Apple Announcement May Include Garageband Like E-Book Creation Tool

[Phillip Swanson]

Apple’s announcement this Thursday has spurred its fair share of speculation, and while little is known ArsTechnica is claiming Apple will release the e-book equivalent of Garageband.

A textbook announcement of some kind is coming Thursday, but ArsTechnica is claiming Apple will simplify the complicated world of authoring a “standards-compliant” e-book.

At the same time, however, authoring standards-compliant e-books (despite some promises to the contrary) is not as simple as running a Word document of a manuscript through a filter. The current state of software tools continues to frustrate authors and publishers alike, with several authors telling Ars that they wish Apple or some other vendor would make a simple app that makes the process as easy as creating a song in GarageBand. Our sources say Apple will announce such a tool on Thursday. — ArsTechnica

While these sources again are unnamed and ArsTechnica could be blowing smoke, the e-book authoring process does need some cleaning up. Apple has the power and is in the position to standardize the process preventing some of the headaches for authors, but the question of whether or not these standards will transfer to other devices outside of Apple’s walled garden are genuine concerns. What’s the point of standardizing the process if the books can only be bought and viewed on fraction (albeit large fraction) of the market?

If Apple does in fact choose to wall in their e-book creation and distribution process, authors will still face a fractured market forcing them to submit e-books for iOS Amazon’s Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble, and other distribution methods.

Source: ArsTechnica

[cpotoso]

Duh! It is called a text editor... Then anyone can convert to epub or whatever format is desired. This is truly stupid.

[n00neimp0rtant]

I WANT A MACHINE THAT I CAN PUT A BOOK INTO AND IT COMES OUT EBOOK ON MY IPAD 4 PLEA



seriously, this is going to be as big a let-down for some people as "beatles on iTunes"