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Suggestions using iBA for display on an iPhone

I've published 8 multi-touch iBooks using iBA. I've been exploring the new iPhone-enabled update


Wondering if anyone has seen any style guides or format suggestion for iBA generated ebooks on iPhone. Especially widgets and multi-media.

iMac with Retina 5K display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Jul 1, 2015 6:35 PM

Reply
6 replies

Jul 3, 2015 3:49 PM in response to edteck

As I understand it, the thing that allows the books to be viewed on an iPhone is an update to the iBooks app in iOS8.4. If there hasn't been any update to iBooks Author (it's been a few weeks since I've been inside that app), then that just produces iBooks sized for the iPad.

The scaling down to fit on the iPhone is all done by the iBooks app.

So you'll always get that grey area on each side of the book when viewed on the iPhone, because of the difference in aspect ratio between the devices.


**EDIT**


Re-reading your post, I think I misunderstood: You're saying you want to make a different version, not asking whether you have to. My bad. You'd produce one iBA book for the iPad, and one iBA book aimed at the iPhone. You'd have to make it VERY clear to the end user which version is which, because I don't believe the iBookstore would differentiate in any way, so the choice is all on your users.

Jul 3, 2015 6:17 PM in response to Mac_fool

True - " You're saying you want to make a different version" Thought it would be nice to get my material out there for folks who don't have an iPad or Mac computer (but might have an iPhone.


True that the "scaling down to fit on the iPhone is all done by the iBooks app." But I’ve been playing around a bit with a few of my iBooks on my 5s iPhone exploring the user experience. A few initial thoughts:

1. The most natural way to hold the phone is in portrait - so that invites a portrait ibook. Perhaps with two columns of text. Landscape images, galleries or videos would require a 90 degree rotation to full screen.

2. Scrolling text boxes display best in portrait mode and open as an entirely new page. Makes me wonder if perhaps they could be used in a different way on iPhone

3. Pop over widgets open an entirely new page and loose their launch point. Disorienting on iPhone.

4. Interactive images work fine. Take on a new significance on iPhone?

5. Glossary - the text targets are very small, but the display of definition / image is great.

Jul 4, 2015 3:38 PM in response to edteck

No doubt Apple and/or third parties will come out with templates that attempt to find a one size fits all compromise that most can live with. However, I like your goal of maximizing the user experience better. Creating multiple, optimized versions would be the ideal.

Apple could help us with that by making it possible to change templates or at least have a "family" of templates that are interchangeable. Thus, each template family would have versions optimized for full sized iPad and OS X, iPad mini, and the two iPhone sizes. Author once and export multiple, optimized versions that target these various platforms.

Suggestions using iBA for display on an iPhone

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