Reading Apple

Couple of news bites on the Apple front today.

Apple has released the first developer betas of iOS 11.3 and tvOS 11.3, and they include new features such as additional Animoji, Business Chat for iMessage, among others.

AirPlay 2 is also available but apparently hidden, according to a report from 9to5Mac.

What, you ask me to remind you, exactly does AirPlay 2 do?

 

With iOS 11.3 and tvOS 11.3, however, AirPlay 2 officially supports multi-room playback. This means that you can stream to multiple Apple TVs directly from your iPhone for a full in-home audio experience.
– via 9to5Mac

And yet Apple announced yesterday that the HomePod would initially ship without multi-room support…with the HomePod being one of the most natural use cases for AirPlay 2.

9to5Mac also notes that AirPlay 2 marks the first major upgrade for the audio streaming feature since its original introduction in 2011.

Meanwhile, back at the virtual bookstore, Bloomberg is reporting that Apple is preparing to take on Amazon in the digital book market once again.

The Bloomberg story indicates that Apple is working on a redesign version of it iBooks e-book reading application for iPhones and iPads, and has hired an executive from Amazon for the project.

Details:

The new app, due to be released in coming months, will include a simpler interface that better highlights books currently being read and a redesigned digital book store that looks more like the new App Store launched last year, according to people familiar with its development. The revamped app in testing includes a new section called Reading Now and a dedicated tab for audio books, the people said.
– via Bloomberg.com

Like AirPlay 2, this iBook overhaul will also be a major upgrade to an app that has gathered a bit of dust over the past several years. That stagnation was led partly by the U.S. Department of Justice’s suit against Apple in 2012 for its alleged e-book pricing collusion scheme, one which resulted in a $450 fine for Apple in 2016.

Note: As of early 2017, Amazon had just over 83 percent of the U.S. e-book market.

That’s a whole lot of reading that needs to get done before Apple can even begin to close the gap!