Tag Archives: apple

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New Quark Xpress is ebook Friendly

Quark announced this month the availability of QuarkXPress 9.2, the new update to QuarkXPress 9 that is free to all QuarkXPress 9 customers. QuarkXPress 9 is award-winning design software that enables millions of creative professionals to publish across digital devices as well as to print and the Web. The best part for authors is that version 9.2 adds new ePUB features, ePUB 3 audio and video support .

QuarkXPress 9.2 and ePUB

QuarkXPress 9 introduced the ability for designers to easily export print layouts to ePUB to create traditional e-books. With QuarkXPress 9.2 designers can now, in addition to converting a print layout to ePUB, create a new project specifically for ePUB export. With the new update, it’s now also possible to:

* Add audio, videos, and hyperlinks to an ePUB e-book

* Create hierarchical tables of content
* Control the format and resolution of pictures on a global or
picture-by-picture basis
* Create new articles, visually crop pictures, and split text
components in a reflow article
* Re-order components by dragging-and-dropping within the Reflow
Tagging Palette
* Specify the default story direction for East Asian ePUB e-books

Along with the new ePUB functionality, QuarkXPress 9.2 also supports audio and video for ePUB 3, the new version of the standard that supports rich media. Read more about QuarkXPress 9 and ePUB here.

QuarkXPress 9.2 and iPad Publishing

A key component of QuarkXPress 9 is App Studio, which offers designers a cost-effective way to create and publish enriched, interactive content to digital devices, such as the iPad. With QuarkXPress 9.2, App Studio templates support iOS 5 Newsstand and meet new Apple guidelines for iCloud storage. In addition to the many enrichment options already available with QuarkXPress 9, QuarkXPress 9.2 and App Studio now include:

* New Play/Pause/Stop/Toggle play actions that allow designers to
build buttons that control other media elements such as sound and
video
* A Hide Controls option for sound and video that allows designers
to make the control bar for a media player invisible
* A Loop option that designers can use to specify that a sound or
video element should loop its playback

 

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Publishing Push coming from Apple

Apple

Apple could be hosting a special media event in New York City this month. The event won’t be about Apple’s next iPad if reports are believed to be correct. Instead, Apple will be talking directly to the publishing industry.

The theme of the event will be publishing and e-books. Considering reports indicate Eddy Cue will be prominently involved, it’s a focus area that makes a lot of sense.

Apple SVP of Internet Software and Services, Mr. Cue is in charge of the iBookstore, as well as the iTunes and App Stores, iAd and iCloud. Cue is the one who took the stage the last time the company had a publishing event, when it unveiled News Corp.’s publication The Daily.

READ THE FULL STORY



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Is $9.99 still the Magic Price for an e-book?

“What ebooks I buy for my Kindle and what I am willing to pay for them has absolutely nothing to do with the price of the device itself.  And to say that it does is ridiculous.  I buy between 20 – 40 books for my Kindle per month.  I am a voracious reader.  Unless a book is by an author that I like enormously I will not pay over $9.99.  I usually don’t buy books that cost even that much.  Period.  I put books that cost that much on my Wish List & check back periodicaly to see if the price has dropped, which usually happens when a paperback edition of the book is released. I don’t read as many mysteries anymore because for some reason that genre has higher prices than any other.  I’m a patient person.  I wait until the price goes down.  Or get it from the library.

Publishers need to realize that by lowering their prices they’ll make more money from ebooks because they’d sell many, many more.  Even old books that were published 60 – 80 years ago are being put out by publishers at $9.99!  Get real.  Once a book is on the publisher’s computers for publishing, the editing and other technical details are done anyway.  The only thing they have to do for an ebook edition is to format it properly.  It’s all digital.  No additional costs for cover art. No cost for warehousing ebooks.  No returns processing for ebooks. No printing costs for ebooks.  And publishers expect us to pay the same prices they charge for hard copy books?!?”

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A Steve Jobs Comic Book

Apple vs Amazon Steve Jobs

The late Steve Jobs

The comic from Bluewater Productions, which was first announced last June, is expected to show the history of Steve Jobs and Apple’s rise to the top of the technological heap. Of course, since the comic was produced before his passing, the paper copy will make no mention of when he passed away. The special eBook version however will make respectful mention of the end of his life. While those who use Comixology as their main comic book or eBook reading app will have to wait until October 27th to get the book, Kindle users will be able to download the book today and Nook users tomorrow. 

This is not the first time that… READ MORE

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Steve Jobs: Do What You Love

In 2005 Apples founder Steve Jobs gave a powerful commencement speech to the graduating students at prestigious Stanford University.  Find the complete text and the video at the link above.

  “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

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NY Times Writer analyzes various e-readers

Which ereader is best?

Which ereader is best?

Here is the critical question for us avid readers: Which e-reader or tablet is the best for reading books?

“So I set out to try them all, reading a chapter on each: the Amazon Kindle, the first- and second-generation Apple iPads, the Barnes & Noble Nook, an iPhone, a Windows Phone, a Google Android phone, a Google Android tablet and a laptop computer. To be fair, I also read a chapter in that old-fashioned form — a crumply old print paperback.”

READ THE ANALYSIS

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Thomas Nelson releases their first Enhanced e-book

Thomas NelsonChristian publishing firm Thomas Nelson announces the creation of the company’s first enhanced e-book, which released on Aug. 25. This landmark e-book by New York Times best-selling author and pastor Max Lucado features the full digital content of his most recent bestseller, Max on Life: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions (Thomas Nelson, April 2011) in addition to audio and video elements.

“We knew Max Lucado would be the perfect author to launch our first enhanced e-book,” says David Moberg, Sr. Vice President and Group Publisher, Thomas Nelson.

The enhanced e-book features all editorial content from the trade book, Max on Life, as well as a personal video introduction from Lucado for each of seven core sections: hope, hurt, help, him/her, home, haves/have-nots, hereafter. Sprinkled throughout the book are embedded one-minute audio segments.

The enhanced e-book released in the Apple iBooks Store and Barnes and Noble Nook Store on Aug. 25 with an Amazon Kindle Store version following.

Written with candor, humor and a pastor’s heart, Max on Life reads like an advice column from one of the most respected voices in inspirational writing. Lucado’s answers draw from the wisdom and experience of more than 30 years of preaching.

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War is On! Kindle Cloud Reader to combat Apple iTunes

Apple vs AmazonOn July 26 of this year, following pressure from Apple that it would begin strenuously enforcing its 30 percent commission rate, Amazon and Barnes & Noble announced they were shutting down their in-app sales.  Customers were instead instructed to go to the Internet and buy directly from their respective websites. 

Amazon just released the new Kindle Cloud Reader for quick and easy reading right in your web browser.

There are already free Kindle apps out there, but Kindle Cloud Reader extends the popular digital book store and library to PCs and tablets that run browsers based on HTML 5. This includes Safari on iPad and desktops as well as the desktop version of Google Chrome.

[full story here]