Today, Apple emailed iBooks Author users to inform them that the iBooks Author Mac app is being discontinued on July 1st. The app was released on January 19, 2012 and last updated to version 2.6.1 on September 24, 2018.
Thank you for being a member of the iBooks Author community. We have some news to share with you about the future of book creation.
Two years ago we brought book creation into Pages. With key features such as the ability to work on iPad, collaborate with others on a shared book, draw with Apple Pencil, and more, Pages is a great platform for making books.
As we focus our efforts on Pages, iBooks Author will no longer be updated and will soon be removed from the Mac App Store. You can continue to use iBooks Author on macOS 10.15 and earlier, and books previously published to Apple Books will remain available. If you have iBooks Author books you’d like to import into Pages for further editing, we have a book import feature coming to Pages soon. — Apple
Apple says that iBooks Author will continue to be available on macOS 10.15 and earlier for those who have already installed the apps, and books that were published to Apple Books will remain available.
In the future, Apple plans to add an import feature to Pages to allow books to be imported into the app, and a support document covers details on how users can transition from the iBooks Author app to the Pages app.
MacDailyNews Take: R.I.P., iBooks Author. Long live Pages!