First Look: Kobo for iPad

Yes, you heard correctly: Kobo for the iPad was officially approved late last night. Now we just have to rebuild (with a couple extra bugfixes, woo!) and resubmit by EOD today.

I'll hopefully be floating around the Apple Store at Walden Galleria on Saturday if I can arrange a lift at about the same time the company-iPad-buying-folks are going to be there. See you all there perhaps ;o)

No thanks. Too much customizing (why can't designers actually make a decision?), and the options for customizing are not that great either.

I'm not too fond of the font change option on Apple's iBooks either. I think publishers take a lot of time thinking about the best font for the content and the user will probably end up fiddling too much with different fonts rather than reading the actual book!

Underwhelmed to say the least.

Looks like the "will they/won't they" speculation is over. According to Kobo staff on Twitter, they've just been approved for the April 3 launch:

"@jasongamblen: Good news for those who loved the #kobo iPad demo - looks like Apple loves our app too and just approved us to submit for the iPad launch!"

Looks like Apple's doing the right thing when it comes to book apps on the iPad. Nice.

Apple approved the Kobu reader for the iphone long ago. Is the author's view that that Apple "should" fail to approve an i-pad app that is suboptimal for the ipad?

Here at Kobo we're aware of the chance that the app might be 'rejected' due to 'duplicating' iBooks' functionality, but we have a few good reasons why that shouldn't happen:

1. iBooks isn't built into the device, it's an App Store download. Therefore the 'duplicates built in functionality' argument wouldn't hold.
2. eBook reader applications are HUGE on the iPhone, and Kobo already has an app on that platform. It would be difficult (legally speaking) for Apple to deny this version, given the (permitted) existence of the other.
3. iBooks is only available in the US (at least right now). Kobo is available very nearly worldwide. It would be sincerely asinine (or is that a contradiction in terms?) for Apple to reject an eBook reader/store app for the entire world because of a US-only platform also being available.

At the end of the day, we're all very proud of what we've achieved in such a short period here. The iPhone/iPad team we've built over the last couple of months done some fantastic work. Whether or not the iPad application gets approved, we have plans to make our work available on other, similar platforms soon enough.

That said— time for me to get back to waiting.

…I mean work. Yes work, definitely. Not just mindlessly refreshing iTunes Connect, no.

*ahem* :o)

The night reading mode is very nice. Wonder if Apple's does that too?

wow, that really IS a gorgeous app. i wasn't expecting to be moved one way or the other, but i was surprised at how sexy that is. i'm going to watch for this one in the ipad app store.

This is no different than having a preference for a certain web browser. Better web browsers are created by competition. I think the same can be said for bookreader's.

I really hope there will be more fonts available on the iPad or, even better, I will be able to import my own! The selection of fonts I have seen so far in preview videos is simply a shame.

"It's unclear whether Apple is going to (or, really, should) give this app a green light."

I am wondering when the government or some company is going to take Apple to court over the competition issue. If this were MS they would have been taken to task a long time ago.

I have my iPad reserved and will be in line Saturday morning, but it bothers me that Apple seems to be afraid of competition. After all, if I buy the product I should be able to put any app I want on it without having to jailbreak it.