Apple announces iBooks for iPhone and iPod touch

Apple tweaks its iBooks service
Apple tweaks its iBooks service

Steve Jobs announced the iPhone and the iPod touch is to get iBooks, as well as a smattering of new features for the service at Apple's WWDC today, including a PDF viewer built right into its iBooks app.

The new enhancements for iBooks will also be available to iPad users - and while the new features aren't exactly game-changing, it is good to see that Apple is tweaking apps for the device so soon after launch.

Bookmarks and notes

Jobs announced that there has been a 22 per cent increase in ebook sales since the launch of the iPad and, for this reason, he is making the iBookstore experience that little bit better and also porting it to the iPhone/iPod touch.

This new features include the addition of new bookmarks and the arrival of notes and a dedicated page displaying all of the bookmarks and notes you have.

The notes feature does look interesting, and is something which will no doubt be useful for students looking at academic texts.

The final tweak is the PDF viewer. This is built in and will be out later this month, alongside the other features.

The good news is, that if you buy an ebook from the store for your iPad, you will be able to view it free of charge on any other Apple device.

And, if you are using bookmarks and notes, these will by synched to all devices.

Yes, you will have to use Apple devices, but this accessibility is a step in the right direction for the Cupertino company.

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.