Irish consumers can now purchase ebooks through Apple’s iBooks reading application. Irish readers can purchase Maeve Binchy (one of three features Bestselling Irish Authors) ebooks for as little as €1.99. Apple’s Irish customers can buy in Euro and directly through iBooks/iTunes Ireland rather than being forced to use the US store unlike the Amazon Kindle offering. Until this launch visitors to the Irish iBookstore were offered only public domain books or books that Apple had chosen to make available for free. As well as launching their iBookstore business in Ireland, the tech company yesterday brought 25 other countries around...

From the description.  I wonder if there is a similar service for Amazon - as I won't buy anything from the iBookstore and force myself to read on only Apple products.  For those who don't mind, though: BookWatch searches the iBookStore® for you and notifies you when there are new book releases from your favorite authors. iAd Supported Version To get started, just tap the add button on the top left and start typing the author's name. Adding authors is a breeze with author suggestions. BookWatch then downloads the authors entire catalog and shows you the latest book release. After you've...

Eolake Stobblehouse has interviewed publisher Adam Engst on the iPad and ereaders.  Here is a snippet: Apple's iBooks store still has many fewer titles than Amazon's Kindle store. I think you also said that the process of getting books into iBooks is a hassle… can you explain? Not in a family publication. Seriously, I can't say that working with Amazon has ever been easy for publishers (and we haven't done much with it), but working with the iBookstore has been the most amazingly horrible, opaque, and frustrating experience I've had. Apple's software is...

Quill & Quire reports: Random House Canada has no immediate plans to follow the U.S.’s lead. Senior vice president, director of marketing and corporate communications Tracey Turriff writes, “Random House of Canada’s digital terms of sale remain unchanged at this time. New commercial models in the fast changing eBook environment are constantly under review. We continue to evaluate our options and talk to all etailers as it is our mission to ensure that our authors’ books are available on all platforms to all potential customers. Our strategy is constantly evolving in the best interests both of our authors and consumers.”...

This speaks for itself: ...

Further from yesterday’s news, the argy-bargy continues with the Sony Reader iPhone app and Apple. After several posts, updates, claims and counterclaims, tech blogs *Mashable*, Engadget, TechCrunch and others are starting to agree on the nub of the issue. The story so far So, yesterday the news broke that Sony’s apps had been rejected by the Apple app store. The reason has evolved slightly, but the upshot seems to be hidden in the App Store fine print… Section 11.2 reads: Apps utilizing a system other than the In App Purchase API (IAP) to purchase content, functionality, or services in an app will be rejected. So, depending on how you read it...

There are six free books available: 1. Cocoal Fundamentals 2. iOS Application Programming 3. Object-Oriented Programming with Objective-C 4. The Objective-C Programming Language 5. iOS Human Interface Guidelines 6. iOS Technology Overview More info at Mediobistro....

Apple has come out with a shiny new version of iBooks, which adds a number of important new capabilities. These include the ability to print PDFs and your own annotations via the AirPrint printing system, support for fully-illustrated books, organizing books into Collections (much like you can organize apps into folders in OS 4, I guess), and also hyphenating text (on OS 4.2 or later). As the above screenshot shows, the hyphenation really looks good, cutting down on rivers quite significantly even in facing-pages mode. I might just have to start reading fully-justified. The new version also...

From macnn: The Ministry of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages has granted formal approval to the Canadian iBookstore, opening the door to a flood of new content from Canadian publishers and authors. While the iBookstore has already been operating and offering some -- mostly US-based -- paid titles along with the usual assortment of free public-domain and PDF texts, the approval is expected to boost both the offerings available to Canadian iOS device owners as well as help promote Canadian works in other countries. In exchange for the official blessing, Apple has committed to featuring Canadian-authored books in both official languages, increasing...

Shelf Awareness has some great ebook coverage today.  Blockquotes omitted: The last e-frontier: today Apple is beginning to sell more than 100 illustrated e-books on its iBookstore, according to theNew York Times. The e-titles, some of which are iBookstore exclusives, are children's books, photography books and cookbooks from Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan and Workman. Prices are expected to be "generally in line" with print prices."It finally gives us the opportunity to have our picture books join the e-book revolution," Jon Anderson, publisher of S&S Children's Publishing, told theTimes. "It gives us a great opportunity to monetize our content in...

From Plug Your Book!: Apparently Apple seems to be threatening to withhold from sale e-books in its iBookstore labeled “new” editions unless they have enhanced content not available in an earlier paper editions. Some publishers may be grumbling if they’re forced to buy a new ISBN for the iBookstore edition, only to have Apple penalize them by backdating the publication date. According to a note sent to publishers this morning: December brings some exciting changes, including new reporting tools, updated documentation, and the recent release of iTunes Producer 2.2.1. Also, starting this week, all publications will need to be assigned a publication...

Received the following email from Signe Nichols: Hello Paul, I am a fan of your TeleReads. Thanks for the great info. I was in the apple iTunes Producer which is the program used to upload new and edit existing books for the iBookstore (which I am sure you know) and there was a message in the back office saying (paraphrased): The iTunes producer would be down and offline from November 23 until December 22 and that new books would not be able to be uploaded during this time and any changes or books in pending status could not be changed. ...