We’ve waxed lyrical about iBooks Author at the technological level, but a good self-publishing platform counts for nothing if authors are put off by its terms and conditions. A particular source of antagonism so far has been the notion that, if an author decides to charge a fee for their iBook, then Apple will claim exclusive distribution rights and prevent them from publishing their work anywhere else. Check out the More Coverage links below and you’ll see that a number of writers tore up Apple’s licensing agreement and flung it into the proverbial overflowing trash can.
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iBooks Author gets new EULA, aims to clear writer’s block
Apple announced on its quarterly earnings call this afternoon that iBooks Author had seen 600,000 downloads since its unveiling last week. The folks in Cupertino also mentioned that iTunes U has seen 3 million app downloads, feeling a bump from the announcement a few days ago
Apple has yet to release any official numbers, but early returns on its new iBooks textbook store are looking pretty promising. According to Global Equities Research, more than 350,000 textbooks were downloaded within three days of the store’s debut , along with some 90,000 downloads of the iBooks Author platform. 
We had a few minutes to browse through iBooks 2 textbooks following Apple’s press conference this morning, but now we have a fully-loaded iPad 2 to play with, so we decided to spend some more time getting educated in the comfort of our in-house studio. You already had a chance to get familiar with the new app and associated media earlier today , so this time it’s all about the visuals. Browse through the galley below as we explore Life on Earth before taking a front seat in Biology and getting our hands dirty with Frog Dissection 
Inside every frustrated journalist is an even more frustrated author, and self-publishing is an evil that many of us have succumbed to over the years. Still, much as we may want to resist it, we couldn’t help ourselves when it came time to test Apple’s iBooks Author app , designed for educators to push out textbooks to students for a fraction of the cost, time and energy it would traditionally take. So, how does it feel when you’re working inside the software
Would you like to make more money? Sure, we all would, and a great way to do that is to get a better education. There was a time when you had to go to schools or rely on shady mail-order diplomas. 
We just got our first opportunity to get our hands on one of Apple’s new interactive textbooks and we have to say, they’re as good as they looked during the live event . We tried a few titles, ranging from steady textbooks to more exotic stuffs, but by far the best is the selection from E.O. Wilson called Life on Earth 
Ready to get smart in the Big Apple? We are, and so is Apple. 
