IBooks Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Daily Update for May 9, 2013

by Steven Sande (May 9th, 2013)

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires ...

Apple wins "iBooks" trademark case

by Steven Sande (May 9th, 2013)

Have you ever heard of Black Tower Press? Back in 2011, the small New York publisher of sci-fi and fantasy books filed a trademark suit claiming that it had the rights to use the term "iBooks." Yesterday a New York court ruled in Apple's favor, stating that the publisher's mark -- ibooks -- and ...

Rumor: Amazon's Goodreads purchase cancelled a possible Apple partnership

by Mike Schramm (Apr 18th, 2013)

The Wall Street Journal says that before Amazon's purchase of the Goodreads service earlier this year, Apple was planning to possibly integrate the social reading-recommendation service into its own iBookstore. Apple and Goodreads, says the WSJ, had been talking for a year or more about ...

Apple bans Brian K. Vaughn's Saga #12 comic book due to graphic sex scenes [Updated]

by Mike Schramm (Apr 9th, 2013)

Update: It turns out this is not true -- the ban came from the book's digital publisher, Comixology, not Apple itself. Comixology has since rescinded the ban. Original Post: I never thought I'd write two stories in one day about Apple attacking the comic book industry over adult content, ...

iBook Lessons: Why the Kindle App is still the best reader on iOS

by Erica Sadun (Apr 3rd, 2013)

iBook Lessons is a continuing series about e-book writing and publishing. The important thing about e-books is this: the reader matters a lot less than the content. Over time, I've found myself using iBooks less and less and less, as I now turn almost exclusively to Kindle for my iPad ...

TUAW Bookshelf: Markdown by David Sparks & Eddie Smith

by Erica Sadun (Mar 28th, 2013)

Markdown (US$9.99, iPad only) by David Sparks and Eddie Smith, offers a terrific introduction to the Markdown plain text-to-HTML conversion spec. Originally created to provide an easier way to produce web content, Markdown is now an indispensable tool for developers and bloggers. This intro ...

Siri trick turns iBooks into audiobooks

by Steven Sande (Mar 18th, 2013)

Have you ever purchased an iBook and then wished that you had an audiobook version of it? Macworld UK's Mark Hattersley wrote a wonderful post today on how to use Siri Dictation to speak either a portion or all of the text from an iBook. To begin setting up Siri to read your books aloud to ...

Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson needn't testify in e-book case

by Michael Grothaus (Mar 6th, 2013)

Steve Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson has been dropped from the upcoming Apple e-books price-fixing case, according to Paid Content. Class-action lawyers had originally subpoenaed Isaacson to submit his notes from interviews with Jobs regarding the iBookstore. However, Isaacson refused to do ...

Daily Update for March 5, 2013

by Steven Sande (Mar 5th, 2013)

iBooks 3.1 brings paid content to iBookstore in Japan

by Randy Nelson (Mar 5th, 2013)

Version 3.1 of iBooks is out today and while it might not bring much in the way of new features for Western users, it's a pretty big deal for book lovers located in Japan. That's because the latest update introduces paid content on the order of hundred of thousands of books -- encompassing ...

Apple highlights self-published iBooks with new Breakout Books section

by Randy Nelson (Feb 5th, 2013)

In a move intended to make discovering independent authors easier on the iBookstore, Apple has launched a new sub-section of the US iTunes Store called Breakout Books. Previously rolled out in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK, the section is meant to promote titles from writers who've ...

iBook Lessons: Book Creator for iPad

by Erica Sadun (Feb 5th, 2013)

iBook Lessons is a continuing series about e-book writing and publishing. You wouldn't think that the iPad makes a natural match to e-book content creation, would you? Red Jumper Studio thinks otherwise. Its US$4.99 app, Book Creator for iPad, enables you to build EPUB works directly from ...

iBook Lessons: Advanced page flipping demo

by Erica Sadun (Jan 28th, 2013)

iBook Lessons is a continuing series about ebook writing and publishing. Much as I love iBooks' beautiful page scrolling, there's always room for improvement. By studying the way people interact with real books -- browsing for information and adjusting pages while reading -- the developers of ...

Harvard Medical School content to be part of HeartDecide

by Mike Wehner (Jan 16th, 2013)

Orca Health's HeartDecide app is now powered by data from Harvard Medical School, thanks to a newly formed partnership. As AllThingsD reports, the new union has already yielded a wealth of new content for iOS devices. The app, which is designed to help educate users, is offered free of charge. A ...

Apple's iBookstore to hit Japan this year

by Michael Grothaus (Jan 2nd, 2013)

Before Apple rolled out the iBookstore in Japan in 2010, it failed to negotiate the necessary contracts with Japan's biggest book publishers. As a result, the iBookstore in Japan was stocked predominately with free, public domain e-books. The only paid e-books in the store have been from very ...