Apple iBooks now available through App Store
updated 10:05 am EDT, Fri April 2, 2010
Just one of several competing e-book apps
Apple has launched iBooks, the company's official e-book reader for the iPad. The app uses a shelf metaphor to display ePub titles a person has imported through iTunes, or bought through the iBookstore, to which the app opens access. A copy of Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne is included by default; books can be sorted title, author or genre, or manually rearranged.
While reading the app includes controls for adjusting brightness, font type and font size. A search function lets users find particular keywords, while a page navigator allows jumping to a specific page. Some other options include bookmarking, and help for the handicapped in the form of options like voice narration. iBooks is a free download, but currently restricted to American iPad owners.
The title will ultimately be just one of several major e-book apps for the iPad. Its most prominent competition is likely to be the Kindle app, which will let iPad owners access the larger library of titles available for Amazon's own e-reader. Kobo is likewise developing an iPad platform.
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Joined: Oct 1999
Region Locking?
I'm guessing that Apple will have to negotiate separate deals with the book companies for every country in Europe like they did with the music companies. I wonder will books be region locked to the iPad in the inevitable event that they are cheaper in the U.S.A. than in Europe?