Apple Adds Audio and Video Capabilities to 'iBooks'

[murdercitydevil]

I may actually have to try this now

 

[Bubba Satori]

Nice! Apple is being very competitive with iBooks.

Yep, this is very good news. Well done, Apple.

 

[Chief Oddball]

How to actually embed audio/video in a book?

On the technical side, can anybody point me toward an article that might shed some light on how to actually compile an eBook that includes audio? I've got a library of old PDBs that still need conversion to a format iBooks can read, and I'd like to include the embedded audio that was designed for use with them.

I'm currently searching around the web but not finding anything useful yet.

 

[ten-oak-druid]

Currently, kindle books are much superior. I can purchase them and read them on my macbook. I can't even buy ibooks because I do not own an Apple device that is compatible.

 

[TheOrioles33]

Hopefully PDF reading really is substantially improved.

To be honest, iBooks is better than any of the PDF readers I have tried (free and paid) on the App Store. Especially with large PDFs.

 

[mixel]

I'm on an iphone 4, and I know I can lock the screen but I don't want to have to go to settings, lock the screen then remember to unlock it before doing anything else, I want it to be an "in app" thing; if the Kindle app can do it..... so can Apple's iBooks.

In case you didn't know about the shortcut.. If you double-tap home then swipe the apps at the bottom to the right, the lock button is the bottom left icon.. Super fast an doesn't require messing around in settings.

 

[mixel]

I for one am glad the board is welcoming to dissenters and apple critics. Most people are somewhere in the scale.. I admire and (eew) love Apple and all but we all have our issues with them sometimes. Best to laugh off the trolls and haters. They tend to get bored eventually. Use the ignore button if you think people are beyond help.

I'd probably take most of the critics over the serious Apple fundamentalists anyway.

This has been a great iBooks update anyway.PDFs are so much nicer now, I've moved all my tech manuals over.

 

[blybug]

What are you talking about?! Take one look at famous thread 500, and you'll realize that the more things change, the more they actually stay the same.

Thanks for the remind on thread 500, I like to read it every so often. Good times, good times.

Funny how so many threads here devolve into complaints about the positive/negative ratings...my eyes literally don't even see that when I click into the forum link about an article that interests me. Why do people care so much about the ratings? Vote negative all you want people, who gives a crp?

 

[neutrino23]

This is probably not responding to Amazon’s release from 3 weeks ago. The update is big enough to take more than 3 weeks of development and testing.

My thoughts exactly, though I kind of get it that this is a sort of journalistic shorthand.

In order for Apple (or any software company) to respond in more than a trivial way has got to take at least about six months.

 

[Jaro65]

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

With all the money they're making, you would hope that they have someone looking at growing their bookstore. I like iBooks, but hardly ever use it because I can hardly ever find any books I'm looking for in Apple bookstore. So yes, the Amazon app is pretty much a default here.

 

[jdavtz]

Still no intelligent "sticky edges" (for want of a better phrase) -- when you read a PDF in iPhone Safari and zoom in to a column of text and scroll up and down, it doesn't wiggle from side to side but behaves a bit sticky and only does vertical scroll instead of horizontal wiggle and vertical scroll.

Any ideas why iBooks doesn't do this?

 

[Mudbug]

So where is the great authoring tool that makes it easy to create content-rich books for the iPad? We have the distribution vehicle - it's time to make content creation tools for the rest of us.

I have some books at the office we'd LOVE to sell through the iBook store but honestly don't have a clue how to get them in there IN THEIR CURRENT FORM and be able to charge for them.

I don't want to code an app for them - we're talking about multiple 100-200 page graphic-rich books that could definitely take advantage of the audio and video integration mentioned here. They're already done and in print, and the source files are in InDesign. An ePub format doesn't let me keep what I want in the book - it just makes it a text-based thing that doesn't have the same presence as the printed version.

Give me the tools, please. If you know of something that will do what I'm after, I'm all eyes & ears.

 

[GoKyu]

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.

How quick is the Zinio app for Macworld? (It is pretty quick to scroll around/swipe between pages?) I'm thinking of switching my subscription over to the digital format as well...do I just need to call Macworld to switch?

 

[tigajr]

PDF reading is substantially improved!

Very good job Apple!

Tiga Jr

 

[Burger Thing]

This has been a great iBooks update anyway.PDFs are so much nicer now, I've moved all my tech manuals over.

Hmmm, i just tried it with my PDF Tech Manuals (around 20 MByte in size) and to me GoodReader still seems to be a bit "snappier" (Ouch - never thought I will use this word here )

But it will be exciting, when publishers will offer magazines and books with mixed audio and video capabilities. It will be great for lots of stuff, like Travel Guides, Learning/Training stuff, etc.