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Apple's philosophy for the iPad & the iBookstore seems to be quite different from that governing iTunes downloads. Major rivals like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders/Kobo are being allowed to offer their own book-selling apps via the iTunes Apps Store, apparently on the basis that the more open the iPad is to content, the more popular it will become.
But Apple is not simply promoting the device willy-nilly, at the expense of selling its own books. By using an agency model with a thirty per cent cut on the sale price for books in its iBookstore, Apple hopes to attract maximum content there, and thus healthy book sales too. And there may yet be some iBookstore bargains - in negotiations with five major publishers Apple has reportedly insisted on rights to discount some bestsellers to Amazon's prices or even lower, by slicing into its own profit cut. The biggest drawback, though, is that titles bought directly from the iBookstore can only be read on the iPad. However the device itself will support DRM-free ePUB, PDF & other format e-books acquired from elsewhere.
The number of e-books available in the iBookstore is in fact burgeoning fast, thanks to deals Apple is signing in a blur of activity. One such is with the popular Smashwords site. Originally, Smashwords books were free, and some still are, but now many independent publishers and authors market their wares from there. Thanks to a new deal with Apple, thousands of Smashwords titles are presently making their way into the new iBookstore retail site. Apple has also begun working with a few other e-book aggregators such as LibreDigital and the Perseus Books Group (the latter is a large independent publisher that additionally distributes titles from 330 other smaller presses). Nevertheless, direct deals with five of the six largest international publishers (Hachette, Harper-Collins, Macmillan, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster) are the centrepiece of the rapidly expanding iBookstore.
Not everything has swung Apple's way, or not yet anyhow. The biggest of "the Gang of Six", Random House, remains a holdout so far. Apple still has a long way to go to compete with Amazon's vast offerings too, and library purchases may also be deterred by the present lack of metadata.Read more e-Book news
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*HTML versions of books can be read on your personal computer, laptop, netbook, iPad etc, using any web browser, or various other software if you prefer. They may also be downloaded to many handheld devices that use full or modified web browsers, e.g. various Palm OS devices, some dedicated e-readers, smartphones and others. You should follow the directions that come with your device.
*Books formatted in PDF may be read on computers equipped with the free Adobe Reader software (or older versions such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader & the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader). There are also Adobe Reader versions available for mobile devices - different versions for Palm OS & Windows CE devices. Other softwares also exist for reading PDF files.
*Many dedicated e-reader devices will now read books prepared in the ePub format, which is increasingly common. Adobe Digital Editions software can be used to read commercial titles (books with DRM copyright protection) in this format.
*For titles presented in the Microsoft Reader format use the Microsoft Reader software.
*For Palm & Palm Doc format e-books you can use the (Palm) eReader (formerly Peanut Reader).
*Downloads that are zipped generally require use of one of a variety of unzipping softwares before reading (e.g. Winzip), or they may be "self extracting". If in doubt, click the downloaded folder & read the help notes.
Most of this software and more is available free (in at least basic versions) from download links on our Software page, where you will also find further format information and links to specialist software. The above information is a brief summary only, and just refers to some of the more common formats. Note that some de luxe reader software versions, and certain other varieties of reader software, may require purchase.
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