Books

Apple will pay $450 million fine in e-book case as Supreme Court declines to hear appeal

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 7, 2016

Apple's legal battle with the United States government over alleged price fixing in an e-book antitrust case has now come to an end after nearly three years.

As the United States Supreme Court has declined to hear Apple's appeal, the iPhone maker will have to pay a $450 million fine to settle its long-standing federal court case with class action lawyers and state district attorneys.

Bloomberg reported Monday that the justices turned away Apple's appeal without comment. Apple has been found to have conspired with major book publishers and orchestrated a scheme to raise prices of electronic books on the iBooks Store.

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Flewn review: a whale of a story told with style

Lory Gil ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

In a decade of immediate gratification, where conversations take place 140 characters at a time and games are scored by how fast you complete them, it's nice to come across an app that does nothing but tell a story so you can slow things down, even if it is just for a moment.

Flewn is a highly stylized book with dozens of illustrations that you access with very little effort, but still feels significantly interactive just the same. We've got a full app review of Flewn for you right now.

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Eleven 3D Touch shortcuts in Messages for iPhone

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 31, 2019

There's no question that 3D Touch really does make the iPhone's Multi-Touch user interface multidimensional. By varying the degree of pressure applied to the screen of your iPhone, you can preview emails, websites, locations, messages and a variety of other items in Apple's stock apps.

We have already covered new 3D Touch shortcuts in iBooks and today we're taking a closer look at arguably the most-oft used iPhone app—Messages. In Messages, you can Peek and Pop most of the file types to your heart's content without needing to jump between multiple apps, which can save a lot of time.

In this tutorial, we're going to lay out 3D Touch basics in Messages before moving on to all of the items you can preview in your conversations.

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Six 3D Touch shortcuts in iBooks for iPhone

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 2, 2017

Owners of the iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus can now use Peek and Pop gestures in iBooks to speed up common tasks such as checking out their notes and bookmarks, previewing pages in search results and more.

This tutorial takes you on a quick tour of 3D Touch gestures in iBooks, including six ways applying pressure helps you interact with your fav reads.

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Apple releases Best of 2015 charts on iTunes

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

Apple on Wednesday posted its annual Best of 2015 charts on iTunes. “We debated. We argued. Everyone had favorites, but to make this list of 2015's finest, there could be no doubts,” wrote the company. “What you see here made the cut—they're the most visionary, inventive and irresistible apps and games of the year.”

Apple named Twitter-owned Periscope the App of the Year and Square Enix's excellent Lara Croft GO its Game of the Year.

Workflow, the popular iOS automation app, is listed as the Most Innovative App of 2015 and Dark Echo the Most Innovative Game of 2015. Facebook-owned Instagram is the Best App on iPhone 6s while Pixel Toys' Warhammer: 40,000 Freeblade took home the Best Game on iPhone 6s award, thanks to immersive 3D Touch controls.

Here's the full list of titles the topped Apple's charts in 2015.

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Apple announces enhanced editions of Harry Potter series available exclusively on iBooks Store

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 8, 2015

Apple on Thursday issued a press release announcing that all seven books in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter fantasy series are now available exclusively as iBooks accessible on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Mac devices.

The books sport interactive animations, exclusive covers, annotations from Rowling, custom Harry Potter typefaces, video and other interactive content.

This marks the first time Harry Potter books are available digitally outside J.K. Rowling's own Pottermore Shop e-commerce company, developed in partnership with Sony.

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Apple Music, iTunes Movies and iBooks make their long-expected debut in China

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 30, 2015

Apple on Wednesday announced that users in China can now enjoy Apple Music, as well as browse and download their entertainment from the iTunes Store and iBooks Store, marking the first time customers in the 1.33 billion people market will have access to Apple’s entertainment ecosystem with music, movies and books right at their fingertips.

“Customers in China love the App Store and have made it our largest market in the world for app downloads,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “One of the top requests has been more great content and we’re thrilled to bring music, movies and books to China, curated by a local team of experts.”

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New book tells the story of how the iPhone crippled BlackBerry

Cody Lee ∙ May 22, 2015

There is a new book coming out later this month entitled "Losing the Signal," and it explores the rise and fall of BlackBerry. The Canadian-based handset maker that once sat atop the smartphone market has spent the last two years fighting off bankruptcy.

On Friday The Wall Street Journal published an interesting excerpt from the book, which tells the story of the iPhone's debut in 2007 and how it impacted folks inside BlackBerry. It's clear that they had no idea it was coming, or what they could do to respond.

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Audible audiobooks service gains support for Apple’s CarPlay in latest update

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 18, 2015

Audible, an audiobooks service owned by Amazon, pushed a major update to its iPhone and iPad application this morning which added CarPlay functionality along with a couple nice-to-have improvements in the app's iOS edition.

After downloading today's update, the Audible app will automatically appear on the dashboard of CarPlay-enabled vehicles and those supporting CarPlay via aftermarket solutions from Pioneer, Alpine and other companies.

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Becoming Steve Jobs releases on iBooks Store, Kindle and Amazon.com

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 24, 2015

Becoming Steve Jobs, a highly anticipated Apple-endorsed biography of Apple's mercurial co-founder and late CEO Steve Jobs, on Tuesday released on the iBooks Store, the Kindle Store and on Amazon.com.

Written by veteran Wall Street Journal and Fortune reporter Brent Schlender, who is 58 years old, and Rick Tetzeli, Executive Editor with Fast Company, the 464-page book published by The Crown Publishing Group offers new details of Jobs' personal and professional life that did not quite get the treatment in Walter Isaacson's biography that such a high-profile iconic figure in technology, media and arts deserves.

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