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Apple Updates 'iBooks' With Illustrated Books, Collections, and AirPrint

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The iBooks store selection is still far too limited. I can't believe Apple's slow progress in this regard. I end up getting everything through Kindle, though Amazon really needs to better integrate their store with their app.

What I'd really like to see is an app that consolidates all your books, or rather, links to all your books (Kindle, Nook, iBooks) and launches the applicable app when a book is selected. Who wants to sort through the various apps manually?
 
SeanMcg said:
Could someone from Canada please explain why this seemingly inane "review" had to be done?

I understand there are bureaucratic hurdles - often unnecessary - to get businesses going everywhere, but this particular one seems very odd.
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That is an excellent question. I read the press release from the government and I still have no idea. The fact is, Apple has been operating its Canadian iBookstore for many months (since the iPad was released in Canada). There is still a dearth of content, but they have long been selling copyrighted content, including many non-Canadian titles.

I'm at a loss to explain so I emailed the government's media people to ask.
 
LagunaSol said:
The iBooks store selection is still far too limited. I can't believe Apple's slow progress in this regard. I end up getting everything through Kindle, though Amazon really needs to better integrate their store with their app.
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Amazon doesn't offer in-app book purchase because if they did, they would have to give Apple a 30% cut.

What I'd really like to see is an app that consolidates all your books, or rather, links to all your books (Kindle, Nook, iBooks) and launches the applicable app when a book is selected. Who wants to sort through the various apps manually?
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I'm not sure if this is possible, seeing how Apple sandboxes the apps in iOS.
 
obsidian1200 said:
The illustrated book thing is a 'meh' to me,
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And with that, the english language knelt down and cried.

obsidian1200 said:
since I won't be using my iPhone to read anything other than text.
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...because reading tiny type is easier than looking at a full screen illustration? Or is it some kind of mental block? "Gods no! An image! Avert thine eyes!"

Sorry to sound like I'm on your goat, but your post kinda cracked me up.
 
ThunderSkunk said:
And with that, the english language knelt down and cried.
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Which English language?

...because reading tiny type is easier than looking at a full screen illustration? Or is it some kind of mental block? "Gods no! An image! Avert thine eyes!"
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There's already an image when I'm reading. Are you saying there should be a 2nd?
 
markmcrobie said:
Why does only one new feature (auto-hyphens) require 4.2?
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Obviously hyphenation requires some sort of language-specific knowledge. Hyphenation patterns are very different in different languages.
Perhaps this was only added to the OS in 4.2?
These sorts of technical improvements happen with every system update, but aren't part of the press release because they're just not very interesting to most people.
 
steveh said:
Or, you could use the dimming feature in iBooks to set the background at a comfortable level.
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Truth is, this is a less than satisfactory solution. I've tried it in a bunch of contexts, and while it is better than nothing, it's certainly not ideal.

I'm also not convinced that white text on black background is a great solution. Plenty of people seem to like it, but my experience is that switching to black (or perhaps dark brown) text on a sepia background is preferable.

The point is, I think, that there is a difference between half-assed solutions to the "text on a bright background" problem that work for casual users, and the sorts of solutions wanted by people who use their iPads for reading for hours every day. People who use their iPad in that way justifiably want a device that hey can personalize to exactly how they wish to use it to the extent that they can, eg, personalize iTunes on Mac.
Unfortunately right now all the major eBook players seem to feel the way to win customers is through legal ******** about who can read which books. It is depressing to think that maybe, until that is sorted out in god knows how many years, perhaps none of them will display much interest in actually improving their reader apps.

Certainly I do all my reading (mostly technical PDFs) on iPad in Good Reader because, coming from a company that isn't in a position to dick around with legal stupidity, they are focussing all their energy on improving the actual reading experience. They have a chosen audience (people who read large numbers of PDFs), understand their needs and cater to them, and the product is noticeably improving every few months.
Meanwhile iBooks seems like something slapped together by marketing folks --- pretty and good for demos, but without any input from people who ACTUALLY read, and with little interest in getting such input.
 
ThunderSkunk said:
...because reading tiny type is easier than looking at a full screen illustration? Or is it some kind of mental block? "Gods no! An image! Avert thine eyes!"

Sorry to sound like I'm on your goat, but your post kinda cracked me up.
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Since I don't feel the need to retort to a rather weak attack on my writing, I took the liberty of removing that useless segment from your quote.

What application are you using? Surely it can't be iBooks, otherwise you would know that the text presented in an EPUB file, unlike the text presented in a PDF file, is easily enlarged to the same size as the text on my computer screen and my printed books. In case you didn't know, you can also change the font and the background color (between sepia and white) of an EPUB using the iBooks app. You can't do any of those things with a PDF file. Granted you could zoom in on the text to read it better, zooming in on the text would also diminish the appeal of reading an illustrated piece in the first place. It would be like reading a comic book where you can only see the text in the bubbles or the illustrations, but not both at once. If that appeals to you, more power to you; in my case, it's not at all appealing. Hence why I'll pass on reading illustration-based material (such as a picture book) on my iPhone; if the material is presented differently, I'd reconsider. That and I can read above a 3rd grade level and transcended above the need for pictures in my literature.

Sorry to sound like I put much effort into this post, but I was bored and couldn't resist.
 
Well, I upgraded and I love Categories. I have so many books now (well over 300) that it was getting a bit unwieldy. Now I created a dozen new categories and suddenly my library is so much better organized than before. I love it.

And this being Apple, I updated it on my iPad, synced, and now it's exactly as organized on my iPod touch too. Presto.
 
Tried it, didnt like it. Stanza and gooreader are still waaaay better then ibooks.

btw: its funny how many people dont realise there have been better apps avaible for reading for years .
 
The new Collections feature is fantastic! I've got all my tech books organised by technology along with generic categories. Absolutely wonderful not having to scroll through what was essentially a mess of unrelated books to find the one I wanted.

I think I prefer the darker wood colour of the previous version but hey, what Apple giveth, Apple taketh away.
 
Some children are holding out hope for a 3D ipad so they can enjoy a good pop out book delivered by ibooks.
 
I just wish that there was an "all content" collection. I like to pull up my bookshelf and see all my books at once, but I also like the idea of moving them to different categories (I have mine separated by major series arcs). I do like that at least now it finally syncs the layout between iPhone and iPad. I was getting really tired of importing new books and dragging them around to where I wanted them, then having to repeat it on my other device.

Here's hoping for another update in the not-too-distant future.
 
k995 said:
Tried it, didnt like it. Stanza and gooreader are still waaaay better then ibooks.

btw: its funny how many people dont realise there have been better apps avaible for reading for years .
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I used to use Stanza, but switched over to iBooks and never looked back.
 
newappleboy said:
I just wish that there was an "all content" collection. I like to pull up my bookshelf and see all my books at once, but I also like the idea of moving them to different categories (I have mine separated by major series arcs). I do like that at least now it finally syncs the layout between iPhone and iPad. I was getting really tired of importing new books and dragging them around to where I wanted them, then having to repeat it on my other device.

Here's hoping for another update in the not-too-distant future.
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I agree, it would be nice to attach multiple categories to a book. Say a specific category ("Technology") and a general category ("All Books"). There are times when I want to see a specific category of books, but there are also times when I'd like to scroll among my entire library.
 
How do We the little people, make illustrated iBooks?

kenmarable said:
When layout doesn't matter (novels being the clearest case of this) and you just need flowing text, EPub allows massive amounts of flexibility over PDF which is still fundamentally a format designed to be printed.

Epub easily allows font scaling, swapping, etc. But the trade-off is anything requiring specific layout is either a pain in the butt or impossible depending on the extent of the layout needs.
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Do you know what book publishers are using for illustrated books? I really wish Apple had a drag and drop iBook creator, better of course than the Android drag and drop App builder.

We're a small design company, can't afford to pay for an App coder nor can we spend the time learning. Can do ePub of course but do you have any suggestions?
 
JoeCmis said:
Check this page out for how to do white text on black background:

http://www.tipb.com/2010/12/15/tip-read-ibooks-white-black/


Because “White on Black” is considered a system-wide feature, so all we need to do is head into Settings.
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I'm all for simplicity but this is just way too cumbersome. I can switch between nightmode and daymode with two taps in Stanza, so I'm not switching even though iBooks is a nicer app (esp now with graphics).
 
On Iphone 4:

This version fixed a bug that made tap to zoom not work properly in landscape mode when viewing PDFs. :)

It does not fix the bug where Search start over at zero every time you change the orientation (landscape <> portrait). :(
 
When can we design our own illustrated/art epub books?

I downloaded the Ansel Adams book and I think it works great.

Does anyone know if Apple has released any specifications (specifically for designers) on how we can create our own epubs using the new illustrated/page layout format?

I have some photo books and catalogs that I've designed that I'd like to convert into this illustrated picture book format that can be viewed in iBooks.

I hope they open up this new format to the masses so we can publish and create our own art books, illustrated books, etc.
 
Another "bug"fix: scroll-lock now works (aka diagonal scrolling is locked out if you want it to).
 
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rtcruz1 said:
I downloaded the Ansel Adams book and I think it works great.

Does anyone know if Apple has released any specifications (specifically for designers) on how we can create our own epubs using the new illustrated/page layout format?

I have some photo books and catalogs that I've designed that I'd like to convert into this illustrated picture book format that can be viewed in iBooks.

I hope they open up this new format to the masses so we can publish and create our own art books, illustrated books, etc.
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If you jailbreak your iPad, you can peek into the ePub file of the iBooks you have on your iPad and figure out how they are coding it.
 
LagunaSol said:
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The iBooks store selection is still far too limited. I can't believe Apple's slow progress in this regard. I end up getting everything through Kindle, though Amazon really needs to better integrate their store with their app.

What I'd really like to see is an app that consolidates all your books, or rather, links to all your books (Kindle, Nook, iBooks) and launches the applicable app when a book is selected. Who wants to sort through the various apps manually?
Click to expand...


I too am quite disappointed with iBooks, I wanted to get Bill Bryson books onto my iPad but found out theres only one book by his name on there, and he only had a small part in writing it.

I think I will check out the kindle app.
 
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