPhone 4.0 OS this summer. Support for organizing applications within folders, an improved Mail app and the new iBooks app are among the most notable. Read more »
