Comments on: iBooks Author for Mac OS X Makes Creating Interactive iPad Books Easy

By: David Derrico

David Derrico — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 05:01:02 +0000

It’s not accurate to say that ISBNs are required to sell e-books “anywhere else for that matter.” Apple and Sony are the only 2 holdouts that require use of an ISBN — the major e-bookstores, including Amazon and B&N, do not require an ISBN.

And, yes, charging $125 to provide someone with an ID number is criminal. (They charge $250 for 10 or $1,000 for 1,000, so it’s obviously slanted against the little guy.)

Not really Apple’s fault, although there’s no good reason these days for them to require an ISBN (Amazon seems to do OK without requiring them, they just assign their own internal ID number).

By: David

David — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 04:42:32 +0000

The EULA does not give Apple any rights to a work created in iBook Author. What it does though is limit what the author can do with the work. Unless the author gives away the work for free, the EULA limits its sale to Apple’s sales channel. This would, in fact, be similar to Microsoft limiting what you can do with a document written in Word. Additionally, while the EULA limits the ability to sell the work anywhere other than Apple’s sales channel, it also gives Apple the right to refuse to sell it for any reason or for no reason at all. Absent some change in the EULA, I’ll stick to other apps to do my creative work.

By: Install iBooks Author on Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard

Install iBooks Author on Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:59:41 +0000

[...] free interactive book creation app iBooks Author was just released, allowing for anyone to make multi-touch iBooks for iPad. Unfortunately [...]

By: anon

anon — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:12:14 +0000

There seems to be some buzz on twitter regarding this program and Apple’s over intrusive (unfair?) EULA. As I understand it (and I could be wrong), Apple is claiming rights to any material created via it’s ibook authoring software, in addition to putting a limit that the created ibook must only be on sale via apple’s ibook website. An analogy was made that if you used Microsoft word to write a book, then Microsoft would own partial rights to the book. Apple also apparently has the right to refuse an ibook for sale too.

By: clasqm

clasqm — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:36:40 +0000

Played around with iBooks Author today, but I would suggest you wait before betting the store on it. This was clearly rushed to market. Cut-n-paste gives unpredictable results, text boxes don’t display their contents, styles jump around at random … wait it out for a few point upgrades.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:26:48 +0000

Would books made with iBook Author be readable on iPhone or iPod Touch through iBook as well as iPad’s iBook?

By: Milo

Milo — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:02:44 +0000

The ISBN requirement should keep a lot of rubbish out of the book store.

By: Watch the Apple Education Event (Video)

Watch the Apple Education Event (Video) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:54:17 +0000

[...] has posted an hour long video of todays education event held in NYC. The event saw the unveiling of iBooks Author, iTunes U app for iOS, iBooks 2.0, iBook Textbooks, and later lead to the release of iTunes 10.5.3 [...]