Apple Adds Audio and Video Capabilities to 'iBooks'

Nice! Apple is being very competitive with iBooks.

Hopefully PDF reading really is substantially improved.

Nice update.

Now all they need to do is make ibooks have enough books to be worth using over the amazon app.

This could lead to some pretty cool interactive factual books and text books. I wonder if anyone would consider using iBooks to distribute magazines, Apple could make a neat simple subscriptions system rather than having all these separate apps for magazines and newspapers as we have now.

iBooks is the nicest eBook reader app that there is no books for. I would love to start buying iBooks (have 5), but I quickly open my Kindle app and buy them there because almost nothing is available in the iBook store.

talkingfuture said:

This could lead to some pretty cool interactive factual books and text books. I wonder if anyone would consider using iBooks to distribute magazines, Apple could make a neat simple subscriptions system rather than having all these separate apps for magazines and newspapers as we have now.

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I use the Zinio reader to subscribe to MacWorld magazine. One app puts all my magazines at my fingertips. Not that stupid 1 magazine = 1 app solution that companies are using now. Apple really missed the boat on this one, by not having a distribution method, such as iMags to distribute magazines.

I had a bunch of PDF files in iBooks on my iPad, but when I updated it erased all my PDF's. Kept the ePub books I had, but all the PDF's were gone.

The release notes also had a line about speed improvements for PDF. It was already good, but any improvements are welcome because PDF definitely isn't quite as slick as the ebooks. The iPad is still a magnificent PDF reader though.

Edit: just spotted that ARN also had that line in his summary. Doh. Sorry about the redundant post.

Mike Teezie said:

Hopefully PDF reading really is substantially improved.

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It's definitely much quicker now for reading PDFs. You still have to zoom in on text from page to page... unlike Goodreader, but despite that I prefer iBooks.

I also noticed that my bookmarks/highlights/etc. in an ePub book I'm reading were somehow synced automatically and wirelessly between my iPad and iPhone. I'm not sure if it did that before this version (I thought before it only synced that stuff if you connected them to your computer?)

Filling up my library with free books now...

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/5924/ibooks-build-your-library-by-using-google-to-find-free-ebooks/

I love harnessing the power of google... google-fu rocks.

ksgant said:

I had a bunch of PDF files in iBooks on my iPad, but when I updated it erased all my PDF's. Kept the ePub books I had, but all the PDF's were gone.

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FWIW, it didn't delete anything from iBooks on my iPad. I guess you were unlucky

adrian.oconnor said:

FWIW, it didn't delete anything from iBooks on my iPad. I guess you were unlucky

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Yeah, wasn't really any big deal as I just loaded them back up. Was just kind of a pain.

Reading magazines is superb, but I really really really wish they would let us adjust the margins for ePub books...

PDF reading is WAY better now.

Great update! However it would be great if they start adding a bunch of books! Apple sorely lags in lack of selections. I end up buying my ebooks from other sources and I would rather do business with Apple.

Snappier in iPad ...

tick tock tick tock ... release performance release performance

Hmm

iBooks with audio and video...

Bit like a web browser then (albeit offline).

Just give us flash already!

-----

Devoted Apple fan, too many devices to count. Happy with my iPhone4.

Hooray for Competition!

I love it when companies go head-to-head in products rather in public relations.

talkingfuture said:

This could lead to some pretty cool interactive factual books and text books. I wonder if anyone would consider using iBooks to distribute magazines, Apple could make a neat simple subscriptions system rather than having all these separate apps for magazines and newspapers as we have now.

Click to expand...

Apple does support a subscription model, but it's up to the individual developer to write codes taking advantage of it.

ksgant said:

I had a bunch of PDF files in iBooks on my iPad, but when I updated it erased all my PDF's. Kept the ePub books I had, but all the PDF's were gone.

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I did not have that problem. Mine are all still available. Must be an isolated, lucky you, incident.

furi0usbee said:

iBooks is the nicest eBook reader app that there is no books for. I would love to start buying iBooks (have 5), but I quickly open my Kindle app and buy them there because almost nothing is available in the iBook store.

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I agree 100%. There are many books I want to buy regarding The Beatles and there are only about 10, most of them I am not interested in. Also, in regard to Elvis, only a handful for him as well.

Very disappointing.

RonD69 said:

Apple does support a subscription model, but it's up to the individual developer to write codes taking advantage of it.

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Do they for iBooks? Are you sure? I thought to publish in iBooks you need a catalog/ISBN number. Doesn't that fact alone mean publishing magazines would be impossible? I don't know, I'm just asking...

Anyone else see some potential security issues with this?