June 28, 2010

Keep Your Reading In Sync With iTunes and iBooks

iOS 4 for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, iPod touch (2nd generation), and iPod touch (3rd generation) is now available. Once it's installed, you can download iBooks for free. It works with your iTunes account to keep your reading in sync across your devices. As you move among your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, whatever you were reading opens to where you left off, and any bookmarks and notes you've created are synced as well. And books you purchase from iBookstore need only be purchased once -- you can place them on your other devices by going to iBookstore on each, tapping the Purchases icon on the lower right, and clicking Redownload for each one you want.

iBooks 1.1 can also display PDF files on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. You can add PDFs to iBooks using Mail (and Safari on iOS 4) or drag them directly into your iTunes library and sync them to your device. A PDFs button will appear alongside the Books one in the navigation bar at the top of your iBooks Library display to let you switch between the two. To customize what gets synced, select the device being synced in the Devices list in iTunes 9.2 and use the Books panel. When viewing PDF documents you can slide between pages, and spread and pinch to enlarge and shrink the contents just like you do in Safari, and your place will be automatically synced across your devices.