Apple on Wednesday released the fifth developer beta of its upcoming OS X Mavericks operating system. It was quickly determined that iBooks, Apple’s eBook software and digital store, had finally made an appearance. We now have some images to share of iBooks on OS X Mavericks Beta 5 courtesy of a TekRevue reader:
There has been an awakening in the Force. Have you felt it? Get pumped for Star Wars: The Force Awakens by saving 25% on Star Wars: The Digital Movie Collection, available now from Amazon and iTunes.
The developer who sent us the picture notes that some features, such as searching the iBookstore, do not yet work properly. As part of the latest iTunes beta, the iBooks functionality of iTunes now resides solely in the iBooks app. iTunes continues to manage audiobooks.
Update: More information from readers regarding the usage of the app. Page turning (scrolling) is only supported horizontally (left to right) and can be accomplished with a trackpad or magic mouse gesture, mouse scroll wheel, and right and left keyboard arrow keys. There is no current way to enable vertical page scrolling. Further, there are no signs of the skeuomorphic design elements of the current iBooks iOS app: no book bindings, no virtual page turn animations, etc.
In terms of reading columns, users can choose between one or two column layouts, although if the window grows large enough, such as while in full screen mode, the app defaults to two columns only.
The iBooks app will also let users manage PDF files. Users with large PDF libraries may find iBooks’ collection management features and ability to sync with iDevices very useful.
iBooks will launch as part of the public release of OS X Mavericks this fall. It will integrate with iBooks on the
