Eddy Cue talks Steve Jobs, page curls and iBooks launch at e-book hearing

iBooks Bookshelf on iPad

Eddy Cue once again took the stand today in Apple’s ongoing antitrust case with the Department of Justice. The company’s SVP of Internet software and services took the stand on Friday to talk about Steve Jobs’ involvement in Apple’s iBooks project. And this morning, he offered up a few more details.

Cue spoke more candidly on the witness stand today, providing several interesting tidbits about Jobs’ participation in Apple’s iBooks launch back in 2010. Apparently, the then-CEO had a big hand in the project, doing everything from designing minor UI details to choosing which book to offer for free…

From AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka:

– The “page curls” in the iBook app, which show up when you flip an iBook’s page? That’s Steve Jobs’s idea. 

– It was Jobs’s idea to pick “Winnie-the-Pooh” as the freebie book that came with every iBook app. Not just because Jobs liked the book, Cue said, but because it showed off iBook’s capabilities: “It had beautiful color drawings, that had never been seen before in a digital book.” 

– Jobs was also specific about the book he used to show off the iBook during his initial iPad demo in January 2010. He picked Ted Kennedy’s “True Compass” memoir, because the Kennedy family “meant a lot to him,” Cue said.

The DoJ originally filed its lawsuit against Apple and 5 major book publishers last April, alleging that executives of the firms colluded to raise e-book prices across the industry with an ‘agency’ pricing model. But all 5 publishers have settled with the government, leaving Apple alone to fight the charges.

Over the course of the trial, the Department of Justice has seen several holes nibbled in its prosecution by Apple’s legal team, but it still feels that its case holds water thanks to the now infamous email from Steve Jobs to James Murdoch of News Corporation. But Apple says the letter was taken out of context.

Closing arguments for the trial are set for Thursday.