Apple’s iBooks Updates; Read-Aloud Function Added

Apple has updated its iBooks iOS app. The latest iBooks 1.3 has a few notable features such as read-aloud features.

The new read-aloud feature allows the book to be read aloud. It also has the ability to highlight words as they are being read aloud. However, the read-aloud function is only available for a few children's books.

Other updates in iBooks 1.3 are the capability which allows books enclosing multimedia content to automatically play audio or video and more responsive in opening times for very big books.

The update also fixed bugs that caused books to display the same page twice. The update is available for free from the App Store.

Its size is 15.3 MB and it is compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. It requires iOS 3.2 or later.

iBooks was announced in conjunction with the iPad on January 27, 2010. It is currently available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Kosovo, New Zealand, Croatia, Turkey, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.