Apple just announced some major additions to its iBooks e-reader application. Most importantly, iBooks users can now read their PDF files in iBooks. PDF documents will get their own bookshelf in the application. In addition, iBooks users will now be able to write notes within the app and create bookmarks with a single click instead of having to highlight a word to create a bookmark. These new features will be available later this year.
Obviously, most of this feature – and especially notes – should have been in the original iBooks app. It’s good to see that Apple is finally adding this functionality, which is already available in almost every other e-reader application on the market today.
2.5 eBooks Per iPad
With regards to eBooks on the iPad, Steve Jobs also announced that Apple has sold about 2.5 books per iPad since the launch. That, of course, is far behind Apple’s numbers for iPad apps (users have installed about 17 apps per device) – though 2.5 books is not a bad number, especially given that most books are retailing for at least $10. Sadly, Apple did not disclose how many of these books were paid downloads. In total, iPad owners downloaded 5 million books so far.
Jobs also stressed that publishers are telling Apple that iBooks now accounts for 22% of their e-book sales.
Image credit: gdgt
