Apple has collected a selection of self-published titles on the iBookstore under a new “Breakout Books” section. The section is intended to give special attention to “emerging talents,” according to Apple, and each is both independently published and highly rated by users. Some are free, most are cheap, and the effort looks like an attempt to remind users that just like Amazon, Apple’s digital… → Read More
There’s been plenty of buzz about the iPad mini and the potential role in could play in reaffirming Apple’s commitment education, and now CEO Tim Cook is spending some time on stage to discuss the sort of impact immensely-popular tablet has had in schools. After noting that the iPad (and iBooks) has now found a home in 2500 classrooms in the U.S., Cook revealed that a new version of the… → Read More
I do not want my children learning math proofs on iPads. I simply do not see the value in it. iPads will not help with identifying sentence clauses or writing an essay. There’s a place for interactive learning and there’s not. It’s a clear line. Give science and history teachers iPads loaded with demos, videos and soundbites. Allow children to pinch and zoom DNA strands and the inner workings of… → Read More
A publisher, John T. Colby, bought a series of old titles and sold under the name iBooks in since 1999. Around the same time, Apple sold laptops under the iBook name and, more important, began its iBook store in 2010. Colby is stating that Apple has essentially destroyed his business and that:
“Apple’s use of the mark ‘iBooks’ to denote the electronic library that can be accessed via its… → Read More
In what they’re calling a throwback to the original comic book they released to announce the launch of Chrome, Google has today unveiled a new site meant to educate users about browsers and the web. 20 Things I Learned About Browsers & The Web is actually an interactive web app meant to look like a children’s book. And while the book’s content is all about web technology, the interactive book… → Read More
Buying a digital book for your iPad is a very odd experience. If you fire up iTunes, you can find music, movies, apps, even audiobooks, but there is no category for digital books. You need to first download the iBooks app, and then buy books within that app. So it is like a marketplace within a marketplace that also happens to be a reader. The Kindle app also works that way. It is… → Read More
Books are becoming electronic like every other form of print media, but they still lag in their social skills. A startup called Rethink Books wants to incorporate sharing features into every electronic book and turn them into social books. I caught up with founders Jason Ilian and Jason Johnson today at the TedxEast conference in New York City, where they presented a demo f their… → Read More
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… → Read More
If you’re comfortable traveling with your iPad (and why not?), these Lonely Planet guides look pretty amazing. Regular books seem like they’d be a pain on an iPad, but picture books for kids and interactive, picture- and link-rich content like travel guides are made for it. You can search, bookmark, leave notes, link out to maps and related websites. Wish I’d had all that with my… → Read More
Doxie, the cute but functional little document scanner, just got an interesting update. Version 1.2 of the Doxie software adds a Devices tab which allows you to send scanned items to your iPhone or iPad. You can read those items on your iThingie using iBooks. This may make your iPad even more useful, and certainly opens new doors to productivity. → Read More
iBooks just received an update that adds dictionary look-up of words as well as quick, closer views of in-line images, and updated PDF controls for quicker browsing. Generally, it adds a number of features missing both from iBooks and the iPad Kindle app. → Read More
During Apple’s iPad event in January, CEO Steve Jobs announced that Apple now had over 140,000 apps in the App Store (along with over 3 billion downloads). If the numbers by app analytics company Distimo are correct, that number is now past 150,000.
But the App Store is growing so big, so quickly that these milestones alone are hardly noteworthy anymore. But Distimo also offers up some nice data… → Read More
When Apple was demoing its new iBooks application for the iPad today during their keynote address, I just kept thinking to myself: this simply must have been designed by Delicious Monster, the shop behind the brilliant Mac app Delicious Library. I’m not the only one who thought that either. Delicious Monster founder Wil Shipley thought the same thing. The only problem? His shop didn’t make… → Read More
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