Apple has released an update (9.0.4) for its office suite iWork which, among other things, gives Pages the ability to create ePub documents.
This is a great move forward for Apple and will be valuable to those who are regular users of the iPad and the iBooks program. The ePub open book standard is used by the iBooks app and this is one of the reasons that Apple has been so successful in advertising the iPad as an eBook reader. The Amazon Kindle, on the other hand, does not support the ePub format.
There are a number of things that are missing however, and this could provide clues that Apple is preparing a major iTunes revamp. The reasoning behind this is that this update, while worthwhile, gives the ability for users to create eBooks in Pages. While this is a great addition, it certainly isn’t a major issue of angst among Apple users. The inability to read eBooks on their Macs however, is a huge point of contention.
So we should take notice that Apple have issued this Pages update first, and not issued an iTunes update. iTunes is the primary software that most Apple users use to manage their eBooks and transfer them to their iPad (the excellent Calibre is also available free). Yet, users lack the ability to read books directly from iTunes and they have been very vocal about this. Therefore, since Apple hasn’t issued an update for iTunes, we can assume that a new version of iTunes, or its replacement, is being prepared that will address this problem, and that ePub reader functionality for Mac will be part of this release.
It’s all about priorities. If Apple are releasing a low-impact update before a higher-impact one, you can bet the higher-impact one is going to be part of a much bigger release that will drastically affect users.
Don’t know about you but I’m looking forward to it.
Got some book-tastic bollocks?
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