iBooks and iBookstore for iPad going international on May 28
As part of their larger, 9 country international iPad rollout on May 28, Apple announced today that the iBooks app and iBookstore service will also become available in many of those countries.
Publication rights often vary by region (for example, Harry Potter has different publishers in North America than it does in the UK) and it's an understatement to call the situation a mess. So, it's good to see Apple making headway.
Given how slow iTunes TV and Movies have been offered internationally, however, the entertainment industry should still feel shame and hopefully this adds impetus towards simplifying and -- frankly -- modernizing the way these licenses and rights are handled internationally.
Back on-topic: who's excited for iBooks? Anyone going to switch over from Kindle? Or is it just an easy gateway to getting those 30,000 Project Gutenberg titles onto your iPad (and later this year, iPhone)?
[Apple]
Editor-in-Chief of iMore, Executive Producer at Mobile Nations, co-host of Iterate and ZEN and TECH, cook, grappler, photon wrangler.
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This is very exciting. I sure hope that Apple will not only provide access to English books in the other regions but also provide access to books in other languages in the US for all us bilingual people no matter what the other language is.
Looking forward to 28th and arrival of my iPad though fully expecting to have to buy another one once my other half sees difference between it and her Sony eReader !