A report from AppAdvice says that over 30,000 major book titles will come free with the Apple iBookstore when the Apple iPad hits the market on April 3. So those who want to use their iPad as an ebook reader have much to look forward to.
Apart from the free ebooks that will be made available by Project Gutenberg’s free digital library, other paid titles from important publishers will also be available.
Project Gutenberg is a volunteer-effort based organization that makes classic and popular literature available in a digital format in the public domain. Project Gutenberg will make its library available free of cost to the iPad says PCWorld. The paid titles will be accessible as content encrypted by Apple’s FairPlay. The free titles, however, will be DRM-free.
The iPad will not be pre-installed with the iBooks application. But, the consumer could download it for free at any Apple store. So come April 3rd and you can start with your iPad ebooks right away. The application will be compatible with ebooks having an ePub format. Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, sent an email to a user, according to which adding other free non-DRM titles from iTunes will also be possible says PCWorld.
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The report from AppAdvice also suggests that many paid titles in the iPad iBookstore will be priced at par with Amazon Kindle. This report, however, seems contentious as Kindle books publishers were believed to be in a spat with Amazon last month over the $9.99 e-books price point.
It seems that Apple has managed to strike a deal with publishers for an inaugural discount so the prices of some titles match those of Amazon when the iPad is first launched. Amazon and Barnes & Noble will also have their own e-book storefronts on the iPad. According to the Kindle Review though, Amazon rates will continue to be the lowest per total.
Experts suggest that Apple is offering free titles on the iPad from its very launch, so there is no competition from any other party to make profits on literature available on the public domain. The move is also targeted towards enlarging the iBookstore library before more paid titles are added by publishers. You can post your comments on this article and other iPad news to us.