Apple Updates iBooks to 1.2.2, Improves Stability and Performance

Late yesterday Apple updated their iBooks app for iOS to version 1.2.2, bringing with it important stability and performance improvements, including addressing issues that occur when playing video from enhanced books from the iBookstore, and issues with books that have very long tables of contents. The update also resolves a problem were some books would open in a different font than was expected, and improves overall responsiveness.

Despite being an Apple application, the iBooks app is not automatically included on iOS devices and must be downloaded from the iTunes App Store. The program offers the ability to read and display bought or downloaded e-books either from the iBookstore or other sources as long as they are in the ePub format, and also supports the management and reading of PDF format files.

The iBookstore uses an existing or new iTunes ID as credentials and offers both free and paid content. The app allows users to change font sizes, search within the content of books, bookmark places to return to or make notes, and keeps the users’ place in a book wirelessly in sync across devices. The program also has text-to-speech capabilities and can even print content from PDFs and notes wirelessly using Airprint.

iBooks v1.2.2 requires an iPhone 3G or later, an iPad or an iPod Touch (2nd generation or later) using iOS 4.0 or higher. iTunes 9.2 or later is also required for management of books and PDFs.