Ah…another year, another set of Apple rumours to steep in, and let’s say 2012 has yet to disappoint! Kara Swisher of All Things D is reporting that Apple will be holding a press event in New York this month focusing on iBooks and a possible publishing platform. If all the buzz will live up to expectations, Apple may finally be ready to disrupt the publishing space like Amazon did ... Read More]]>

Ah…another year, another set of Apple rumours to steep in, and let’s say 2012 has yet to disappoint! Kara Swisher of All Things D is reporting that Apple will be holding a press event in New York this month focusing on iBooks and a possible publishing platform. If all the buzz will live up to expectations, Apple may finally be ready to disrupt the publishing space like Amazon did with its Kindle platform. Here’s why.

Clayton Morris (of Fox and Friends) posted on his blog last week speculating on the press event, believing that it will focus on digital textbooks and an education initiative. There’s definitely a lot of credence to this claim. Afterall, there’s already a lot of synergies between Apple and university campuses. Many universities in both the US and Canada are already familiar with iTunes U, mostly in making lectures and courses publicly available online. Furthermore, both faculty and students continue to turn to technology to help meet ever increasing demands for high quality education at ever increasing costs. Through an iBooks education platform, Apple has the ability to provide a win-win solution to universities.

For publishers, the cost to produce textbooks would start dropping. With eBooks, publishers would begin to cut physical publishing costs such as paper, ink, and hefty delivery costs from their bottom line. Furthermore, with digital distribution, publishers can cut out the second-hand book selling and lending market by offering a lower cost product that students can actually afford every semester. (Whether or not that will happen, though, is certainly up for heated debate.) Also, publishers can finally embed interactivity in their textbooks without requiring physical supplementary materials (such as DVDs) or convoluted and arcane web portals laden with DRM.

For professors and lecturers, courseware can be updated dynamically to reflect addenda, errata, day to day changes, or even ground-breaking events. Imagine how courses in Political Science or Journalism would change day by day when we have real-time events can be linked into courseware and pushed directly to students before their next lecture. This has the potential of ultimately turn e-learning platforms on its head.

For students, it will ultimately come down to cost. However, the greater interactivity and reduced stress from carrying pounds upon pounds of textbooks would also be appreciated. Some may say that the cost of an iPad would effectively negate the savings from textbooks. However, I say that as more schools demand laptops as an entry requirement for all incoming students, an iPad (plus keyboard) could suffice just as easily at about the same cost.

In all types of these changes, though, there are sure to be some losers, and this is no different. For one, second hand bookstores (typically run by the student unions) would lose out on a significant revenue source. Also, campus bookstores themselves would get hit equally as publishers cut off relationships with their intermediaries. There are certainly ways around this, though, as publishers can modify their revenue sharing deals with universities for continuing to shift promotion from physical to digital textbooks (don’t think that doesn’t happen already).

In all, I think Apple has the potential to rock the academic publishing market quite a bit, in ways that Amazon has tried, but failed to do. While the details of the event this month are still elusive, I’m sure there will be plenty to analyze, dissect and ponder in the weeks and months to come. What do you all think about the potential of the iPad as a full service education platform? Does it entice or dissuade you? Let us know in the comments below.

The highly anticipated Steve Jobs biography is now available for purchase in the Canadian iBookstore and worldwide. Even though it’s not officially October 24th on the West Coast, users have been able to purchase it across Canada. The download comes in at 20MB, and it would only be fitting to read it on your iPad.

On a related note, Apple has posted the special event ‘Celebrating Steve’ on its ... Read More]]>

The highly anticipated Steve Jobs biography is now available for purchase in the Canadian iBookstore and worldwide. Even though it’s not officially October 24th on the West Coast, users have been able to purchase it across Canada. The download comes in at 20MB, and it would only be fitting to read it on your iPad.

On a related note, Apple has posted the special event ‘Celebrating Steve’ on its website, a private ceremony for Apple staff around the world held at its Cupertino headquarters. It’s worth checking out.

For those who want a different experience, you can still order your hard cover copy to cherish and hold forever. Click here to order it from Amazon.ca.

For those looking for Canadian-based book titles, or specifically titles about British Columbia, the iBookstore has a new spotlight this week with “The Best Of British Columbia”.

Aside from showcasing the regular set of Canadian titles under “Canadian Stories”, an additional focus is put in British Columbia

“Books from and about Canada’s west coast take centre stage as Canadian Stories features the best of British Columbia in the iBookstore.”

The iBookstore is ... Read More]]>

For those looking for Canadian-based book titles, or specifically titles about British Columbia, the iBookstore has a new spotlight this week with “The Best Of British Columbia”.

Aside from showcasing the regular set of Canadian titles under “Canadian Stories”, an additional focus is put in British Columbia

“Books from and about Canada’s west coast take centre stage as Canadian Stories features the best of British Columbia in the iBookstore.”

The iBookstore is accessible on iOS devices through the iBooks app or via iTunes on Mac/PC.

Today Apple released an update to iBooks bringing the eReader app to version 1.2.2.

iBooks is an amazing way to download and read books. iBooks includes the iBookstore, where you can download the latest best-selling books or your favorite classics – day or night.

The iBooks 1.2.2 update includes the following minor stability and performance improvements:

What’s New In This Version: iBooks 1.2.2 adds a number of important stability and performance improvements, including: • ... Read More]]>

Today Apple released an update to iBooks bringing the eReader app to version 1.2.2.

iBooks is an amazing way to download and read books. iBooks includes the iBookstore, where you can download the latest best-selling books or your favorite classics – day or night.

The iBooks 1.2.2 update includes the following minor stability and performance improvements:

What’s New In This Version:
iBooks 1.2.2 adds a number of important stability and performance improvements, including:
• Addresses issues playing video included with enhanced books from the iBookstore.
• Resolves a problem where some books open with a different font than expected.
• Makes iBooks more responsive when navigating books with many items in their table of contents.

The iBooks update is available in the App Store.

In a press release, publisher Random House has announced that it will immediately adopt the agency model for e-Book pricing in the United States. This announcement sets up the publisher to deliver its content to Apple’s iBookstore, pending final agreements.

Random House, Inc. is adopting the agency model for e‐book sales in the United States effective March 1, 2011. Going forward, Random House will set consumer prices for the e‐ ... Read More]]>

In a press release, publisher Random House has announced that it will immediately adopt the agency model for e-Book pricing in the United States. This announcement sets up the publisher to deliver its content to Apple’s iBookstore, pending final agreements.

Random House, Inc. is adopting the agency model for e‐book sales in the United States effective March 1, 2011. Going forward, Random House will set consumer prices for the e‐ books we publish, and we will provide retailers with a commission for each sale. There are no changes to our terms of sale for physical books.

Random House has been a high-profile holdout from the agency pricing model (a model that allows publishers to set retail prices with retailers earning commissions for each sale), with most major publishers having reached agreements with Apple or Amazon nearly a year ago when the iBookstore launched.

While the announcement made no mention of Canada, Canadians can still take advantage by creating a USA iTunes account.

[MacNN]

Apple appears to be taking a stance against jailbroken iPads and iPhones.

According to the Social Apples blog, iPhones and iPads running the latest iOS firmware contain a “jailbreak check” that automatically detects when the devices have been unlocked using the greenpoisOn jailbreak kit. Jailbroken devices that attempt to load content using the iBooks application, even legally acquired e-books display an error message that reads: “There is a problem with the configuration ... Read More]]>

Apple appears to be taking a stance against jailbroken iPads and iPhones.

According to the Social Apples blog, iPhones and iPads running the latest iOS firmware contain a “jailbreak check” that automatically detects when the devices have been unlocked using the greenpoisOn jailbreak kit. Jailbroken devices that attempt to load content using the iBooks application, even legally acquired e-books display an error message that reads: “There is a problem with the configuration of your iPhone. Please restore with iTunes and reinstall iBooks.”

An iPhone hacker, known as pushfix on Twitter, noted that the iBooks DRM checks have actually been in iOS since version 4.0, but weren’t triggered by earlier jailbreaks. However, jailbreak tools like greenpoisOn have continued to disable more and more of Apple’s built-in security mechanisms. I guess this is Apple’s way of trying to regain control. “Comex,” a hacker with the iPhone Dev Team, said in a Twitter post that “iBooks drops an improperly signed binary, tries to execute it, and if it works concludes that the device is jailbroken and refuses to open the book.”

For other “jailbreak” users, there is a new version of Pwnage Tool that will jailbreak your device using the “feedface” exploit developed by Chronic Dev. This new jailbreak fixes the iBooks issue. There will also be Cydia packages available to fix the iBooks jailbreak checks . Now that @comex and @pushfix patched the problem, I’m sure it won’t be long to be ported over to greenpoisOn as well.

What do you think about this?

[Socialapples]

For those of you who have been itching to read The Daily, an iPad-exclusive eMagazine, but don’t have your iPad handy, there’s good news! Both a journalist and a programmer by the name of Andy Baio, has compiled the everyday new posts onto a easy-to-click-through homepage. One additional feature that this webpage is able to achieve that’s not yet available on the iPad, is being able to look at ... Read More]]>

For those of you who have been itching to read The Daily, an iPad-exclusive eMagazine, but don’t have your iPad handy, there’s good news! Both a journalist and a programmer by the name of Andy Baio, has compiled the everyday new posts onto a easy-to-click-through homepage. One additional feature that this webpage is able to achieve that’s not yet available on the iPad, is being able to look at past issues of this eMagazine. Of course, this being a subscription based app, it is more than likely that News Corp will not want free access to the articles.

This is what Andy Baio has to say about this issue:

Frankly, I’m also very curious about the legal implications. My understanding is that linking to public news articles is unquestionably legal, and I believe that right should never be discouraged. It’s also worth noting that Google’s slowly indexing all the articles too, and search engines aren’t blocked in their robots.txt file.

But I’m still recovering from a legal nightmare last year (more on that soon), so if asked to stop publishing and delete the Tumblr, I will. (Lawyers: My email address is at the top of this page.)

In the meantime, enjoy!

Click here to head to The Daily: Indexed. And as Baio puts it, “In the meantime, enjoy!”

Tweet me @acwinwong or visit acwinwong.com

I read a lot of books, both fiction (mysteries, science fiction, modern fiction, humorous fiction) and non-fiction (science and technology, history, politics, culture, religion). I still read a lot of them in print format, but more and more, I’m reading them on the iPad, in iBooks, Kindle and Kobo, depending on which app has available the particular book I’m interested in, in stock.

I’ve noticed that the iPad has changed ... Read More]]>

I read a lot of books, both fiction (mysteries, science fiction, modern fiction, humorous fiction) and non-fiction (science and technology, history, politics, culture, religion). I still read a lot of them in print format, but more and more, I’m reading them on the iPad, in iBooks, Kindle and Kobo, depending on which app has available the particular book I’m interested in, in stock.

I’ve noticed that the iPad has changed my reading habits. When I’m reading a print book, if I find something intriguing or something I don’t understand, I’ll generally let it go. With the iPad, it’s different. I’m constantly jumping out of the reading app, to go to Google Earth or Maps, a dictionary, a search engine, or even Youtube, in order to find out more information. Or I’ll highlight text (if the reading app has that feature) or bookmark pages — which I’d never dream of doing with a print book, especially since I get most of my books from the library.

Which leaves me wondering — when will Amazon, Apple and Chapters build the capability into their reading apps to allow authors and publishers to provide links to more information?

For example, I recently read One Minute to Midnight, a book about the Cuban missile crisis by Michael Dobbs. I found myself constantly jumping out of the Kindle app to go to Google Earth to look at places mentioned in the book where missiles were located or U2 planes shot down. I also went to Youtube to look for a video of John F. Kennedy’s address to the American people where he announced that Soviet missiles had been located in Cuba. I also Googled the names of key participants in the events of that week back in 1962.

It made the experience much more enriching than just reading the text would have been. But it also made it much more inconvenient, as I had to leave Kindle, launch the other app, search for the information, then close the other app and relaunch Kindle. The flow was interrupted. But think of how much more enriching it would have been if I could have selected a link and gone instantly to a Google Earth view or a Youtube video.

Even fiction could benefit from features like this. I’m currently reading a thriller set in Barcelona, called The Gaudi Key by Esteban Martin and Andreu Carranza. The novel has a lot of references to streets in that Spanish city, the village where the architect Antoni Gaudi was born and also references to some of Gaudi’s famous works, such as the Sagrada Familia. Again, I find myself constantly going to Google Maps to orient myself in the maze of Barcelona streets or to the web to look for more information on places mentioned in the book. Subtle links embedded in the book itself would make the reading experience even more immersive.

But wouldn’t adding hyperlinks, videos and other non-textual media to an electronic book ruin the immersive experience of reading? I don’t think so. Authors and their publishers have been inserting maps, illustrations and (more recently) photographs into their books — whether novels or non-fiction — for centuries. The iPad simply increases the types of media that can be added to a book. For example, in One Minute to Midnight, the reference to Kennedy’s television address could have had a subtle link to a video of his address or a summary of the recollections of a Soviet submarine commander could have been linked to both a longer transcript of the author’s interview with the commander and to the audio recording of that interview. The reader is still free to ignore those elements, if she chooses, just as she can currently skip over the maps or photos in a print book.

Just as print books evolved in length, format and features as paper replaced vellum, bound books replaced scrolls and the printing press replaced the quill; so books will continue to change to take advantage of the affordances offered by new technology, such as the iPad. I for one am looking forward to an enriched reading experience.

As the summer winds down, and school starts up again, some of us are thinking hard about university applications and entrance exams. To celebrate this occasion, Kaplan is releasing a number of their college prep series of iBooks for free. Until August 30th, prospective college and professional students can download a plethora of new books through iBooks.

Their free iBook selections range from SAT and GMAT prep all the ... Read More]]>

As the summer winds down, and school starts up again, some of us are thinking hard about university applications and entrance exams. To celebrate this occasion, Kaplan is releasing a number of their college prep series of iBooks for free. Until August 30th, prospective college and professional students can download a plethora of new books through iBooks.

Their free iBook selections range from SAT and GMAT prep all the way to MBA, law and med-school study guides. It’s certainly a good way to get ready for the new school year. For the students going back to school this fall, will you be using your iPad as a study aide? How will you make the most out of your iPad in school?

Source – MarketWatch.com [Free - iTunes App Store]

Apple has come up with another idea again. A new patent has been filed allowing users to write a comic, book, or eBook, by simply playing a video game.With the many decisions in a game (i.e. to cross a bridge or not), the gamer is customizing a story that is generated throughout the game.

Not only will this new idea create a bigger variety of personalized eBooks to ... Read More]]>

Apple has come up with another idea again. A new patent has been filed allowing users to write a comic, book, or eBook, by simply playing a video game.With the many decisions in a game (i.e. to cross a bridge or not), the gamer is customizing a story that is generated throughout the game.

Not only will this new idea create a bigger variety of personalized eBooks to read on an iPad, iPhone, or computer, it will also create games with more choices and freedom. Should Apple decide to follow through with this patent, free-roaming games or “sandbox” games such as Grand Theft Auto, will become increasingly popular for its variety of choices. Not only so, other video games that follow a set story line will offer more ways for the user to interact through different methods of passing that stage. So how would the user come about viewing this book that they created?

PatentlyApple describes the process:

A book, e-book, or comic book may be produced from the narrative data structure. The electronic device may send the e-book to a user of the electronic device, or send the narrative data structure to a server for printing.

In another embodiment, the recorded data may be sent from the electronic device to a server. The server may generate a narrative data structure from the recorded data. The server may send an e-book to the electronic device and/or to a user of the electronic device. Additionally, the server may print a book from the narrative data structure, and the book may be mailed to a user.

So who said video games were just a waste of time again?

[via PatentlyApple]

Tweet me @acwinwong or visit acwinwong.com