Ebooks Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

iBooks Author accounts are free, existing developers need a new account

by Chris Rawson (Jan 19th, 2012)

Setting up an account to publish books to the iBookstore has always been free, and the new iBooks Author tool has brought that fact into the spotlight. Self-publishing books to the iBookstore does still have a few hurdles you have to leap through, however. As AppleInsider points out, for iOS and ...

iBooks Author makes its debut today for creating ebooks (Updated)

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Jan 19th, 2012)

Apple has announced the free iBooks Author, an OS X application for creating any type of ebook. As with Pages, a number of templates are available for authors to use to get started with making a book. With a tap, they can be filled with stock text. Elements such as audio and video can be ...

What to expect from Apple's education event: Digital textbooks, 'GarageBand for ebooks'

by Chris Rawson (Jan 16th, 2012)

The Wall Street Journal and Ars Technica have weighed in with information about Apple's upcoming education event. Both outlets cite the usual "people familiar with the matter" for their information, and their sources have generally given accurate info in the past. With those caveats out of the ...

U.S. Department of Justice joins Apple ebook pricing investigation

by Chris Rawson (Dec 8th, 2011)

Just a couple days after European antitrust regulators launched an investigation into allegations of ebook price fixing among Apple and several major book publishers, the US Department of Justice is now joining the fray. Computerworld reports that DOJ acting antitrust chief Sharis Pozen is ...

Read all of Skyrim's literature on your iPad

by Mike Schramm (Nov 28th, 2011)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim isn't available on the Mac yet, but odds are that if you're a big fan of gaming, you're probably already playing it on consoles or the PC. Bethesda's latest role-playing game is just a massive piece of world-building, with tons of dungeons to crawl through, a huge ...

Stanza iOS app updated, but Amazon is abandoning it

by Chris Rawson (Nov 10th, 2011)

Stanza was one of the first apps I downloaded when I got an iPhone. It pre-dated Amazon's release of the Kindle iOS app and Apple's own iBooks app, so for awhile Stanza was the best option out there for reading eBooks on an iPhone. Not long after it released the official Kindle app, Amazon ...

Apple involved in class-action lawsuit over ebook pricing

by Chris Rawson (Aug 10th, 2011)

On today's episode of The Daily Lawsuit: law firm Hagens Berman has filed a class action lawsuit against Apple and five of the major book publishing houses. The suit claims Apple and these publishers have conspired to raise prices on ebooks. According to the suit, Amazon's loss-leading ...

Preview of Bartleby Vol. 2 iPad app shows possibility of future AirPlay integration

by Chris Rawson (Aug 8th, 2011)

We covered Monster Costume's interactive children's book Bartleby in 2010, and multiple TUAW reviewers found it to be a charming and well-crafted iPad app. Monster Costume is hard at work on Bartleby Volume 2, and even though I don't have kids of my own and am about 25 years beyond the target ...

Google Books app back on the store, sans subscription link

by Mike Schramm (Jul 25th, 2011)

9to5Mac reports that the Google Books app for iPad has returned to the App Store after some time away, and this time it's available only without the "Get eBooks" button that led off to the service's subscription and downloads page. This is due, of course, to Apple's subscription policy ...

Chinese authors to petition Apple to halt book downloads

by Michael Grothaus (Jul 8th, 2011)

A group of Chinese authors is petitioning Apple to halt the distribution of their books through multiple apps in the App Store, according to the 21st Century Herald Tribune (as reported by Reuters). The authors are part of a group called the Writers Rights Alliance, and this isn't the first time ...

How Apple iBooks could compete with Amazon's Kindle in the ebook space (Updated)

by Steven Sande (May 24th, 2011)

Update: The original version of this post cited a $99 fee to set up publishing for books via the iBookstore, which was incorrect; while the developer program $99 fee applies to books-as-apps, it does not apply to iBooks themselves. TUAW was contacted by Apple's media team, and they told us that ...

Tip: iBooks can open EPUB books directly

by Mike Schramm (Apr 8th, 2011)

The latest version of iBooks (or possibly one of the previous versions -- we're not sure when this change went in) includes a helpful little update in it: iBooks now recognizes EPUB files, which means it can open those files directly from anywhere on your iPhone, from your email to a DropBox ...

5 ways Apple could improve iBooks

by Michael Grothaus (Apr 7th, 2011)

It's no secret that I love traditional paper books, and I think e-books have a long way to go before they can even begin to compete with physical books. As digital books stand now, they're as much fun to read on the iPad as is watching an IMAX movie projected against a brick wall. That being ...

TUAW TV Live at 5 PM: Steve and Doc Rock speculate and prognosticate

by Steven Sande (Apr 6th, 2011)

Live from Highlands Ranch, Colorado and Honolulu, Hawaii, it's TUAW TV Live. Today my special guest will be Doc Rock, who was the gracious host of a huuuuge TUAW Meetup on April 3, with a bunch of the HiPad (The Hawaii iPad Users Group) members and a Parrot AR.Drone quadricopter. Doc is always a ...

From coffee table books to iPad apps: publisher ditching paper books

by Chris Ward (Apr 5th, 2011)

While many of those involved in the traditional dead-tree publishing business insist on using 15th century technology, at least one is leading the way into the 21st century. Nicholas Calloway, a successful publisher of glossy, expensive coffee-table books (including Madonna's Sex) is "betting ...