For many kiwis, not having full access to iBooks has been very frustrating. Well the wait is over, just 24 hours before the announcement yesterday, paid iBooks content became available in New Zealand and 17 other countries.
This was perfect timing, just before Apple announced the iPad Mini.
The major selling point of the Mini is its appeal to the e-reader market, so if 18 countries couldn’t purchase from iBooks it probably wouldn’t have gone down so well.
iBooks on iPad and iPhone looks very attractive, there is even a ‘home grown’ section which displays all our local best sellers.I have heard from a handful of people who were getting pretty annoyed that we couldn’t purchase through iBooks, copyright issues is an excuse which has been very popular.
I have noticed that ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ is at the top of the ‘paid’ books list, so for those of you who are embarrassed to purchase it in person you can buy it secretly, away from judging eyes.
Apple announced an update to the iBooks app during the announcement yesterday. iBooks 3 has a number of changes, including the ability to scroll continuously through a book rather than flicking across pages. This change moves the eBook even further from the real thing.
There is currently over 1 million books available through iBooks so the next time your kids say “there’s nothing to do” you can reply with “I can think of over a million things you could do on the iPad”.
iBooks 3 also has an increased integration with iCloud, you can pick up where you left off on any of your iOS devices and share your favorite lines via email, Twitter or Facebook.
40 languages are supported by iBooks 3, this would be very handy if your learning a new language or you just feel like mixing it up for a few pages.
iBooks 3 and the iPad Mini are a match made in heaven really, the Mini is obviously targeted towards the e-reader fan and the sleek design and presentation of iBooks makes it irresistible. The question is though, will it be better than the likes of Kindle?
From one Apple fan to another, I hope the wait to purchase books through iBooks hasn’t been too stressful for you. If you’ve been using other eBook stores, you can come back now, its OK 
The one thing that would make the iBook store even better, would be high school and university textbooks. That would be the deal breaker for me. If I can have all my University textbooks on my iPad Mini instead of lugging them around everywhere that’d be amazing.
(Booster_13 has made 9 comments)
Oh great idea! That would make my life a lot easier as well
(Henry has made 20 comments)
Now we only need TV shows to come up on the Apple TV – then we are complete:-)
(jeffwk has made 19 comments)
I was also gonna say we just need TV shows aswell. And for them to be available immediately here after the US. Not months like they come out on TV here (I know there are some coming quickly, but only some)
(nfused has made 32 comments)
The desktop version of iTunes lets you shop for iBooks and displays them in your iTunes library, but there is no way to open them. Apple needs to fill in this piece of the puzzle and launch an iBooks app for the Mac (and PC). They also need to bring Apple Maps to the web or at least the Mac if they want us to really adopt their Maps environment – right now you can love it all you want but as soon as you head to a Mac or PC you’re back to Google Maps (and being reminded how great it is!).
Re TV Shows, if Apple did ever launch TV shows here there is no guarantee it would have the same content as the US store — all sorts of licensing tie-ups would make that pretty much a no-go. I’d imagine we’d see local TVNZ content appear and perhaps some older stuff from the US and UK.
(Steve Lawrence has made 648 comments)
Sky will never let TV happen. What’s the point in NZ as all the program’s will be old. I have a USA iTunes account and it rocks with the selection they have. I buy my movies from my NZ account as NZ seems to be the only country who has discounts on iTunes gift cards and makes the movies good value.
nfused wrote:
(kiwiadventure has made 66 comments)
@ Steve Lawrence:
Hit the nail on the head.
(myopinion has made 63 comments)