Posts Tagged ‘iBooks’

Apple’s iBookstore is now integrated into the iTunes Store. You can find its link at the top of the iTunes window between “App Store” and “Podcasts.”

iBookstore in iTunes

The book categories includes the enhanced books which includes some children’s books with human narration in a read-along mode. The bookstore includes a selection of $2.99-or-less books as well as two free books (listed below).

L.A. Noire

Lonely Planet Best in Travel 2011

I bought a copy of Robert Charles Wilson’s SF novel “Spin” for $2.99 to test the purchase process and found it quick and painless. The novel was a fast 1.4MB download. I placed it on my iPhone 4 and my iPad 2. Unlike Amazon’s Kindle (and its apps), over-the-air page syncing was performed immediately without asking for permission. Some people will find this useful and welcomed (I’m in that camp). Others may be taken aback. There does not appear to be an option in settings to turn this off.

Lost among the numerous big announcements Apple had this week is an update ot their iBooks ebook reader app. Version 1.3 adds a read-aloud feature for some children’s books. The twist is that a real human narrator reads the text instead of a synthesized voice.

- Help your children learn to read with the new read-aloud feature included in select children’s books from the iBookstore.

- The read-aloud feature uses a real narrator to read the book to you, and in some books, it will even highlight the words as you read along.

- Enhanced books can now automatically play audio or video included with the book.

It is not clear, however, how to find and identify these narrated childrens’ books in the iBooks store.

Apple’s iBooks app is available for free in the iTunes App Store. It also works with PDF and ePub doucment files in addition to ebooks purchased from the iBooks store.

iBooks 1.3 (iTunes App Store)