WWDC 2010: iBooks update includes PDF viewer

iBooks, Apple's native e-book reader on the iPad, is getting some updates, as announced today by Steve Jobs at the WWDC keynote. Among those updates are (better) support for bookmarks and the fulfillment of one of the most common requests: native PDF viewing. With the update, users will be able to navigate their own PDF's in the same fashion as the EPUB-format books that iBooks uses.

This is great news for me, and -- judging from the applause -- quite a few iPad users. It means not having to convert all of my PDF books to EPUB in Calibre (which has done a great job thus far, by the way). Hopefully the new functionality, which is due out later this month, will be as useful as some of the existing iPad apps, and provide the extra polish and simplicity that Apple's so good at.

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Source: http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/ibooks.html

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iBooks, Apple's native e-book reader on the iPad, is getting some updates, as announced today by Steve Jobs at the WWDC keynote. Among...

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Michael

My questions are two: 1) Will you be able to navigate embedded links in PDFs in iBooks, and 2) will we be able to sell our books in iBooks as well? I have been able to read PDFs perfectly with GoodReader for the iPad, and you can navigate embedded links using GoodReader as well. But the key is whether or not we'll be able to sell our PDF books.

June 08 2010 at 10:36 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

lifeplus66

I'm using Fast PDF and is perfect, belive me: don't wait for iBooks and get it now!

June 08 2010 at 9:33 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

macteo

If you want iBooks now get Fast PDF: it has the same look, is really fast, has a long list of features and is available for iPad and iPhones too.

http://itunes.com/apps/fastpdf

June 08 2010 at 9:09 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Zalmy b

Does anyone know if this means you could sell books in PDF format? That would be great for textbooks or any other highly formatted books.

June 07 2010 at 6:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Aaron

I have used both Stanza and now iBooks and the biggest complaint I have about both is that I can find no way to sort books by series. I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy and neither of these readers seem to be able to present book one ahead of book two and so on. I fully intend on exclusively using iBooks once it is on my iPhone, but if there is no way to sort the way I want, will someone convince Apple for me that there needs to be?

June 07 2010 at 5:33 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Aaron's comment

nippotam

I completely agree

June 09 2010 at 9:07 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

SIP

Hope us iPad users don't have to wait for the release of iOS4 before getting the upgrade to iBooks.

June 07 2010 at 2:23 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to SIP's comment

gib

I think that is one of the benefits of iBooks not being a natively preinstalled app, but one you have to download from the AppStore. It can be updated to a new version without a complete iOS 4.0 (or even 3.2.1) update. I don't think any of the PDF or annotation features would need specific features or APIs only found in 4.0.

June 07 2010 at 3:04 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

TheCastro

It will be nice not having to use Calibre.

June 07 2010 at 1:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply