Apple's pedestrian e-reader app–iBooks–has been updated and brings a handful of new features that users of other e-reader apps have enjoyed since forever.
These updates are so basic that I wouldn't have been surprised to see "displays words on a screen" in the release notes. As it is, iBooks users now get full-screen mode (so you can hide the clock and status bar when reading), a white-on-black night mode (amazingly, this has taken Apple almost two years to implement), more fonts ("including Athelas, Charter, Iowan, and Seravek"), better covers for public domain books and an improved highlight/notes popover.
Laugh as we might at the almost willful tardiness of bringing these features to a major Apple product, they are very useful changes. The night mode – in conjunction with the in-app brightness slider, makes nighttime reading practical. The new fonts are all better than the current selection, and full-screen mode is great.
Less welcome, to me at least, is the new notes popover. Now you get a little speech-bubble-style sheet instead of the big sticky note of the previous version. That's fine, but the square in the margin that indicates a note is now plain, where it used to show the date.
The highlight popover is way better, though, letting you choose a color right there (see picture, above). I know you could change colors on the old version, but I can't remember how (and I tried to do it just now on my old iPad 1).
Finally, the "beautiful new classic covers for public domain books." Who cares? It's not going to make Jane Eyre any less boring.
The update is free, and available now. Will it tempt me away from my Kindle app? No way. Not only does Amazon have a better selection, and (often) better prices, but I can read (in sync) across iDevices and the Kindle itself. Better still, pretty much every e-book link on the web is to the Kindle store, meaning I can have a sample chapter on my iPad moments after seeing it mentioned. Try adding that to your app, Apple.
iBooks product page [iTunes]
