Apple Books

This article is about an application for iOS, iPadOS and macOS. For Apple's PowerPC consumer laptop, see iBook. For the graphic novel publisher known as "ibooks Inc.", see Byron Preiss.

Apple Books
Developer(s)Apple Inc.
Initial releaseApril 2, 2010; 14 years ago (2010-04-02)
Stable release(s)
iOS4.2.3 / June 3, 2019; 5 years ago (2019-06-03)[1]
macOS5.2
Written inObjective-C
Operating system
Size31 MB
Available in33 languages[1]
List of languages
English, Arabic, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
TypeDigital distribution
LicenseProprietary
Websitewww.apple.com/apple-books/ Edit this on Wikidata

Apple Books (known as iBooks prior to iOS 12) is an e-book reading and store application by Apple Inc. for its iOS, iPadOS and macOS operating systems and devices. It was announced, under the name iBooks, in conjunction with the iPad on January 27, 2010,[2] and was released for the iPhone and iPod Touch in mid-2010, as part of the iOS 4 update.[3] Initially, iBooks was not pre-loaded onto iOS devices, but users could install it free of charge from the iTunes App Store. With the release of iOS 8, it became an integrated app. On June 10, 2013, at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Craig Federighi announced that iBooks would also be provided with OS X Mavericks in Fall 2013.[4][5]

It primarily receives EPUB content from the Apple Books store, but users can also add their own EPUB and Portable Document Format (PDF) files via data synchronization with iTunes. Additionally, the files can be downloaded to Apple Books through Safari or Apple Mail. It is also capable of displaying e-books that incorporate multimedia.[2][6] According to product information as of March 2010, iBooks will be able to "read the contents of any page [to the user]" using VoiceOver.[7][8]

On January 19, 2012, at an education-focused special event in New York City, Apple announced the free release of iBooks 2, which can operate in landscape mode and allows for interactive reading. In addition, a new application, iBooks Author, was announced for the Mac App Store, allowing anyone to create interactive textbooks for reading in iBooks; and the iBooks Store was expanded with a textbook category.[9][10] The iBooks Author Conference, an annual gathering of digital content creators around Apple's iBooks Author, has convened between 2015 and 2017.[11][12][13] Apple discontinued iBooks Author in 2020, its functionality having been integrated into Pages.[14]

In September 2018, iBooks was renamed "Apple Books" upon the release of iOS 12 and macOS Mojave.[15] It features a new variation of the San Francisco typeface known as "SF Serif",[16] which was later revealed to be released in six optical weights under the "New York" name.[17]

  1. ^ a b "Apple Books". App Store Preview. Archived from the original on October 1, 2019. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
  2. ^ a b Apple Inc. (July 16, 2003). "iPad Announcement Keynote". Events.apple.com.edgesuite.net. Archived from the original on January 20, 2017. Retrieved September 18, 2011.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference 4.0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Maps, iBooks, iCloud Keychain coming to OS X Mavericks". AppleInsider. June 10, 2013. Archived from the original on June 13, 2013. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
  5. ^ "OS X Mavericks – Do even more with new apps and new features". Apple Inc. Archived from the original on July 16, 2013. Retrieved September 9, 2017.
  6. ^ Apple Inc. (July 16, 2003). "WWDC 2010 Keynote". Apple.com. Archived from the original on September 25, 2011. Retrieved September 18, 2011.
  7. ^ "iPad – Buy and read books like never before". Apple. Archived from the original on February 24, 2011. Retrieved September 18, 2011.
  8. ^ Previous post Next post (March 12, 2010). "Wired GadgetLab: iPad ebook features". Wired.com. Archived from the original on September 16, 2011. Retrieved September 18, 2011.
  9. ^ Chloe Albanesius (January 19, 2012). "Apple Targets Educators Via iBooks 2, iBooks Author, iTunes U App". PCMag.com. Archived from the original on July 11, 2017. Retrieved August 31, 2017.
  10. ^ Josh Lowensohn (January 19, 2012). "Apple unveils iBooks 2 for digital textbooks, self-pub app (live blog)". CNET. Archived from the original on September 16, 2013. Retrieved January 19, 2012.
  11. ^ "Media from the 2015 iBooks Author Conference". Archived from the original on November 17, 2015. Retrieved April 8, 2017.
  12. ^ "iBooks Author Conference. What did we learn?". October 14, 2016. Archived from the original on February 6, 2017. Retrieved April 8, 2017.
  13. ^ Centers, Josh (October 24, 2017). "iBooks Author Conference Highlights Worries about iBooks Ecosystem". TidBITS. Archived from the original on February 4, 2023. Retrieved February 4, 2023.
  14. ^ Cohen, Michael E. (June 11, 2020). "Apple to End Support for iBooks Author". TidBITS. Archived from the original on February 4, 2023. Retrieved February 4, 2023.
  15. ^ "iBooks gets a redesign and new Apple Books branding in iOS 12". The Verge. Archived from the original on May 27, 2022. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
  16. ^ "Apple Books: What's new in iOS 12". iMore. Archived from the original on June 7, 2021. Retrieved July 10, 2018.
  17. ^ "Fonts". Apple Developer. Archived from the original on November 15, 2001. Retrieved June 5, 2019.