At Apple’s WWDC (Worldwide Developer’s Conference), the big news was the new iPhone and changes to the iPhone OS (now called iOS since it now runs not only the iPhone but iPod Touch and the iPad). But Steve Jobs also announced about changes to the iBookstore that everyone interested in ebooks and ereading should find of interest, especially to people in the publishing world who hope to use the iPad as an editing device.
From The Huffington Post:
In light of this success, Jobs announced some major new improvements for the app. First, Apple has added a Stickies-like note-taking feature, and has a new bookmarking tool. The biggest news, however, is that iBooks will now allow users to read PDF files just like they would eBooks. Engadget quotes Jobs: “We’re also adding PDF viewing in the app. We’ve put a selector right up top, you can select PDFs, you get a whole new bookshelf. They just look gorgeous.” The updates will be out later this month, and could be huge for book editors who want to use the iPad for reading manuscripts, as well as anyone who needs to read PDFs on a regular basis — most other eReaders currently available make it very difficult to read PDFs, if not impossible.
I, for one, can’t wait to try them out.
Jobs also noted that “Five of the six biggest publishers in the US tell us that the share of iBooks is up to about 22% — in about 8 weeks!” He also said that since the launch of the iBookstore, “users have downloaded over 5 million books,” or about 2.5 books per iPad. Not too bad indeed.
