Apple has released iBooks 1.5 for iOS devices which adds the following new features as well as some stability and performance improvements:
• Nighttime reading theme makes reading books in the dark easier on the eyes.
• Full-screen layout lets you focus on the words without distraction.
• iBooks now features an improved selection of fonts, including Athelas, Charter, Iowan, and Seravek.
• Beautiful new classic covers for public domain books.
• A redesigned annotation palette makes it easier to choose a color for your highlighted text.
iBooks 1.5 (free) is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad and requires iOS 4.2 or later.
More info and download link via Apple’s iTunes App Store (20.7MB) here.
The Nighttime mode is not only easier on the eyes, but it’s great when you want to read in the dark, in bed, next to your wife (or husband), but don’t want the ambient light from the device keeping her awake.
I wish that they made an iBooks app for the Mac. That’s the one thing that kindle has over iBooks.
Hear, hear! (Please, Apple! Hear!)
20.7MB What!?!
Isn’t there a 20MB limit on 3G downloads? why dont they lift the limit on 3G?
Not having iOS devices read the book (text to speech) like the Kindle is a major omission.
(I know; Siri is still in beta…)
I do not have a Kindle, so can not verify, but I did think that the Kindle did text to audio on books either. It’s my understanding that authors/publishers complained that text to speech undermined their audiobook sales. Digital books and/or the devices that read them have been made so as not to convert text to speech. My kindle app on iPhone will not convert text to speech.
Right… Because an electronic, monotone voice, with incorrect inflectIons is the same as an audio book.
Those are nice additions, but I hope they fixed some of the problems as well. I just finished reading “Steve Jobs” with it and it left me never wanting to use iBooks again. It often lost my place, bookmarks would disappear or not work, changing orientation while reading would cause it to lose my place, occasionally text would be all jumbled up until the app was killed and restarted. It was a mess. If Steve Jobs had had the chance to read his biography on it, he would have gathered the iBooks team in the auditorium and let loose a stream of expletives that would make his tirade on the .Mac team look like a Christmas party. Hopefully they’ve fixed it. I just couldn’t bring myself to read Jobs’ bio on the Kindle app, even though it has worked much better so far.
I agree. Kindle is my reading iPad app of choice though I would rather use iBooks out of Apple loyalty. Kindle selection and ease of actually FINDING books is better on Amazon but I always hated the fact the iBook app wouldn’t remember the brightness level I had set it at which the Kindle app does. Haven’t tried the Night Mode in iBooks yet, maybe they finally address this problem.
Really? I own three titles on iBooks (plus the freebie that came with iOS4) and have never had any of the problems you state. Weird.
——RM
Have read at least 20 books on iBooks. Have had to restart the app because of something similar to your jumbling issue…once.
I agree. Kindle is so much a better app than iBooks. I also bought the book “Steve Jobs” on iBooks, just to try it out. I was very disappointed. That’s not to say the Kindle app doesn’t have deficiencies, but at least the features that are supplied work correctly and finding books on Amazon is so much easier than Apple’s bookstore.
when they argue that the Kindle is so great reading out in direct sunlight, it’s never mentioned that most of the time you read indoors in low-light situations…that’s where the iPad shines, hell you can read in the dark while the Kindle requires so much ambient light to read comfortably…I never read a regular book in direct sunlight, it’ll burn your retinas out. F Kindle and F Amazon.
also, it pisses me off that I am unable to move Newsstand into a folder, it will NOT move from home screen.
Jailbreak Folder Enhancer will allow you do put it in a folder.
Apple should buy Folder Enhancer and add it into iOS. It’s excellent.
There actually is a way to do it. I don’t remember how but I’m sure if you Google it you will find it. I do remember several MDN regulars posting how to do it a while back. The only caveat is that with each reboot the OS will move it back out of the folder.
Glad they are improving it. Need to read the books on my iMac also.
Well, I would love to support Apple via iBooks. However, because I teach in the State University system, most of the students still use paper books. I takes a bit of time to determine matching page numbers on iBooks. Amazon caught on to this and have page numbers that match the print editions of the text.
Yes, it is old school, and quite frankly, I wish it wasn’t so. But for that reason, many students actually buy the Kindle editions.
The other issue is that the majority of the texts are easier found at Amazon. The availability is much less on the iBooks platform. It would also be good if I can go online or via iTunes and order books there. As it is now, I can only do so via my iPad and iPhone. This is such a no-brainer, I think the only reason Apple may not have implemented it is that it may run up against some sort of Amazon technology patent.
As for these “updates,” they were available already on Kindle app. Quite frankly, I would prefer to buy iBooks, but Apple has more work to do on these yet.
An upgrade to iBooks but still the store isn’t available in New Zealand. The full version of Facebook Timeline has just been released here (a world first) but still we wait for the iBooks store. Extract the digit Apple and get with it!
After a night of playing with Ibooks 1.5, I now appear to have lost all of the reviews and book descriptions.. All it will do is allow me to order books.