Starting today, O’Reilly Media will be selling some 600 titles in Apple’s iBookstore, along with almost 150 more from (yes, ironically) Microsoft Press, whose books are sold and distributed by O’Reilly. The iBookstore is of course included in the free iBooks app for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch (iTunes link).
For now, the availability of O’Reilly and Microsoft Press titles is limited to the United States and Canada, however.
The titles from O’Reilly include Jeff Potter’s Cooking for Geeks, David Pogue’s iPhone: The Missing Manual, J.D. Biersdorfer’s iPad: The Missing Manual, and Mark Pilgrim’s HTML5: Up and Running. Definitely sounds like something for the iOS device carrying developer crowd.
Perhaps less so are the titles from Microsoft Press, which include Steve McConnell’s Code Complete, Second Edition, Ed Bott’s Microsoft Office 2010 Inside Out, and William R. Stanek’s Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Administrator’s Pocket Consultant. Although I’m sure those will look awesome on the iPad as well, and it obviously makes a lot of sense for Microsoft Press to get its titles distributed on as many platforms as possible.
Worth noting: since there’s no DRM on ebooks sold by O’Reilly, it’s easy to read titles purchased from the iBookstore on nearly any device with ePub support.
Andrew Savikas, VP of Digital Initiatives at O’Reilly Media, has blogged about the announcement as well and says the company intends to make the full catalog of titles from O’Reilly, Microsoft Press, and all of its digital distribution clients available in every territory with an iBookstore.
Savikas also points out that, as a solution for the fact that iBooks does not support updates for ebooks, each title includes information about how to upgrade one’s purchase with oreilly.com for $4.95 in order to gain access to additional DRM-free formats and free lifetime updates.
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