Self-published media-rich interactive titles are coming to the iPad.
What’s the point of a digital book if all it is is a faithful recreation of the physical version available on your bookshelf? Sure, carrying a stack of them will be much easier on your back, but why not create books that are as interactive as some of the best programs available on the iPad? This is what iBooks Author is trying to achieve.
This free app only works on a Mac running Lion (Mac OS X 10.7) and you can only download it from the Mac App Store, but once you’ve passed that barrier of entry, you’ll notice how similar it is to Apple’s other works, like Pages and Keynote. In fact, you can copy and paste from these apps onto iBooks Author, preserving all the formatting. It’s incredibly easy to create great-looking books, insert images, Keynote slides, even multiple-choice questions to make sure your reader retained all the important information from each chapter. Videos can also be included, although iBooks Author is incredibly picky as to the format: it won’t even accept clips taken from your iPhone until you’ve exported them through iMovie - a puzzling decision from Apple’s engineers.
You can connect an iPad to your Mac and preview your work as you build it, and once you’re ready, you can sell it through the iBook Store. It could be a revolutionary application, and after a few updates, it definitely will be. Get ready to ditch your bookcase!
This review was taken from my IT page "Everything is Pixelated", published in the local paper, The Roundabout. You can download the full page, along with all other articles, here
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