Apple Launches Twitter Account for U.S. iBookstore

[MacRumors]

Apple today stepped up promotion of its iBookstore by launching a new Twitter account to keep followers updated on new releases, special offers, and other details from the store, as noted in the account's debut Tweet. The account was created back in June, but Apple has just started using the account to send out Tweets today.

Welcome to the Apple #iBookstore on Twitter. Follow us to discover new releases, exclusive book offers, and more.

The account's second Tweet promotes Erin Morgenstern's "The Night Circus", which is being heavily promoted by Apple. Apple is currently featuring the book on the iBookstore's main page, and Starbucks has also stepped into the promotion by offering a free "extended sample" of the book through its recently-expanded Pick of the Week program.

Apple maintains a number of Twitter accounts to provide updates on new and featured content from the iTunes Store, with the App Store receiving its own account earlier this year. The iBookstore account is not listed as a verified account, but does appear to be official as it is one of only seven accounts being followed by Apple's App Store account. The other six accounts followed by @AppStore are official Apple accounts.

Apple is also increasing its ties with Twitter in other areas, having recently added Twitter and Facebook posting to its online store and bringing systemwide Twitter integration to iOS 5.

Article Link: Apple Launches Twitter Account for U.S. iBookstore

 

[cms2]

I won't be following, but I guess this will be good for others who choose to do so. I don't generally like opting in for marketing.

 

[vartanarsen]

iBooks is poor, compatibality-wise.

I buy my book once in the kindle Book store
Then, it can be read (with synced-saved bookmarks) on my:

PC at work
Mac at home
iPhone on the train
iPad at Starbucks
my wife's kindle in bed

Show me an iBooks book that can do that

 

[DESNOS]

iOS blog, not front page.

 

[FriarNurgle]

Following the tech blogs is enough.

 

[HiVolt]

iBooks is poor, compatibality-wise.

What else would you expect from Apple though... Locked into their own devices...

But why dont they have a PC client? THey could work it into PC iTunes at least.

 

[CosmoPilot]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

How about giving us an iPhone 5 tweet?

 

[Daveoc64]

What else would you expect from Apple though... Locked into their own devices...

But why dont they have a PC client? THey could work it into PC iTunes at least.

That has always been very odd. I think that's really hurting them.

 

[BryanBensing]

Free advertisement for Apple iBook....

^^^ :d:d

 

[Rustus Maximus]

iOS blog, not front page.

I agree, or maybe we could start a new one...page 17 rumors?

 

[DESNOS]

What else would you expect from Apple though... Locked into their own devices...

But why dont they have a PC client? THey could work it into PC iTunes at least.

Part of the issue is that it's not even available on all of their devices. You can't read iBooks on macs, but you can read Kindle Books on macs. This seems rather ridiculous to me. Plus, none of Apple's devices are particularly good at reading in the sunlight, making iBooks useless for people who read while commuting, or in the park.

 

[HiRez]

Starbucks "extended sample" is a joke. The normal iBook preview is what, like 100 pages? I don't know what it is (maybe it varies from book to book), but they're long previews, if you can't figure out by then if you want to read the rest of the book, you probably don't.

 

[DESNOS]

Following the tech blogs is enough.

Well, part of the value of twitter is that you can follow anything with a twitter account with little to no effort on your part, so it would even be rather painless to follow 100 tech blogs via twitter if you should choose to, just have to fight the wave of spam. With that said, I won't be following iBookStore.

 

[gri]

Slow day today? Who cares if Apple or I I tweet about a book. Which I won't as I don't have a twitter account or even a facebook one - and am perfectly happy with it. Granted, for major news events twitter is good and important - but this...? Plain promotion/ads?

 

[KindredMAC]

iBooks for OSX or GTFO!!!

 

[Dusky600]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; pt-pt) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

IBookstore sucks in Portugal cause of the licensing crap. We've only got like project Gutenberg ****. That allied with no open ability to read online or on pc like the in iTunes reader idea makes the iBookstore a big no no for me at least.

 

[Pooshka]

What's up with all these "X opened twitter account, Y opened twitter account, Z opened twitter account, woohoo!" threads?!! Stop cluttering the front page with this kinda trivia. No one cares.

Send out the damn invites already!

 

[JGowan]

The iBook negatives here expected. Anytime Apple doesn't jump into a market and dominate it in six months, it's easy to bash. We've come to expect the impossible from Apple.

Personally, I don't read outdoors so glare is a non-issue with me. Also, if I were to read outside, it would probably be with a real paperback. Those commercials showing the man and woman at a pool and they both have electronic devices is ridiculous. Who wants a $600+ device near sand, concrete and 7 feet of water! Too many things could go wrong in that scenario. I'll stick to reading inside, thank you very much.

The only thing I would like to see from Apple is the option of reading my books sans the faux book and fake page flips. Just text. It's jazzy and makes for great demo, but I would like the immersive quality of just black text/white background with the ability to invert on the fly for night reading.

Apple will get there and become the key player, I believe, for readers. I believe they are working on different technologies that will make all of the negatives moot. We'll see. It all just takes time.

 

[alent1234]

Following the tech blogs is enough.

but then you have to visit each one in the browser or RSS reader

 

[mattyu007]

Looks like it's verified now.

 

[wd89]

The app is called iBooks so shouldn't it be iBooksstore, not iBookstore?

They also say iBookstore on their website but why? I see the Newsstand app in iOS 5 didn't just drop one of its S's

 

[macUser2007]

iBooks is poor, compatibality-wise.

I buy my book once in the kindle Book store
Then, it can be read (with synced-saved bookmarks) on my:

PC at work
Mac at home
iPhone on the train
iPad at Starbucks
my wife's kindle in bed

Show me an iBooks book that can do that

I cannot understand why anyone in their right mind would purchase iBooks.

Most other sellers sell in standard formats, such as EPUB or MOBI, which can be easily transfered between platforms and devices.

With iBooks, you are locked to the iOS ecosystem, which means that if in a year or two you decide that another platform is better for you, your whole library becomes instantly obsolete.

Good for Apple, because it would deter users from switching platforms, but absolutely idiotic from a customer standpoint.

 

[Captainobvvious]

I don't read a lot but I know the last handful of times I have gone to the iBookstore to look for a book it hasn't had it.

The selection seems ridiculously limited.

Does buying from the store lock you in? I have gotten ePub books from various locations and read them through the iBooks app so I assumed that the books you bought were also ePub... Is that not the case?

 

[Caliber26]

Totally off track (sorry), but does Apple have official Facebook and/or Twitter accounts? I've seen the AppStore on FB, but all the other "Apple Inc"s I've seen are just fan-made.

 

[macUser2007]

I don't read a lot but I know the last handful of times I have gone to the iBookstore to look for a book it hasn't had it.

The selection seems ridiculously limited.

Does buying from the store lock you in? I have gotten ePub books from various locations and read them through the iBooks app so I assumed that the books you bought were also ePub... Is that not the case?

Apple touts the fact that it uses the open ePub format, but it does not use the standard Adobe DRM scheme.

Which means that non-Apple devices will not read books purchased from the iBooks store. So much for Apple's support for open formats and standards....

Also, Apple is in the habit of periodically blocking iBooks access on jailbroken devices, which means that if you jailbreak, you may find yourself waiting for the jailbreaking community to find a solution, before you can finish the iBook you were foolish enough to purchase.

Better off buying ePubs elsewhere.