iBooks Store

Apple releases Best of 2015 charts on iTunes

Apple on Wednesday posted its annual Best of 2015 charts on iTunes. “We debated. We argued. Everyone had favorites, but to make this list of 2015's finest, there could be no doubts,” wrote the company. “What you see here made the cut—they're the most visionary, inventive and irresistible apps and games of the year.”

Apple named Twitter-owned Periscope the App of the Year and Square Enix's excellent Lara Croft GO its Game of the Year.

Workflow, the popular iOS automation app, is listed as the Most Innovative App of 2015 and Dark Echo the Most Innovative Game of 2015. Facebook-owned Instagram is the Best App on iPhone 6s while Pixel Toys' Warhammer: 40,000 Freeblade took home the Best Game on iPhone 6s award, thanks to immersive 3D Touch controls.

Here's the full list of titles the topped Apple's charts in 2015.

How to disable password prompts for free iBooks downloads on the Mac

Since last year's iOS 8.3 software update iOS devices have had the ability to stop asking for a password when downloading free applications from the App Store. Soon after, that feature found its way into iTunes and iBooks for Mac.

As electronic books are no longer managed through iTunes, disabling password prompts for iBooks Store downloads is now handled in iBooks for Mac. In this post, you will learn how to disable Apple ID password prompts when downloading free electronic books from Apple's iBooks Store, and we'll also show you how you can manage password settings for paid items.

How to set up carrier billing as payment method for App Store, iTunes Store and iBooks Store

In October 2015, Apple began rolling out support for carrier billing on iTunes in select markets, starting with Germany. This feature joins the existing payment methods accepted on the App Store, iTunes Store and iBooks Store and permits customers to have apps and media bought through these content stores charged to their monthly mobile phone bill or deducted from their prepaid amount.

If your carrier supports it, you too can opt-in to pay for your iTunes Store, App Store, and iBooks Store purchases—and your Apple Music membership—through mobile phone billing.

In this tutorial, we're going to cover setting up mobile phone billing as your payment method in the iTunes Store, App Store or iBooks Store.

Apple announces enhanced editions of Harry Potter series available exclusively on iBooks Store

Apple on Thursday issued a press release announcing that all seven books in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter fantasy series are now available exclusively as iBooks accessible on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Mac devices.

The books sport interactive animations, exclusive covers, annotations from Rowling, custom Harry Potter typefaces, video and other interactive content.

This marks the first time Harry Potter books are available digitally outside J.K. Rowling's own Pottermore Shop e-commerce company, developed in partnership with Sony.

Apple Music, iTunes Movies and iBooks make their long-expected debut in China

Apple on Wednesday announced that users in China can now enjoy Apple Music, as well as browse and download their entertainment from the iTunes Store and iBooks Store, marking the first time customers in the 1.33 billion people market will have access to Apple’s entertainment ecosystem with music, movies and books right at their fingertips.

“Customers in China love the App Store and have made it our largest market in the world for app downloads,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “One of the top requests has been more great content and we’re thrilled to bring music, movies and books to China, curated by a local team of experts.”

Apple releases iOS 9 user guides for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad

Following the release of iOS 9 earlier today, Apple has now posted matching users guides for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad on the web. These new iPhone and iPad user guides for iOS 9 are available as free downloads from the iBooks Store.

The guides cover the basics of iOS 9 and focus on stuff like stock apps, various user interface improvements and new features such as enhanced Spotlight with Proactive search, 3D Touch on the new iPhones, the new News and iCloud Drive apps, side-by-side multitasking features on iPads and more.

Apple Watch User Guide now available as a convenient download from the iBooks Store

The official Apple Watch User Guide is now available for download on the iBooks Store. Content-wise, the free electronic book is the same as the online version that Apple published yesterday on its website, it's just optimized for the iBooks app for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Mac.

“Here’s everything you need to know about Apple Watch and the Apple Watch app on iPhone,” reads the blurb on the iBooks Store.

iBooks is offering exclusive sneak peek from upcoming ‘Becoming Steve Jobs’ biography

The new Steve Jobs biography by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli is launching on iBooks this Tuesday and Apple is now offering an exclusive sneak peek into the prologue and first chapter, including Schlender's first interview with Jobs when he moved to NeXT, as noted yesterday be the official iBooks Store account on Twitter.

'Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader' should appeal to everyone who — like CEO Tim Cook — felt that Walter Isaacson's official biography did Apple's legendary co-founder a great disservice.

Apple issues an apology for iTunes/iCloud downtime, blames outage on internal DNS error

Chances are you've by now realized that Apple's content stores and other iCloud services are experiencing widespread downtime.

Earlier this morning, Twitter lit up with complaints from users around the world who reported being unable to download apps, music, movies, TV shows and books, as well as buy in-app content, with some even unable to sign in to online service like iCloud Mail.

In an official statement issued to CNBC, Apple's apologized for inconveniencing customers and said the multi-hour outage is caused by “an internal DNS error” at the firm. As you could imagine, they're scrambling to produce a fix.

UPDATE: following what became an eleven-hour long outage, the App Store and iTunes services are now back online.

App Store, Mac App Store iTunes/iBooks Store and other iCloud services experiencing outage

If you're unable to update your apps or buy books and music on Apple's content stores, you're not alone — there's trouble in iCloud. Apple's App Store, Mac App Store, iTunes Store and iBooks Store services have been experiencing widespread outage for straight six hours now.

At first, the company's iCloud Status Page would not acknowledge the downtime. Earlier this morning, the company refreshed the dashboard which now shows the App Store, Mac App Store, iTunes Store and iBooks Store as being unavailable “for all users”.

UPDATE: following what became an eleven-hour long outage, the App Store and iTunes services are now back online.