iPad Update: DRM-Free ePub Support and Voice Over for iBooks, Facebook Sharing, Data-plan Management
Apple.com’s new iPad menu item and feature pages shed light on all sorts of interesting new details. We’ve put all of them into an updated version of our Complete iPad and iPhone OS 3.2 Preview article, but here are some of our favorites:
- DRM-Free ePub support. If you already have ePub books that are DRM-Free, just drag them into iTunes and sync them to your iPad. It’s an obvious thing, but Apple doesn’t always enable obvious things so this is nice to see.
- Voice Over for iBooks. Apple’s terrific accessibility feature, Voice Over, will work for iBooks. Amazon got into a lot of trouble with author’s and publishers over this feature and had to make it opt-in for the Kindle. It will be interesting to see if Apple got universal opt-in or just isn’t afraid to pick that fight again.
- YouTube sharing via Facebook. In addition to emailing links, you can also share them directly to Facebook. Social baby steps!
- App Store iPad section. Apple’s iTunes App Store will have a section for iPad apps so they’re easier to find and acquire.
- Data plan management. If you go for an iPad 3G, you can select and purchase your plan on a month-by-month basis right on the iPad. Choose the 256MB plan and you’ll get messages alerting you when you have 20%, 10%, and 0 data left so you can turn 3G off, add another 256MB for an extra $14.99, or upgrade to an unlimited plan right from the device.
If you spotted any other new or notable gems, let us know in the comments and we’ll add them to the list!
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Rene Ritchie, Editor
Chad Garrett, Writer
Jeremy Sikora, Writer
Leanna Lofte, Writer
Georgia, Writer
Allyson Kazmucha, Writer
Dieter Bohn, Editor in Chief, SPE
hm I think I might go for the iPad 3G then.
Um. Share to Twitter too. Then it can share through it’s own client to Twitter without needing a seperate app.
They should allow you to add another 250mb for $10, or even $5… It’s kind of silly to charge someone $30 for 500mb when they could be paying $30 for unlimited use.
Or they could make it an extra $15 for one-time unlimited use. That would be a good deal.
Well, since I can blow through 250mg in a day or 2 it looks like I would need to get the unlimited for $30 but that just seems a bit high!
@Microsoft Points: it’s actually ridiculously low… I don’t know how you can say it seems high. Stand-alone wireless data plans have never been that inexpensive.
I agree, 30.00 a month is reasonable, just 1.00 a day.
We are all witnessing the future of consumer computing right before our eyes. I don’t think the tech geeks who read this blog realize that a HUGE percentage of iPhones and iPods are owned by …wait for it… CHILDREN … TODDLERS… WOMEN .. and SENIORS … and these target groups will be buying the iPad. Guess what? Wonder who was making those fart apps so popular? CHILDREN (boys) … Wonder who is making Grocery Shopping apps in the top 10 of Paid Productivity? WOMEN? Who just promoted “MARK ON CALL”, the amazing interior design furniture and room layout program to the top 10 in the Productivity category? WOMEN — Guess who the top 10 people I know that are going to buy the iPad? Parents of TODDLERS. While the tech TiPbers whine, the Parents, Grandmas, Grandpas, Women, Toddlers, and KIDS are snapping up these (dare I say) magical and revolutionary iPads in droves. So, no, you might not be able to run your favorite anti-virus and disk partition apps you are all screaming for to run in the background, but your kids and grandma and going to have a ball playing games, browsing the internet with their fingers, reading their Disney books, and using MARK ON CALL to design their home decorating plans on the iPad. I’m sure they could care less at this point that it won’t support Flash, frankly the real idiots are the idiot companies that still have flash in their websites and are turning away the millions of iPhone, iPod, and iPad users. Free advertising they are just blocking from their businesses; that’s the part that really surprises me. It’s like a company who’s unwilling to realize that that web took over yellow pages and refuses to have a website. Guess what? Flash is dead. Realize it, get over it, and fix your buggy website.
Seeing your prices makes me glad I’m in the uk.
@LanderMartin
Well said. This is a device for the masses. It’s a rethink on something that has never been designed for the masses. This truly is the first device to bring the Internet and digital media to the casual coffee table.
@Lander Martin: Your an idiot.
@Lander Martin
At last! some common sense here!
@The ones who don’t get it
Keep trying!
At least one third of the emails sent to my husband from friends are forwards requiring Flash to view. I can’t believe Steve Jobs thinks it is not important that the iPhone doesn’t support Flash.
@ Lander Martin…excellent point there…cause everytime I’m out in public I always see a woman,kids and older people pulling out their iPhones..we owe it to them for making apple’s iPhone as popular as it is now a days
The iPad will have a revolutionary intro. It’ll be shipped to 10 countries within a month of the US intro and I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple sold over 10mm by Jan 2011 (followed by another 30mm in 2011.)
The HP Win7 tablet wanna be is not a threat, but it will sell sufficiently.
The Android pack is a threat, rolling out their multiple variations by Sep and after. Apple has done the hard and risky innovative work to define and promote the user interface and multitouch paradigm and Android is opportunistic in ripping Apple off.
That’s what the HTC suit is about: beating the pack back or at least slowing it down. Google may or may not be evil, but they surely have some problems with ambition (will to dominate), conceit, and shamelessness. (See their advice to newspapers: “Give it away, like we do!” (Easy to say when your mega billion profit stream is hyper secure.)
Perhaps, Apple will team with MSoft on Bing and other products to teach Google a thing or two.
@Name:
I think you meant to say “You’re an idiot”. “Your an idiot” just doesn’t make sense. If you’re going to criticise someone, at least show you have some intelligence by learning how to use proper punctuation. It would also help if you would enlighten us on what points Lander Martin made that makes him in your esteemed view an idiot.
$30 is high? You guys don’t get out much, do you?
In some countries, Apple partners don’t even have unlimited…
Example: here, Vodafone charges 35€ (get a calc, you illiterate americans) for 500Mb and 230 minutes (intra-VDF calls only).
So, stop whining…
@name: http://youreyour.com is your friend.
@Waidt : it’s really a grammar problem, more than a punctuation one.
I think microsoft should make microsoft points free…
I think microsoft is way over its head
I can’t believe Steve Jobs thinks it is not important that the iPhone doesn’t support Flash.
Apple has done the hard and risky innovative work to define and promote the user interface and multitouch paradigm and Android is opportunistic in ripping Apple off.
Apple has done the hard and risky innovative work to define and promote the user interface and multitouch paradigm and Android is opportunistic in ripping Apple off.