Book publisher Penguin Group has reportedly decided to pull its e-books from digital lending programs managed by many libraries. The company has cited unspecified concerns over content security as the motivation behind the change in policy, though many publishers are believed to distance themselves from digital lending as a strategy to bolster sales numbers for physical books.
Both customers who have previous made books using Blurb's digital tools, and new clients who have always wanted to create a physical photo-book as a keepsake now also have the option of turning their works into full-fledged e-books, from the same file as was used to create the physical book. New authors have the option of choosing either format, and the resulting e-books work with the iBooks application for iOS, including two-page spreads and pinch/zoom capabilities.
Apple and Starbucks are expanding the Pick of the Week iTunes promotion to include TV shows and books, the latter company has announced. The coffee brewer has been giving away music download cards for some time, and recently began offering apps. The first non-music offering in the expanded promotion, just made official today, is in fact the Shazam Encore app. Firemint's SPY mouse is slated for next week, and then an unspecified song is scheduled for the week after that.
Facebook has bought e-book platform creator Push Pop Press, according to a note on the latter's website. Until now the developer had been working on an e-book publishing platform, notably merging images, video and some limited physics technology into content. Only one e-book based on the platform has been published, that being Al Gore's Our Choice for iOS.
Apple has finally released iTunes 10.3, which was initially intended to go live yesterday. As expected the software mainly introduces support for iTunes in the Cloud, which automatically pushes purchased apps, books and music to all devices signed in with a given Apple ID. If a device doesn't have the content synced automatically, an option to download purchases is available, assuming necessary material is still hosted at the iTunes Store.
Veteran newsman Josh Quittner will be leaving the nation's largest publisher to join Internet startup Flipboard as its editorial director. Quitner has written extensively about the digital revolution during his fifteen years at Time, Inc., which included stints at Time magazine, the now-defunct new media magazine Business 2.0, and Fortune. Quittner is currently Time Inc.'s director of digital editorial development for the news, sports and business magazines. He had been involved in the negotiations to bring tablet editions of Time, Inc. publications to the iPad and Android platforms.
Apple's participation at BookExpo America has been overstated, a spokesperson explains. The event's website cites Apple as an "exhibitor," and the company was initially reported as having a large booth next to Scholastic's. In truth Apple will be meeting with publishers in a private room at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City, the spokesperson clarifies.
Apple will make its first-ever appearance at BookExpo America later this month, reports note. The expo represents the largest industry book fair in the US, and this year is scheduled to run from May 23rd through to the 26th. Apple is said to have secured a large booth in an ideal location: in the same general area as Disney, Random House and Macmillan, and immediately next to Scholastic. Disney's largest individual shareholder is Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who also sits on the Disney board of directors.
iOS app and e-book vendor iFlowReader is shutting down as of May 31st, according to an announcement. "We absolutely do not want to do this, but Apple has made it completely impossible for anyone but Apple to make a profit selling contemporary ebooks on any iOS device," part of the statement reads. "We cannot survive selling books at a loss and so we are forced to go out of business. We bet everything on Apple and iOS and then Apple killed us by changing the rules in the middle of the game."
With help from Rodale, Melcher Media and Push Pop Press, Apple board member Al Gore has released a new e-book on the App Store, Our Choice. The title is described as a followup to An Inconvenient Truth, and once again tries to explain the causes of global warming as well as current and potential solutions. All of Gore's earnings from the app are being funneled back into the Alliance for Climate Protection, his non-profit educational organization.
Google has updated the iOS version of its free Books app with two main additions plus an assortment of smaller changes. In the former category is the option of reading in a two-page landscape mode on an iPad, bringing the app up to parity with its Android sibling and Apple's own iBooks. When using the Find feature, Google Books now shows all matches as you scroll down.
In a lengthy profile, coffee-table book publisher Nicholas Callaway detailed a newfound passion for apps over books, proclaiming them the successor to traditional books and making a full-fledged switch. A viewing of Pixar's original Toy Story and the encouragement of Steve Jobs gave Callaway the "eureka" moments that convinced him that apps are a new form of story-telling and caused him to reinvent his already-successful company.
Some Random House books are beginning to appear in the US iBookstore, a report says. While only a few are present so far -- Randon House Webster's Pocket Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation being a given example -- the shift indicates that Random House has indeed made concessions and become the last major publisher to support iBooks. On Monday the company switched to an agency model, likely with the iBookstore in mind.
Delicious Library designer Mike Matas -- later hired by Apple -- is this week launching a new company, Push Pop Press. The firm will concentrate on producing e-books, beginning with titles that will appear for the iPad and iPhone later in 2011. These should be apps rather than titles distributed in the iBookstore, as Push Pop says they will have "photos, maps, and interactive graphics, all through a new physics-based multi-touch user interface."
European publishers are angry and "confused" by new App Store rules introduced with the rejection of the Sony Reader app, according to Grzegorz Piechota, the European president of the International Newsmedia Marketing Association. Where it was previously possible to send people to a webpage to buy books or manage subscriptions, Apple is now demanding that any such feature be matched by in-app options. A meeting between INMA, the European Online Publishers Association and the FIPP magazine association is scheduled to take place in London on February 17th, with the specific agenda of tackling Apple's new subscription rules.
The rejection of the Sony Reader app does not represent a change in App Store rules, an Apple spokeswoman claims. A New York Times report suggested that the ban represents a "further tightening" of Apple's control of the App Store, blocking access to purchases made outside of the store's ecosystem. "We have not changed our developer terms or guidelines," insists Apple's Trudy Miller.
The upcoming iPad-capable version of Packager for iPhone will be part of an update bundle for Creative Suite 5, says AppleInsider. The collection is said to be named "Creative Suite 5.5 Digital Publishing," and include Flash Professional CS 5.5, reportedly in beta testing. Likewise tagging along should be Flash Catalyst CS 5.5, an "interaction design tool" with features like live app design and the ability to deploy for the web, desktops or mobile devices.
The previously-available Kindle app for Mac is also available on the Mac App Store, enabling many users to discover it despite its having been out since March. The free application syncs Kindle purchases across Amazon's hardware e-reader, the iPhone and iPad versions of the app as well as the Mac, allowing readers to move seamlessly from device to device while keeping the same library available on all, right down to the last page read, notes and highlights in each book.
Over 100 illustrated books have been added to the iBookstore in tandem with the release of iBooks 1.2, says the New York Times. These are spread across several different genres, including cooking, photography and children's books. Some notable titles include Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home, a photo collection by Ansel Adams and the Olivia series of picture books.
A consortium of Japanese book publishers are demanding that Apple stop selling pirated novels through the App Store, says Agence France-Presse. "We have no choice but to deem it illegal that Apple Inc. distributes materials which clearly violate copyright," reads a statement by the consortium. Parties to the group include the Japan Book Publishers Association, the Japan Magazine Publishers Association, the Electronic Book Publishers Association of Japan and the Digital Comic Association.
Apple has formally announced the 2010 edition of its 12 Days of Christmas promotion. For each 24 hours of the event, the company will be offering free downloads from different sections of the iTunes Store. This year the promotion will run from December 26th to January 6th; as usual, however, only people in the UK and some other European countries will be able to participate.
Of Americans planning to buy high-tech electronics during the holidays, most are picking the iPad or some other form of media tablet, says Retrevo. The shopping and review site recently conducted an online survey of over 1,000 people, which it says points to people spending 16 percent more on electronics this holiday period over 2009. After tablets, notebooks were the next most sought-after gadgets in the survey group, followed by non-3D TVs.
Books from Pearson and Peachpit are now appearing at the US iBookstore, a report observes. Both publishers specialize in technical titles. Some of the brands under Pearson include Addison Wesley, Cisco Press, IBM Press, Prentice Hall and Pearson IT Certification. Subjects range from Apple hardware and development through to online marketing and web design.
Safari Books Online has released a new e-book reader for the iPad, Safari To Go. The app accesses books from the SBO subscription service, which concentrates on educational titles in fields like technology and business. Some publishers signed up to Safari include Adobe, Cisco, O'Reilly, Microsoft, McGraw-Hill and Wiley.
Vital Source Technologies, a unit of textbook publisher Ingram, announced the availability of VitalSource Bookshelf, a free app for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. The program features downloading either from computer or mobile device, automatic syncing of content across platforms, and the full VitalSource library of titles, numbering over 60,000 from a wide variety of major textbook publishers.
Bookeen has introduced its latest e-book reader, the Cybook Orizon, which features a multi-touch display with improved contrast. The company claims its touchscreen implementation does not compromise the display readability, even in direct sunlight. Multi-touch gestures can be used to change pages, annotate, highlight text, or adjust the character size.
Apple will soon announce formal subscription support for newspapers distributed through the App Store, says the San Jose Mercury News. While most of the details are not clear, industry sources claim that Apple has agreed to provide an opt-in clause for subscribers willing to share information with publishers. Newspapers have traditionally relied on subscriber data to sell the ads that keep a publication afloat.
Random House has resolved a dispute with literary agent Andrew Wylie over rights to publish e-book versions of 13 classic books. According to a New York Times report, both parties have agreed that Random House will retain the rights for digital distribution.
A new developer, Inkling, is bringing a variety of high-profile school textbooks to the iPad. The first four are from McGraw-Hill, and described as best-sellers in biology, economics, marketing and psychology; these should be available today, at an early cost of $3 per chapter or $70 for an entire book. In the near future prices should be hiked to $4 and $85, respectively.
Web magazine Slate has launched a native iPad application. The app is intended to better format content for the tablet, for instance by allowing offline reading, a touch-oriented interface and in-app access to videos and podcasts. Podcasts can play in the background while a person is reading other material.
News Corp. currently has "tens of thousands" of people reading The Times, The Australian and the Wall Street Journal via apps, according to CEO Rupert Murdoch. While declining to give exact subscription numbers at a debate in Sydney, he described the iPad and other tablets as a "perfect platform" for cheap and convenient News Corp. material. The executive is generally in favor of pay barriers, having already erected them around websites like The Times. "The argument that information wants to be free is only said by those who want it for free," Murdoch claimed on Tuesday.
Two important magazine issues have made their way to the iPad. The first is the inaugural iPad edition of Glamour, which -- like other electronic editions from publisher Condé Nast -- is enhanced with special extras like video. Some exclusive fashion picks have been added however, and the app encourages consumption by letting people tap on some images to go to a website, where they can buy a product. Condé is not receiving a cut of any of these sales, at least at present.
Apple is currently preventing publishers from enabling subscriptions for iPad magazines, say several sources. Time, for example, is claimed to have wanted to put out a subscription version of the Sports Illustrated app last month, in which people would be able download issues via iTunes, but pay Time directly. Apple rejected this at the last minute, Time executives say, even though they had been in touch with Apple during spring development, and been assured that the company was alright with the plan. Time was forced to sell only individual issues.
The current issue of Sports Illustrated for the iPad makes a substantial break from the latest paper magazine, reports observe. Whereas the latter's cover story deals with NBA player LeBron James, the iPad edition concentrates on George Steinbrenner, the New York Yankees owner who died on Tuesday morning. The paper copy went to print on Monday, just hours before Steinbrenner's death.
Charles Jolley, the founder of the SproutCore standard, has left his recent position with Apple and is now using the technology at a new start-up to help other companies produce multi-touch apps. SproutCore is an open-source framework for rich Internet apps, notably employed in Apple's MobileMe web apps. Jolley's company, Strobe, is combining HTML5 and native formats to produce apps than can both be installed via the App Store and accessed via Safari.
Graphic Remedy has released a new edition of gDEBugger, 5.6. The software is a profiling and debugging utility for OpenGL, OpenGL ES and OpenCL renderers. Users can pinpoint critical flaws in a graphics engine, or simply spots where programming might be better optimized. The v5.6 patch brings support for on-device debugging on iPhones and iPads, displaying data such as CPU, GPU and OS performance. Prices for gDEBugger iPhone start at $790, but vary considerably based on the number of licenses and whether they're floating or node-locked.
In tandem with Canada Day, Apple has finally expanded the availability of paid books to the Canadian iBookstore. Several major publishers have begun selling titles, including Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. Book prices may vary substantially, but some featured launch titles range in cost between $12 and $18, roughly in line though perhaps slightly more expensive than US editions.
DC Comics has launched its first official e-reader app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. The software lets users buy and read a host of comics, including titles from mainstream collections like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, as well more niche selections like Fables, The Sandman and V for Vendetta. Most issues are $2 each, some may cost $3.
Chris Mayer, an independent developer, has announced the release of three complete Xcode projects designed for authors wanting to publish books for the iPhone and iPad. The projects -- Simple Book App for iPhone, Universal Simple Book App for iPhone and iPad, and Advanced Book App for iPhone -- are ready-made apps that only require content to be loaded in HTML format. Pages can be created in any HTML editor, and use a variety of fonts and styles, as well as images. The Advanced Book App includes several features not found in Simple, and is currently selling for $27 versus $9. The Universal project costs $18.
Titles sold through the iBookstore now account for about 22 percent of US e-book sales, according to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The claim was made during today's WWDC keynote, which ultimately announced the iPhone 4, but began with a segment on the iPad. Even though the iBookstore has only officially been active since April 3rd, over 5 million titles have been downloaded worldwide, Jobs comments.
Lexcycle has released an update to its Stanza app, which is now available as a universal title for the iPhone and iPad. Version 3.0 allows users to take advantage of the iPad's larger display, presenting a similar layout to dedicated e-book readers.
Adobe and publisher Condé Nast were forced into a relatively clumsy solution in order to get the Wired iPad app past App Store restrictions, says a designer who has taken a close look at the software. The title was originally created using Flash, then cross-compiled for Apple handhelds. When Apple suddenly altered rules to block cross-compiling, however, Adobe switched to a method involving Objective-C and HTML5.
Adobe today formally introduced the Digital Publishing Platform, technology for both producing and reading publications meant for tablets, smartphones and other hardware. The Wired iPad app is cited as an initial example of the company's digital viewer software; while retaining much of the look of a print magazine, it includes a number of interactive and video elements, and the ability to browse contents via a zoomed-out mode. The interactivity extends to advertising, which like Apple's forthcoming iAd is intended to better lure people in while not forcing them to leave an app.
Despite reports of conflicts over European book deals, the UK iBookstore is up and running with paid titles, an industry site notes. Apple has inked contracts with Hachette UK, Penguin, HarperCollins and Pan Macmillan, allowing it to sell books such as Wolf Hall and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Prices range from £10 to £12 for titles currently in hardcover, and £4 to £7 for paperbacks.
An anonymous source has allegedly snapped a picture of an unannounced Kindle variant with a black color scheme. The image, posted on CrunchGear, was shot in a Seattle coffee shop where the device was being photographed by someone with a Canon 5D Mark II.
Official instructions are now available on how to self-publish books for the iBookstore. Until recently this information was inaccessible to the public, favoring larger publishers with which Apple has formed deals. In order to submit a book, several criteria must be met. These include having an ISBN-13 number and a US tax ID, and uploading only ePub files which have passed EpubCheck 1.0.5.
After spending months in development, Wired has finally released an iPad edition of its magazine. Currently available is the June issue, which interweaves the print edition's content with iPad-specific extras. These include an interactive map of Mars, as well as assorted videos, slideshows and music clips. The app is a 527MB download, and costs $5.
Apple is already beginning to fill international iBookstores with books, a report says. The Italian storefront now has a number of titles, by authors like Sun Tzu, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. Apple is also inserting the first banner ads, which promote niche interests like biographies, famous Russian writers or classic philosophy texts.
The iPad is already making a significant impact on the US e-reader market, a new ChangeWave survey suggests. Of 245 people identified as owning an e-reader, 16 percent say they own an iPad, despite the fact that the device has only been available since April 3rd. Still in control of the market is the Amazon Kindle, with about 62 percent of owners.
The iPad version of GQ has only seen a little over 365 downloads so far, says VP and publisher Pete Hunsinger. All of these are associated with a December 2009 "Men of the Year" issue, though people can now get more recent releases, which may be selling better. At a cost of $2.99 per download, initial app sales are said to have been worth only $1,091.35 plus advertising to GQ publisher Condé Nast, minus Apple's 30 percent cut of app revenue.
