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Early iBooks Textbooks Downloads Estimated at 350,000

Monday January 23, 2012 5:27 am PST by Eric Slivka
AllThingsD reports on a new research note from Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry claiming that customers downloaded approximately 350,000 iBooks Textbooks from the iBookstore over the first three days of availability. That performance was accompanied by over 90,000 downloads of Apple's iBooks Author app from the Mac App Store.

If those numbers are accurate, Apple’s textbook effort would seem to be off to a good start. Which is good news for everyone involved — particularly textbook publishers, who stand to make more money on books sold through iBooks than those sold at retail.

With only eight iBooks Textbook titles available at launch, Apple and publishers are only beginning to scratch the surface of the digital textbook market. But it is unclear just how many of those 350,000 downloads were paid purchases, with seven of the eight titles carrying Apple's maximum $14.99 price tag.


The eighth title, E.O. Wilson's Life on Earth, is available for free, although it currently contains only the first two chapters of the book, and presumably the title accounted for a significant number of the total downloads as curious users looked to test drive the new offering. Paid titles are also required to offer free samples, and Chowdhry apparently did not mention whether these are counted as "downloads" by his tracking method.
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mjtomlin
17 weeks ago

The other show stopper is the license agreement of iBooks Author. Whoever agrees to these terms either hasn't read them or failed to understand the implications. On the other hand, Apple's iBooks Author EULA terms are probably either illegal in many countries or not enforceable, but they certainly reveal Apple's true colors and ugly face under the shiny design.


I'm guessing you haven't read the license agreement, which only states that if you plan on selling a book created with iBooks Author in the interactive iBooks format, then you can only sell that VERSION of your eBook through Apple's iBookstore.

There has been a lot of misunderstanding floating around the web (as usual with an Apple announcement) that has people believing that authors will be handing over their content to Apple. This is not the case. You are still free to take your content and reformat it for another device/eBook reader.

Bottom line is, if you want to use Apple's FREE tool to create INTERACTIVE ebooks, then Apple wants you to sell those ebooks through its bookstore, unless you're giving them away for free then you're free to do whatever you want.
Rating: 7 Positives / 0 Negatives
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TMay
17 weeks ago

I think that this is exactly the reason why iBooks will never be as successful as Amazon's Kindle platform. Kindle runs anywhere, from the web over PCs, Macs and all popular mobile platforms. The full featured version of iBooks only runs on the iPad.

The other show stopper is the license agreement of iBooks Author. Whoever agrees to these terms either hasn't read them or failed to understand the implications. On the other hand, Apple's iBooks Author EULA terms are probably either illegal in many countries or not enforceable, but they certainly reveal Apple's true colors and ugly face under the shiny design.


How's that "full featured" version of Kindle working out?
Rating: 8 Positives / 1 Negatives
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Kebabselector
17 weeks ago


Beside, could you elaborate on the EULA terms?


I think it bothers some people that if you use Apples Software to create an iPad e-book you have to sell it through Apple. Seems entirely reasonable to me.

After all books I've create using Blurb's app have to be printed via blurb (though I can export them to PDF - but then Blurb add them to their online store to sell - or something like that)

The content from what I understand can be used elsewhere - it's just you can't use the format from iBook Author.

If i'm wrong please correct me.
Rating: 5 Positives / 0 Negatives
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Soccer5se
17 weeks ago
I downloaded E.O Wilson's book. Our kids are going to learn in a whole new and exciting way! I've also tried the Ibook Author software. If you know how to use Keynote, you can use iAuthor. I created a simple storybook for my daughter in about 20 min and she loved the different interactions!

I can't wait to see more from the ibook store!
Rating: 7 Positives / 2 Negatives
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rotarydialz
17 weeks ago
Apple have provided a brilliant set of tools for home schooling.
Rating: 3 Positives / 0 Negatives
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tibi08
17 weeks ago
The people criticising the iPad-only launch of these textbook are right. They could easily have been released on Mac also. The touch features are not so advanced - it's an intentional decision to prop up the iPad.

I currently have an iPad and a Macbook Pro. My next upgrade could be to replace both those devices with a Macbook Air. You know why I can't do that? Because Apple are intentionally propping up the iPad with Airplay, Apps and other features being iPad/iPhone exclusive. There is no reason whatsoever why the Mac doesn't support Airplay, iPad Apps and textbooks. But if they did, then people wouldn't be coerced down the route of touchscreen-only interaction.
Rating: 3 Positives / 0 Negatives
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ILikeTurtles
17 weeks ago
To all the whiners complaining that this isn't avail on the Mac or PC.....IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE INTERACTIVE - WITH TOUCH FEATURES!!!! That's the whole point of it.

Hello! If you want to view a PDF on your Mac/PC get in a time machine and travel back to 2011.
Rating: 4 Positives / 1 Negatives
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FloatingBones
17 weeks ago
e-book textbooks should never cost over $100. If Apple's new iBook ecosystem does nothing than shift the textbook marketplace to demand lower-cost e-books, it will be a huge win.
Rating: 3 Positives / 0 Negatives
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tinisoli
17 weeks ago

Leave it to Apple to identify an industry protected by unlimited government spending (higher education) to squeeze into and charge ridiculous prices.


Are you referring to the free software or the $15 books?

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I think that this is exactly the reason why iBooks will never be as successful as Amazon's Kindle platform. Kindle runs anywhere, from the web over PCs, Macs and all popular mobile platforms. The full featured version of iBooks only runs on the iPad.


The Kindle app "runs everywhere" but doesn't do very much.

The other show stopper is the license agreement of iBooks Author. Whoever agrees to these terms either hasn't read them or failed to understand the implications. On the other hand, Apple's iBooks Author EULA terms are probably either illegal in many countries or not enforceable, but they certainly reveal Apple's true colors and ugly face under the shiny design.


You keep saying this, but you remain wrong about it. But in any case, if you only want your hypothetical books to be on the Kindle, it's simple: Don't use iBooks Author. Meanwhile, people who want their books to be a) available on all devices, and b) as interactive as possible, will publish their works for both formats.
Rating: 2 Positives / 0 Negatives
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JGowan
17 weeks ago

To all the whiners complaining that this isn't avail on the Mac or PC.....IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE INTERACTIVE - WITH TOUCH FEATURES!!!! That's the whole point of it.

Hello! If you want to view a PDF on your Mac/PC get in a time machine and travel back to 2011.

Hmmm... don't agree. Interactive doesn't have to only be with touch gestures. This would work great on a big monitor and I imagine that just such a plan will be in place eventually. Right now, textbooks are in place to sell iPads and rightly so. It works best there, it's true. However, a textbook on a 27" iMac isn't such a crazy idea. In fact the diagrams, charts and video would be all the bigger. The only problem I see would be the scaling of the graphics which would bitmap instead of looking pristine as on the iPad. I think in time, this limitation would get worked out if Apple decides to bring textbooks and their iBooks to the Mac.
Rating: 2 Positives / 0 Negatives

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