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Posts tagged with "iBooks"

iBooks 1.2.2 Released

A few minutes ago Apple released a minor update to iBooks, its eBook reading application for iPhones and iPads available for free in the App Store. iBooks 1.2.2 includes “important stability and performance improvements” that should make the app more responsive as well as fix a series of issues reported by users in the previous versions of the app. The update addresses an issue with videos being played from enhanced books purchased from the iBookstore and fixes a problem with some books opening in a different font than expected. Last, books with several items in their table of contents should feel more responsive overall.

iBooks 1.2.2 can be downloaded here.

iBooks Can Now Open EPUB Files Directly→

iBooks Can Now Open EPUB Files Directly

Adam Engst at TidBITS details an important change in how iBooks handles .EPUB files opened directly on iOS:

The practical upshot of this fix is that you can now transfer EPUB files into iBooks far more easily than before, when the only way was to drop them into iTunes and do a USB sync. For individual users, that means you can send yourself an EPUB via email and transfer the attachment to iBooks, and you can also copy EPUB files into Dropbox and use the iOS Dropbox app to send them to iBooks.

Basically, forwarding books bought / downloaded in Mobile Safari to iBooks got a lot easier thanks to the “Open In…” menu. Project Gutenberg books work great with this method.

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iPad 2 Video Tutorials Posted on Apple.com

As noted by 9to5mac, Apple has tweaked the “apps for iPad” webpage to include guided tours of the new iMovie for iPad, GarageBand and iBooks. iBooks isn’t exactly new, but everything has been re-recorded with shiny new white iPads. The voice over is also pretty good and clear, the tutorials make movie editing, music making and recording look simple and fun. Some details that weren’t demoed at Apple’s keynote are also featured: GarageBand has a dual keyboard mode, there’s a selection of Apple-designed amps to choose from and iMovie picks up songs from the iPod library or its built-in sounds seamlessly.

Videos are available here. The iPad 2 comes out on Friday, and we’re going to get ours as soon as we can. Look for lots of iPad 2 coverage on March 11 here on MacStories.

Update: Apple has posted more tutorials for every built-in iPad app. Check them out here.

MacStories Interviews: Dave Caolo, Author of “Using Your iPad as a Business Productivity Tool”

If you live in a corporate environment these days, chances are your employer has given you an iPad to try out. It is no secret that hundreds of companies are piloting or deploying iPads and iPhones, but when it comes to a machine that’s less than a year old and has created a new category of portable computing, trying to make it fit in your daily workflow can become a problem. What apps do I need to install? What about email settings? What’s the best way to manage my calendar? And Exchange?

Author Dave Caolo provides answers to these questions in his first book “Using Your iPad as a Business Productivity Tool”. The book is available now in the iBookstore for iPad at $5.99, but you can also pre-order it for your Kindle on Amazon. We had the chance to chat with Dave about the background of this book, and why he decided to focus on the iPad, a relatively young device for a business audience.

So head after the break for the full interview, and go download the book for your iPad here. Read more

iPad and iPhone Beats Kindle In The UK, But Not In The US

Market research firm Book Marketing Ltd has revealed to GigaOM that in the UK both the iPad and iPhone are beating the Kindle as an eBook reader most used by consumers based on data from last September. The story however is very different in the US however with the Kindle far ahead after stellar growth throughout 2010 as the graph below the break demonstrates.

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PwnageTool Updated for 4.2.1 Untethered Jailbreak, Includes iBooks Fix

Jailbreak app PwnageTool was updated a few minutes ago to include untethered jailbreak for iOS 4.2.1 and clear the iBooks incompatibilities found in version 1.2.1 of the ebook reading app. The Dev Team explains:

PwnageTool also includes two very recent improvements to the 4.2.1 JB:  iBooks was just fixed by @comex and @pushfix last night so that it works as intended on DRMed books, and the wifi problem on AppleTV 2G was fixed by @nitotv, @DHowett, and @saurik.  Both of these fixes will also be available in upcoming Cydia package updates, so if you’re already jailbroken you can wait for those updates rather than restore and jailbreak again.

PwnageTool 4.2 can jailbreak the following devices:

  • iPhone3G
  • iPhone3GS
  • iPhone4
  • iPhone4 - Verizon
  • iPod touch 3G
  • iPod touch 4G
  • iPad
  • AppleTV 2G

The app is available for download on the Dev Team’s blog.

iBooks 1.2.1 Now Available

A few minutes ago Apple released an update to iBooks for iPhone and iPad. The new iBooks 1.2.1 doesn’t come with new features over the previous 1.2 version but adds a number of stability and performance improvements. The usual Apple magic recipe for minor updates, we guess.

Go grab it here. [Thanks, Roberto!]

iPad Helping Remove Bookshelves, Save Space in Japan

With Japan’s cramped living quarters, arrival of the iPad and other tablets and it’s non-existent e-book market, there has been an explosion of start-ups offering consumers to turn their paper books into e-books that can be used on such tablets as the iPad. Japan currently has the largest market for paper books and magazines, worth over $24 billion a year, yet the e-book market is currently earning less than $1 billion per year, driving customers to alternatives such as scanning books into PDF’s for use on tablets and e-readers.

One such start-up, Bookscan was founded by Yusuke Ohki and childhood friend, Shinya Iwamatsu last April and has done gangbusters, expanding its workforce to 120 people in less than 12 months. Ohki said to Bloomberg “the iPad’s release is the biggest factor in making this business possible” and said his inspiration for starting the business was the 2000 physical books that were crowding out his small Tokyo apartment.

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Push Pop Press Teases a New Brand of Digital Books

A new company focused on creating ‘a new breed of digital books’, Push Pop Press today unveiled their teaser site, beautifully minimal in its design and purely hinting at what is to come. However John Gruber over at Daring Fireball wrote up a fairly lengthy post about Push Pop Press and a demo he had been given last week, praising it and giving some fairly detailed insights into what is to come from the company.

The teaser site offers up a description of the mission of Push Pop Press;

Our team is bringing together great content and beautiful software to create a new breed of digital books. Books that let you explore photos, videos, music, maps, and interactive graphics, all through a new physics-based multi-touch user interface.

The team over at Push Pop Press is undoubtedly one high caliber bunch of people, with Mike Matas, Kimon Tsinteris and Austin Sarner. Mike Matas, the designer and co-founder is most notably known for working on Delicious Library and his stint at Apple (which started the young age of 19) in helping design the original iOS. The other co-founder, Kimon Tsinteris is a software architect and worked with Matas at Apple on the Map app on iOS. Finally Austin Sarner is software engineer who may be familiar from his apps including AppZapper, Disco and Pennies.

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