Here's a snippet from the iBooks FAQ, as last updated December 22, 2011: The iBooks format is ePub (or, as it's formally known by its caretakers, EPUB).
It's certainly Apple's right to control access to its bookstore and curate its content, and if they had implemented this policy with some thought, I could even have supported their decision. I've already made my feelings known about the iBooks Author license agreement (it's "mind-bogglingly greedy"). The first reaction of Apple-watcher John Gruber, who knows the company better than anyone outside Cupertino, was that the new EULA represents "Apple at its worst." (In a later post, he backtracked somewhat and wrote a complicated defense of Apple's actions.) If you read, write, or publish digital books, you should be concerned. Think Windows in the 1990s, iPad in 2012.) (The strategy is even more effective if you have a dominant market position in another, related category that you can use for leverage.
#Apple ibooks account for mac os#
With last week's introduction of iBooks 2.0 and the free iBooks Author software for Mac OS X, Apple is deliberately locking out that popular open standard.Īpple's behavior is a modern, sophisticated version of the "embrace, extend, and extinguish" behavior that got Microsoft in so much trouble in the 1990s: Enter a product category supporting a widely used standard, extend that standard with proprietary capabilities, and then use those differences to disadvantage competitors.
If you find this topic interesting, I recommend you read the two follow-ups as well:
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