Before his death Steve Jobs had already targeted textbooks as the next opportunity His idea was to hire the best textbook writers to new create digital versions that were complimentary and exploited the iPad. Read more »

App review: The Doctor Who Encyclopedia (BBC Books and Brandwidth; iPad only)

The wheezing, groaning TARDIS take-off sound that greets the user on launching this app bodes well for its contents, and the Doctor Who Encyclopedia doesn’t disappoint. Read more »

The Kindle Fire has us all intrigued, but we now have confirmation that the fixed format books on the platform will use very similar code to that used by the iBookstore. That almost amounts to standardisation and that is a nice surprise. Read more »

Racing it’s not just about the horse, or the rider, the form book , the course and the conditions. The winners and losers are often decided by all these factors and more. Outsiders do win and favourites lose and that’s what makes the ‘sport of kings’ interesting.

So can Kobo steel up on the inside track and get placed or do they remain an also ran? Read more »

If you aren't familiar with The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore iPad app, I highly recommend you download it. The developers Moonbot Studios based in LA have 'blurred the line between picture book and animation' in one of the most visually stunning iPad apps. Joe Bluhm, lead artist at Moonbot gives us the story behind the huge success of this app:

What made you launch a book app? Read more »

While many were dreaming of the new Kindle Fire and its implications, Apple overnight added 26 New Territories to a list of countries where iBook titles are sold. Significantly, all the added countries are European; meaning texts can be sold via the iBookstore in all EU member states. Read more »

In what we think is a publishing first (we are definitely claiming it until someone proves otherwise), The Friday Project launches a book this week that has its own dedicated Flipboard feed.

Allow me to explain. Read more »

Book publishers were at the forefront of app development when the iPad debuted in 2010. Start-ups and corporate giants alike created numerous interactive books that augmented the reading experience with gaming mechanics and cinema-quality animation.  Read more »

Thanks to the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), the EPUB format for eBooks has become the widely accepted standard. On the audiobook side, Apple products have popularized the MP3 format. Retailers, it seems, also prefer this format. Barnes & Noble and Waterstones, only sell their audiobooks in MP3 format. Read more »

Rachael Beale has kindly reviewed The Waste Land iPad app for FutureBook: Rumours of the death of the enhanced ebook have been greatly exaggerated. While we wait for the EPUB3 standard to be finalised, adopted and developed for, book apps are continuing to emerge in the App Store, and none more eagerly anticipated - by me, at least - than Faber Digital's iPad app of The Waste Land. Read more »