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e-Book publishers shell out $69 million in price-fixing allegation case
Posted by Jason Diaz Categories: Apple, Corporate News
In the midst of Apple and ebook publishers collusion allegations brought forth by the Department of Justice (DoJ), Massachusetts Attorney General, Martha Coakley (Democrat), is tossing in her hat by filing a civil antitrust lawsuit. Three book publishers are shelling out over $69 million, $2 million of which is going to Massachusetts customers, to settle out of court. The ongoing lawsuit alleges that Apple got together with publishers and devised a plan to raise ebook prices in Apple's own iBookstore, which is in direct competition with Amazon's Kindle ebook store. Amazon is known for selling it's ebooks at rock-bottom prices, often at the expense of publishers and authors. So, although it appears that the DoJ's lawsuit greatly benefits consumers, who it really benefits is Amazon. Look at it this way: Amazon makes its lion share of money from many different sources, therefore, it can afford to sell ebooks at a loss since consumers buying through Amazon Kindle are exposed to advertisement promoting everything else they sell. Meanwhile, other booksellers are going out of business unable to compete, inadvertently creating a monopoly where Amazon reigns supreme. In the long run, who is this really benefiting? The way I see it, the DoJ lawsuit, although good intentioned, will eventually have the opposite effect of what its trying to achieve; and while now it appears to benefit consumers, in the end, Amazon wins.
Ebook publishers Macmillan and Penguin have not settled and Apple vowed to fight the allegations in court.
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| Boston Globe
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iBooks Author allows you to create and publish books for the iPad
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Software, Videos
Alongside the release of iBooks Textbooks this morning, Apple has also released an app called iBooks Author. Available for free on the Mac App Store, iBooks Author is a tool that allows anyone to create a textbook, storybook, or any other kind of book with relative ease. These books aren't just text either--you can add videos, 3D objects, photo galleries, web widgets, and more. Once you're satisfied with your book, you can then export it for personal use, or publish it to the iBookstore for sale or as a free download. Check out the video above for a full rundown of how it all works.
iBooks 1.1 now available for iPad and iOS 4 iPhones
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Books, App Updates, Apple, Free Apps
Just a heads up—one of the benefits of iOS 4 (which is available now) is that you can install iBooks on your iPhone. It’s not included in the OS itself, which allows Apple to update the app without updating the entire iOS version itself, so you’ll have to download it manually from the App Store. The good news is that it’s available now—so go ahead and grab iBooks, it’s free!
[Thanks again, Jason!]
iBooks for iPhone now available on iOS 4
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Books, New Apps, Apple, Free Apps
Just a quick heads-up for anyone wanting to start reading books from the iBookstore on their iOS 4 iPhones—the iBooks app is now available for download in the App Store. In fact, if you go into the App Store from the iPhones itself, you’ll get a notification letting you know that iBooks is available, and asking you if you’d like to download it right then and there. As Apple announced at WWDC 2010, iBooks for iPhone will sync your book data, including bookmarks, notes, pages read, etc., across all iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads that you have them running on.
Apple iPad: Over one million served
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Corporate News, Handhelds
We’ve really gotta hand it to Apple. Just 28 days into the availability of the iPad, and they’ve already sold over one million units. That’s 300,000 on day one, 450,000 within five days, and then another deluge with the launch of the iPad 3G model this past Friday. According to Apple, iPad users have downloaded over 12 million apps, and over 1.5 million ebooks from the iBookstore. Yup, the iPad has become another money printing machine for the company. Oh, and in case you were wondering, it took the iPhone 74 days to sell a million.
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